Walhart Conquers Lunatic+ (The Original Lunatic+ Playlog/Walkthrough)

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I've never used Wyvern Panne personally and I probably won't on this run either because I am already pushing it as far as trying to train so many people and Syrena wants all the kills she can get at this point. I heard that reclassinf Panne is godly because of the low Taguel bases but that never really made sense to me because of the boost that the beaststone gives to stats (I'd take +3 str and +5 spd over +5 str and +5 def any day, although Panne's speed is already high and beaststone does have a low mt but then again so do bronze axes).

I think it's because her growths allow her to catch up that speed fairly quickly. I did notice this to generally be the case, so she was pretty good in a full on physical brawl, but her resistance was still so bad that as soon as magic entered the equation, I had to play her evasively. Also, the Bronze Axe's 4mt isn't too bad and Str+2 helps keep it competent.

It really depends on how good your MU's physical stats are (for example, with her high str and low mag, syrena would love a reclass to merc). I can really understand how getting armsthrift and a relatively quick sol would turn her into a powerhouse. Hopefully a MU reclassed to Merc should have picked up a few sword ranks in tactician so she wouldn't be stuck on bronze swords, too.

It's not quite so much that for me (my FeMU's Str is a bit higher than her Mag and she does have D swords), but the loss of good 1-2 range (Levin's aren't particularly common or durable), which is my answer to small amounts of Counter. Armsthrift is pretty good, especially since it allows high powered forges to fuel Sol later on, but I can't really justify being stuck at 1 range that long. There's no way I would have pulled off chapter 5 if I hadn't been able to use tomes (even if I had grabbed an Orsin's and given Fred a speed support, I don't think it would have quite substituted, especially against the Wyvs). I'd probably only really consider chancing it with a strong Miriel in my army.

If you reclass Syrena to Merc, I'll definitely be interested in hearing how she does.

But hey, staying in tactician isn't bad either since I'd be reluctant to do a playthrough without Ignis and Rainbow Cry.

Same as far as Ignis goes. Rally Spectrum, I'm not really sure if I'll get. I mean, it's a great skill, but with FeMU spearheading any given charge, I don't think I'll be using it too often (especially with a smaller force). I'm pushing hard for Dark Flier 15, as a Galeforce Hero is highly mobile and thus able to kite and fight almost indefinitely. This in turn allows me to minimize risk and the rest of my team can go for other objectives or poke at the enemy flanks as they chase FeMU in circles.

Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, I don't have shadowofchaos' hardware and snapping pics with my digital camera would be poor quality and inefficient.

I would run into the same issue.

Congrats on the win. Compartively, Chapter 6 and especially Paralogue 2 should seem really easy. I'm assuming you already blew out the silver lance? Moving Lon'Qu to Wyvern sounds like a good idea if he gets good speed but with pretty bad base speed for a myrm he could really use the boost from a level 10 promotion to Swordmaster like in my run. Since you probably aren't training Sumia and Miriel like I am, you can probably get away with using Lon'Qu and Panne if you want.

Yeah, I'm a bit wary of that -5 speed on class change, but I want him toting those Hand Axes, so I'm a bit torn. I guess since FeMU and to a lesser extent, Fred and Vaike already provide some 1-2 range, perhaps I can get away with running a Swordmaster for a while. Maybe I'll see what his next level ups bring me and decide from there.

I probably wouldn't want to use both Lon'qu and Panne individually as Wyvs just because flyers, especially low resistance flyers tend to have a lot of enemies gunning for them and giving experience to two might prove problematic later. Although if I kept Lon'qu as a Myrm->Swordmaster and did Panne as a Wyv, perhaps they could pair off as a team where both units are competent fighters (or maybe I could do something really weird and have Wyv!Lon'qu paired with a Taguel!Panne, since as a support, Panne's poor Taguel defense wouldn't come into play as much).

