mampfoids Awakening Beginner Questions

[TheSilentChloey]

You can still use the parents for the end game and Apotheosis just fine, it's just a matter of which characters you prefer more.  If you are able to check out the Awakening Pairing thread it's geared towards Apotheosis optimization. 

 

Part of the reason people don't like Donny is because he doesn't have a use for his lance rank (he's got two classes where he's stuck on E-rank weapons essentially taking longer to get decent and time and resources to train him up) and his bases are not that great (despite the fact that Donnel is apparently a better father for Apo than Kellam for some reason if you read through a few pages of the Pairing Thread).  Plus villager is the weakest class in the game as I'm sure you're aware of.  There is a reason I gave you the link to the max stat calculator too.  It doesn't just have all stat mods for everyone it's a very useful resource (if I do say so myself) as it also has all of everyone's classes.  Children included.

 

Let's just use Lucina as an example here because she's the obvious choice for reasons (read mother bias here because I adore my Little Angel...) if you haven't had a chance to check the calculator out to see how it works. 

There are two columns (for the children) where you have a few choices the first is the "parent" column which has a list of all Lucina's potential mothers.  The second one you have is the "classes" column which obviously lists classes but it also has Lucina's Modifiers. (Or the classes available to the "parent" characters as well as their modifiers)

 E.g If Lucina has Robin selected in the "parent" column, then you will have in the "classes" column Lucina's "base classes" (essentially the ones that Chrom gives her): Lord, Cavalier, Archer and their promotions  as well as the DLC Class Bride then Lucina's Stat Modifiers.  All of the classes that her mother gives her are listed below the modifiers (or the selected "parent" if you will for the other children).

 

(ETA: Morgan is a special case as depending on the parent you chose will depend on the class that they're in when you recruit them.  Morgan will only be a tactician when you recruit him/her if Chrom, Lucina, Walhart or Olivia is his/her parent as those four have classes that Morgan can't reclass into.)

Obviously for a first playthrough of Awakening I'd say just do what you want to do and have fun.  Multi-runs are where you start trying to work out how to beat the game a bit better/seeing what other choices do etc.

Edited January 10, 2018 by TheSilentChloey

[mampfoid]

5 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

You can still use the parents for the end game and Apotheosis just fine, it's just a matter of which characters you prefer more.  If you are able to check out the Awakening Pairing thread it's geared towards Apotheosis optimization. 

Cool, because in this way I will be able to unlock more support dialogs of the older generation.

15 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

Part of the reason people don't like Donny is because he doesn't have a use for his lance rank (he's got two classes where he's stuck on E-rank weapons essentially taking longer to get decent and time and resources to train him up) and his bases are not that great (despite the fact that Donnel is apparently a better father for Apo than Kellam for some reason if you read through a few pages of the Pairing Thread).  Plus villager is the weakest class in the game as I'm sure you're aware of.  There is a reason I gave you the link to the max stat calculator too.  It doesn't just have all stat mods for everyone it's a very useful resource (if I do say so myself) as it also has all of everyone's classes.  Children included.

I recognized in his paralogue map its not easy to level Donnel up. If he gets some interesting dialogs I would play him anyway in the future. 

Sorry for asking questions which could have been answered by checking that calculator, I know you mentioned it before. To be honest I didn't check it out yet, because of several reasons: 

• I can't compare max stats and caps, because my units are not maxed out yet. 
• I don't know yet what difference a value of X of stat Y would make, since I didn't see any of the endgame opponents yet. 
• I like calculators and planning my units as I do in Heroes for example, but I'm not doing it yet in Awakening pretty much because of what you wrote in the end: 

9 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

Obviously for a first playthrough of Awakening I'd say just do what you want to do and have fun.  Multi-runs are where you start trying to work out how to beat the game a bit better/seeing what other choices do etc.

The reason why I keep asking questions anyway is I like to communicate with you guys about what I'm doing and my second Awakening run (where I will do more planning) is already taking shape in my mind. I think I'll get a better feeling for stats and classes in the end of my first run, where I will also check out the calculator, stats and the growth pages. Currently I'm not checking the stats of my units at all, perhaps it'll become more necessary in the end of the game. 

19 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

Let's just use Lucina as an example here because she's the obvious choice for reasons (read mother bias here because I adore my Little Angel...) if you haven't had a chance to check the calculator out to see how it works. 

There are two columns (for the children) where you have a few choices the first is the "parent" column which has a list of all Lucina's potential mothers.  The second one you have is the "classes" column which obviously lists classes but it also has Lucina's Modifiers. (Or the classes available to the "parent" characters as well as their modifiers)

 E.g If Lucina has Robin selected in the "parent" column, then you will have in the "classes" column Lucina's "base classes" (essentially the ones that Chrom gives her): Lord, Cavalier, Archer and their promotions  as well as the DLC Class Bride then Lucina's Stat Modifiers.  All of the classes that her mother gives her are listed below the modifiers (or the selected "parent" if you will for the other children).

I like Lucina as well! She will get a different role in my second run, until know she kept her Great Lord class. 

Ok, I got what you wrote about classes/base classes, except why "Bride" has to be a class? ^^ 

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

3 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Do they get reduced starting stats, or do they also have a lower capthan everybody else? I wouldn't mind a reclass for them. 

