Need help understanding this new support system

[KrazyPotato]

I've already completed Birthright, and I'm planning on replaying it on a harder difficulty (lunatic-classic) before moving on to Conquest (heard the easy mode here was even harder than Birthright's hard mode, and I did struggle a few times playing hard-classic birthright route). Before I do that, I would like some help on understanding some of the new game mechanics, mainly the new pair up system. I'm very well familiar with the Awakening pair system, so comparing the two differences can help me understand better. My main question is: How does the new support system and dual attack damage work exactly? I know in Awakening, the more support points you have, the better chance you have at dual attacking/guarding. How does the support system affect the pair up system? I know about dual guarding, but what else? Does it just add more stats? And also, I know how dual attacks work, but the dual strike seems to do less damage? Would greatly appreciate it if someone could specifically explain it to me :)

Edit: Thanks for the replies! I understand it much better now. I just have one more question if anyone can answer! I'm going to try to explain an example: Let's say I put a solo unit with two adjacent solo units by it (let's say one is to his left, and the other one is to the south), and then an enemy attacks from the right. I know this will have me dual attack, but which unit will be the second one dual attacking? How does the game decide? I know on your turn, you can use R to select between the two, but how is it decided on an enemy's turn?

Edited January 11, 2017 by KrazyPotato

[Augestein]

I've already completed Birthright, and I'm planning on replaying it on a harder difficulty (lunatic-classic) before moving on to Conquest (heard the easy mode here was even harder than Birthright's hard mode, and I did struggle a few times playing hard-classic birthright route). Before I do that, I would like some help on understanding some of the new game mechanics, mainly the new pair up system. I'm very well familiar with the Awakening pair system, so comparing the two differences can help me understand better. My main question is: How does the new support system and dual attack damage work exactly? I know in Awakening, the more support points you have, the better chance you have at dual attacking/guarding. How does the support system affect the pair up system? I know about dual guarding, but what else? Does it just add more stats? And also, I know how dual attacks work, but the dual strike seems to do less damage? Would greatly appreciate it if someone could specifically explain it to me :)

Dual Strikes happen 100% of the time assuming that you are adjacent to a unit and not paired up (the other unit can be paired up). IE, if you are like EAA, your allies will attack together. However, it must be noted that Dual Strikes now have reduced damage for the partner. It's not full damage.

Guard Stances , aka, pair up works similar to Awakening, but has some unique effects. Each character gives class bonuses and unique character bonuses as well for support levels instead of it just plain giving more stats when you pair up. It also no longer factors in the pair up unit's stats in question, just support level and class. This means that a fast unit won't give additional stats and makes pair up far less stat wall like than Awakening (in essence, it's not a brain dead choice anymore) For dual guarding, it's a little bit more strategic, every time you attack or you are attacked, a gauge will fill up slightly. Every 5 interactions with an enemy, the gauge will be full. The next attack will be a dual guard (no matter what it is outside of staff effects) and even if your character could theoretically evade it -- so if you ever have a 0% chance to be hit, avoid wasting your gauge on that.

The gauge also drops a little bit if the unit has not engaged enemies for a couple of turns as well.

[Lord_Grima]

The dual attack does about half of that person's attack that they would do if they were initiating the attack.

Higher support levels do increase the pair up stats in Guard stance. http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/hoshidan-characters/pair-up-stats/

Guard stance also negates an enemy Dual Attack, so you are only hit once.

[Master Thunderblade]

The simplest way to understand these mechanics is with an example...
Like already mentioned above you have two stances: Attack Stance (or Tag Team) and Guard Stance (or Pair Up).

When you place two units adjacent to each other you enter into what is called 'Tag Team' or 'Attack Stance

'

When in this stance the lead unit gets a few boosts of what I like to call the 'invisible' stats. Since you can't normally see them when looking at the bottom screen.
The possible 'invisible' stats are:
Hit Rate: Increases the chance of hitting the enemy unit
Avoid: Decreases the chance of getting hit by the enemy unit
Critical: Increases the chance of hitting a critical hit
Dodge: Decreases the chance of getting hit by a critical hit
The nature of these stats depend on the support level between the two units.

In the following example my lead unit is Corrin (Named Tijl) and the supporting unit is Silas. They have an A support rank with each other.



When our duo gets attacked you see the following bonuses pop up...



How are these 'invisible stats' calculated?
Well they are determined by the support level and the supported unit in question...
Let's look at the Support Bonus Page on Serenes Forest:



Since Corrin and Silas have an A support and the provided bonuses are cumulative, you need to add all bonuses up to and including the A support level.
So we get Hit +10, Avoid+5, Critical+3 and Dodge +5. Which as you can see, matches the example...

Of course these passive bonuses are only one aspect of the whole Tag Team mechanic...
The other big factor is the new and improved Dual strike system...

