Lunatic makes me feel incredibly stupid

[Deletethisaccount63684]

I just finished my playthrough of Awakening on Hard/Classic that for whatever reason took me several years to actually complete. I decided to try my hand at Lunatic just so I can have Lunatic+ as a way of saying "I've finished everything I want to do with this game." I figured since I understood the game's mechanics and map layouts, I'd be able to figure out how to get around the increased stats of enemies. Nope.

I just spent three hours on Chapter 1 alone and can't finish it at all. I don't know what to do to handle getting swarmed by all these enemy units at once, and for as tanky as Frederick is, he can't take all of it and that one bastard that of course has a hammer just for him. It's just left me feeling very bitter and angry, and honestly the fact that this difficulty is so severely stacked against you RIGHT at the beginning makes me like the game way less than I did before. I'm sure I'm alone in that feeling, and that everyone has no problem with Lunatic mode, but I just felt the need to vent about how stupid I am.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

It isn't that you're stupid, but the difficulty curve is massive. Still, Lunatic isn't so bad once you get the ball rolling. Lunatic+ is borderline unplayable, though.

It has been ages since I last played Awakening, but I'm pretty sure if you Pair Up Chrom and Freddie and put them on the southern fort, you'll be just fine.

The next map will likely be the really tough one. Without too much detail, kiting to the left is what I typically do. Chapter 3 gives you Kellum, who is just a massive wall. You can cheese that map pairing him and Fredrick up (a literal necessity in Lunatic+)

After Chapter 4, the fight with Lucina, you can grind if you need to, so once you're that far, you shouldn't need any more advice. Good luck to ya!

[Hanes]

Stupid? Seriously? You look at those stats and how ridiculous they are and think you're stupid? Fuck no!

Lunatic is a poopy-dick wrapped in cum around tissues of Mucus-filth and ear wax compressed to their liquid state and with the added concoction of a cow's horse hybrid child's horse-buuuuullshit.

With that said though, I've made it to chapter 3 and quit just about there because I don't care. I beat Chapter 2 which I couldn't in a long time and I'm happy about it and I'll pass down some tips for you, chapter by chapter, except Premogaynition because it's dumb.

Prologue with no Robin river-grind

Spoiler

I assume you won't miss... which is dicey but oh well.

Turn 1
Have Fred attack myrm from right to kill the other myrm and weaken both brigands. Small deviation here, pair Lissa with Robin (For veteran exp gain) if you want to give some exp to Chrom on next turn or pair Robin with Chrom to feed him both brigand kills.

Turn 2
Have Frederick kill the mage. If that puts him in range of the next myrmidon batch or not, it doesn't matter, because you would do that anyways next turn, this only saves you a turn I guess. Have Chrom and/or  just Robin kill the brigands.

Turn 3 or 4. You lured a myrmidon to die, next you kill the mage, everyone evacuates and Frederick weakens brigands for Robin or Chrom or both or one of them to kill.

Give bronze sword to Frederick

With grind the difference is you dont lure the myrmidons and instead use the river to have Robin fight the mage up top, with Lissa's vulnerary and then have fun after you kill him.

On Chapter 1...

Spoiler

Ok I'm not writing a detailed guide, so general things here...

Robin + Frederick go to the western fort, Robin does shit on first turn and next turn you switch to Frederick with Bronze Sword to kill that hammer bastard. Down south make sure to move Chrom just enough that the mercenary moves to the right and not to the left, which allows you to kill that myrmidon with Chrom-paired Sully in the order of: Enemy phase Counter attack, Virion attacks on next turn, Sully kills.

Then you just keep guarding the Ft with Frederick and Robin and don't care about turncount. Like seriously, grind that boss down with Robin if you want, or not if you don't want a "tainted" run or whatever. You decide.

GIVE VIRION'S ELIXIR TO FREDERICK! IF YOU CAN'T THIS CHAPTER THEN GIVE IT TO CHROM, YOU'LL SEE WHY.

Chapter 2 IS FUCKING HELL and I despise it. Here's the guide:

Spoiler

Have Frederick move into Sully, Chrom starts out on a diagonal to Sully so this allows you to have Fred get the Elixir if Chrom had it last chapter, next you move Frederick to hit behind the Merc's ass and position yourself on a forest (use the Silver Lance because you ca't die to the soldiers on turn 1 iirc, so just use Silver Lance to weaken Brigands and give Robin below a chance to do something next turn)

On Turn 2 you move your scrubs either to the right to kill that merc, or to the left I guess to not isolate your scrubs from Frederick.

Some vital pair-ups (supports can be done later, just this time pair ups) are...

Chrom-Sully: Gives Sully more speed and defense to survive the merc iirc.
Vaike-Virion: Gets Virion good strength
Lissa-Robin: Just for that veteran exp gain on Robin.

Good luck, or not, maybe just don't play Lunatic since it's so dumb and unfair.

Edited March 14, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[Deletethisaccount63684]

Stupid is probably a strong word for it, I just tend to be really harsh on myself. Thanks for the advice from both of you though. 

1 hour ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

The next map will likely be the really tough one. Without too much detail, kiting to the left is what I typically do. Chapter 3 gives you Kellum, who is just a massive wall. You can cheese that map pairing him and Fredrick up (a literal necessity in Lunatic+)

That seems to be the trend I've noticed when doing research on Lunatic and Lunatic+. The ability to formulate your own strategy is pretty much completely gone and you have to follow very optimized and strict player phase progression to have any chance. It's a real shame.

I suppose if I do continue this run I should ask, I made a male Robin with a Def Asset and a Luck flaw (when I played it on Hard/Classic I went with Speed as my asset but I figure I would need the extra tankiness this time around). Is this Robin fine enough to make it through on, or should I start over? Also any character pairings for good child units would be appreciated if you guys have any in particular that work out well. My first run went something like

Chrom/Sumia

Robin/Lucina

Stahl/Cordelia

Lon' qu/Maribelle

Donnel/Sully

Frederick/Cherche

Gaius/Tharja

These were all the marriages I ended up making, and I never found a good map I wanted to grind out supports and levels for the child characters on.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Maxtiis

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, Maxtiis said:

That seems to be the trend I've noticed when doing research on Lunatic and Lunatic+. The ability to formulate your own strategy is pretty much completely gone and you have to follow very optimized and strict player phase progression to have any chance. It's a real shame.

I strenuously object to this notion that you can't formulate your own strategies on a Lunatic play-through. That isn't to say you shouldn't look at other people's strategies to get ideas on how to deal with a chapter on your own, but there isn't some singular way of dealing with it. I was doing a screenshot Let's Play of Lunatic playthrough without using the pair-up to attack or defend back before my old computer finally died, where the strategies had to be formulated on my own to deal with the lack of pairup. I should probably get back to that, I recovered the images from the next chapter whose update died with the machine, and would just have to redo the Donnel paralogue and recruitment to get back to where I was, but I do still have a couple of other games on my screenshot LP plate at this point...

in case you are curious

 

[ChickenWings]

On 3/13/2020 at 7:01 PM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Lunatic+ is borderline unplayable, though.

It gets easier after chapter 3.

[salty__asiann]

i can relate cause hard is too easy but lunatic wants me to want smash my 3DS.