I was considering to give Robin a Reclass to Thief/Trickster because I miss someone to open doors chests and he arrived at Level 20 Grandmaster before everybody else. 

First I startet to use Anna, because she can use also staffs, but her Supports are very limited and unlocking support Dialogs is one of the fun things of Awakening. 

Well I don't want to ruin them (didn't know the Donnel-penalty was that bad), but it would be cool to always have 2-3 Galeforce units on my team. Not everybody needs that skill, but to plan a second run, all possibilities will be considered. Getting to know who passes Galeforce is a great help. Before starting a second run, I'll check some example builds and their inheritance path. 

As far as I understood, stat optimizing was only necessary for the harder lunatic DLCs? Until know I didn't find Hard too difficult to not play around a little with skills and classes, risking some not optimized stats/builds. 

I'm only realizing now how much stronger the child characters can get. Can I use the parents in the endgame maps, or are they completely out-powered? 

If Donnel is getting attention, his kid should actually be approximately on par, maybe a bit worse, than the other kids for base stats. Of course, Donnel himself has to do tons more work to even get on par with most of the other first gens. Lower stat caps abound for his kid, though, since he has a wide spread of negatives. I wouldn't say this ruins them in general, but it does mean they'll run into similar problems to their dad: missing late-game benchmarks. That's largely a Lunatic(+) or postgame (for Normal/Hard) problem, though.

Thanks to pair-up, if you're wanting to prioritize supports and not use Anna as much, Gaius can hide behind one of your stronger units with no risk of death.

Realistically, a no-grind run can get two Galeforce units within a meaningful time period (one early, one mid-late game). Depending on which first gens get it, you may be able to get a third or fourth through kids if it's the right first gen(s). A lot of the kids come unreasonably late, though. Generally speaking, if you want more than that, you'll need to grind Risen again like you've been doing (which also becomes a non-option if you ever plan to tackle Lunatic or higher because Risen scale so fast there that you need specialized builds to have a hope of taking them on).

You really don't need to do too much for stat optimization so long as can figure out a strategy that works around your stats. It does give you an advantage, but it's really not worth fretting over, especially now. For reference, the only team I've bothered to beat the secret route of Apotheosis (which is the same on all difficulties) was a hodgepodge of unoptimized eugenics that still curb-stomped it despite not using any DLC skills, classes or Spotpass characters.

The parents are largely viable wherever, so long as they got enough EXP. In fact, many parents are better than their kids because the parents have way better availability and don't show up at the end of the campaign as level 10 unpromoted on maps full of level 8 promoted enemies.

 

2 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Ok, I got what you wrote about classes/base classes, except why "Bride" has to be a class? ^^ 

Because the Japanese are obsessed with wedding dresses, I guess. Remember how we got an entire Heroes banner dedicated to it?

[TheSilentChloey]

8 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Cool, because in this way I will be able to unlock more support dialogs of the older generation.

I recognized in his paralogue map its not easy to level Donnel up. If he gets some interesting dialogs I would play him anyway in the future. 

Sorry for asking questions which could have been answered by checking that calculator, I know you mentioned it before. To be honest I didn't check it out yet, because of several reasons: 

• I can't compare max stats and caps, because my units are not maxed out yet. 
• I don't know yet what difference a value of X of stat Y would make, since I didn't see any of the endgame opponents yet. 
• I like calculators and planning my units as I do in Heroes for example, but I'm not doing it yet in Awakening pretty much because of what you wrote in the end: 

The reason why I keep asking questions anyway is I like to communicate with you guys about what I'm doing and my second Awakening run (where I will do more planning) is already taking shape in my mind. I think I'll get a better feeling for stats and classes in the end of my first run, where I will also check out the calculator, stats and the growth pages. Currently I'm not checking the stats of my units at all, perhaps it'll become more necessary in the end of the game. 

I like Lucina as well! She will get a different role in my second run, until know she kept her Great Lord class. 

Ok, I got what you wrote about classes/base classes, except why "Bride" has to be a class? ^^ 

Donny does actually get some interesting supports I would recommend getting them if you can (Kellam stands out as does Panne and Sully)

 

Generally I use the calculator for how the kids are going to end up and where they'd be best suited according to their modifiers (like whether I should make them magic units or physical units for example).  Or what classes they'll get without having to go to my 3DS and actively grab a second seal and check (which when they don't have the right levels is frustrating like you won't believe).

The boys have Dreadfighter for them plus I think what Kouroi said is also partly true as well.

[mampfoid]

Hi Guys, thanks for the big help and all the answers to my questions. It's a pleasure to discuss this game with some experienced folk. 

I took a break from Awakening because of RL (lots of family stuff and work) and because I got spoilered in the main heroes discussion thread. I don't blame the guys there, since Heroes is full of spoilers itself and I should have been wiser at least for the time playing Awakening. Anyway it demotivated me more than I imagined before. 

I'll finish this run probably in a week or two and will give a notice here. I'm not sure if I'll start a second run afterwards or go with another FE title (Fates or Echoes) first, or even start to read books again. The dust on my Kindle can be measured by centimeters now. 

 

Thanks again everyone, 

Regards

M.