When you try to attack an enemy unit and your attack space on the map is adjacent to an ally, you will see the following:



The first number shows the damage the lead unit will deal, while the second number after the +-sign shows the damage the supporting unit will deal when preforming a dual strike.
The dual strike has his own hit chance and is half of the damage the supporting unit would've dealt when he/she would've been the lead unit.
These numbers stay the same wether you're attacking or defending.
When there is more than one adjacent ally, you can choose the supporting unit with the R button.
When the enemy unit is in a guard stance or pair up, your dual strike damage is negated.
The Dual strike will only ever hit the enemy's lead unit.

Keep in mind that units with the Bold Stance skill can provide dual strikes even when you're in guard stance or pair up.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you place two unit's on the same space they can enter Pair up or Guard Stance



When in this stance the lead unit gets more substantial stat increases from the supporting unit.
These stat increases depend on the supporting unit, their support and the class of the supporting unit.



As you can see, when pairing up Silas with Corrin, a substantial amount of the stats of the leading unit are increased.
How are these stats exactly determined?

Let's take a look at the Pair Up Stats page for units on Serenes Forest:



Corrin and Silas have an A support with each other, like in attack stance the bonuses are cumulative so this example adds up to an initial bonus of Str+1, Skl+1 and Spd+1.
As you can see this doesn't quite add up to the stat increases in the example, this is due to the fact that most of the increase is determined by the supporting unit's class rather than the support level.

Let's take a look at the Pair Up Stats page for classes on Serenes Forest:



Silas is a Great Knight so we can see that pairing up will add an additional bonus of +2 Str, +4 Def, and +1 Mov.
When we add everything together we get a total increase of +3 Str, +1 Skl,+1 Spd, +4 Def and +1 Mov.
This matches the example perfectly.

However when you initialise a battle you may notice the following:



For some reason there is also a small increase of one of the 'invisible stats', why is this the case?

According to this reddit post, you gain additional bonuses for the total amount of allied units around the leading unit.
Without going into a lot of detail, the leading unit always gets a standard dodge bonus of +5 when paired up with an supporting unit. More bonuses can be granted when there are additional allied units around the leading unit and their support level is also a factor.
These little bonuses also occur when in you're in attack stance. Since the supporting unit's 'invisible stats' are already applied to begin with, you won't see an additional 'standard' +5 Ddge bonus from him/her during tag team, but only from other adjacent units.



Another big part of the Pair Up mechanic or Guard Stance is the 'Shield Gauge', whenever the supporting unit receives damage or deals damage, the shield gauge will increase with an increment of two points.
Multi-hit skills like Aether or Astra will increase the shield gauge with each hit. Every turn that your pair isn't being attacked or don't attack themselves, the shield gauge will drop with one point.
When you reach a total of 10 points the shield gauge will be full. This means that during the next attack, the supporting unit will perform a Dual Guard, this means that the enemy's attack will always be blocked.

Another big benefit of pair up or guard stance, is the fact that all of the enemy's dual strikes will be negated.

Edit: Corrected some mistakes that were pointed out by CoXDS

Edited January 10, 2017 by Masterthunderblade

[GoXDS]

@above the +5 Dodge is inherent to Guard Stance and not restricted to Avatar nor to C+

but yea, serenes already has the details of both Stances on the site, too

[Master Thunderblade]

@above the +5 Dodge is inherent to Guard Stance and not restricted to Avatar nor to C+

but yea, serenes already has the details of both Stances on the site, too

You're right, I misinterpreted the information. In the source I was using they were talking about allied units other than the supporting unit having a C+ support rank, that wasn't completely clear to me at first.

I will correct my mistake right away, and while I used the avatar as an example it wasn't my intention to claim that it only works with the avatar.

It is true that you could just check Serenes for all the raw information, but everything is rather fragmented in my opinion, so I tried to make things a bit more concrete with an example.

The effect that multiple adjacent allies have on the stat boosts is also somewhat neglected/underexposed. (unless I missed something)

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

Edited January 10, 2017 by Masterthunderblade

[shadowofchaos]

Yeah people mix up the Japanese and English stuff because that was what they were exposed to. Despite official localization.

Let me sort them out:

Awakening

Double = Pair up

Fates

Attack Stance = Tag Team = Adjacent

Defense Stance = Pair Up = Command to join units into one square

Edited January 10, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[GoXDS]

You're right, I misinterpreted the information. In the source I was using they were talking about allied units other than the supporting unit having a C+ support rank, that wasn't completely clear to me at first.

I will correct my mistake right away, and while I used the avatar as an example it wasn't my intention to claim that it only works with the avatar.

It is true that you could just check Serenes for all the raw information, but everything is rather fragmented in my opinion, so I tried to make things a bit more concrete with an example.

The effect that multiple adjacent allies have on the stat boosts is also somewhat neglected/underexposed. (unless I missed something)

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

I meant check mostly for the extra details (who provides what) at this pt. admittedly, the site isn't as organized or transparent/easy to interpret at I'd like (Pair Up bonuses are easy to find but Attack stance bonuses aren't. page on Tag Team/Pair Up should link to those pages as well, etc.). the stuff everyone mentioned in this thread has cleared up most if not all of the extra details or details that aren't immediately clear/apparent