EDIT: Forgot to mention that yeah, I broke the silver lance somewhat early. I was using it to get one round kills on enemies when I was feeding FeMU experience and she wasn't doubling a lot of stuff. In fact, I burned the last use on Marth.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

[shadowofchaos]

Thank you, thank you! You're too kind! :)

No, you deserve all the praise here.

The fact that you even got this far means you've proven how much more skilled AND masochistic you are than most of the people who pick up this game will ever be.

You are high tier.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

No, you deserve all the praise here.

The fact that you even got this far means you've proven how much more skilled AND masochistic you are than most of the people who pick up this game will ever be.

You are high tier.

Couldn't have said it better, myself. Seriously, I'm leaning so hard on my FeMu (and Fred) right now.

You were definitely right about chapter 6 and paralogue 2. Where chapter 5 took me several nights of back-to-back attempts, I got both within the first dozen or so resets. Paralogue 2 was still a bit rough, as I was going for the Physic Staff (since Anna wasn't kind enough to grace me with one in her shop). Getting a run where Anna's face didn't immediately explode (even when resetting to get both Fighters near her without Hawkeye, Pavise+ or Counter). Because the game wanted to either mock me or pity me, an event tile also spawned a Catharsis. Chapter 6 was largely a matter of not having too many enemies with Counter, since FeMU/Chrom and Fred/Sumia (with Physic healing from Lissa) could handle just about any non-Counter enemies. Lon'qu snuck in a bit of combat, but a lot of the dark mages I could have had him double to pick off had Counter. Vaike was largely twiddling his thumbs in a corner because there were too many enemies around Fred most of the time. He did snag a dark mage kill near the very end, though.

(BTW, hope you don't mind me comparing notes at length here. If it gets annoying, let me know.)

I took a swing at chapter 7 for the heck of it, and to my surprise, I got it first try (second reset, because almost the entire map spawned with Counter the first time). A strong tome user wrecks most of the enemies, since they somewhat choke-point themselves. Lon'qu is finally getting rolling, although I've decided to leave him as a Myrm, as at LV8 his speed is only 15 (on the plus side, his strength is already at 10), so he can kind of barely when paired with Panne. He still has issues doling out damage to the Wyvs, so Fred still needed to lure and weaken, but squishier targets should be no problem for him now (Anna was also kind enough to sell me a discount Wyrmslayer afterward, so Lon'que will be bringing the pain in chapter 9 and 10). Vaike squeezed in another level, grabbing some strength and speed. He probably should've had another from the boss kill, but I was dumb and didn't unequip Chrom before having my FeMU weaken, so Chrom assisted and made her take it. I also wiped out the enemy before the reinforcements arrived, which was another big surprise (I hope I don't miss that lost EXP).

Oh and after doing the LV20 reclass back to LV1, I definitely agree that the Renown Second Seal has the potential to make things too easy. My FeMU has already looped back around to 15 and despite some lackluster level ups, she's packing some pretty scary stats (~20 Str, Mag, Def, capped out Skl and Spd). Then again, your Chrom and Lon'qu look like powerhouses too, so maybe it's just early seals in general.

Oddball note: Ricken has been surprisingly helpful. That is, the increased Physic and Rescue range Lissa gets has been a life-saver on more than one occasion. Sure, Miriel could do the same, but this would free her up to fight if I did want to use her (since she doesn't get doubled by everything and its mother). Although, to be fair, Ricken did get some last ditch chip damage a couple times that even resulted in a kill in paralogue 2 (when Vaike missed an ~84 hit ).

Edited April 3, 2013 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

[darkkfan]

I think it's because her growths allow her to catch up that speed fairly quickly. I did notice this to generally be the case, so she was pretty good in a full on physical brawl, but her resistance was still so bad that as soon as magic entered the equation, I had to play her evasively. Also, the Bronze Axe's 4mt isn't too bad and Str+2 helps keep it competent.

It's not quite so much that for me (my FeMU's Str is a bit higher than her Mag and she does have D swords), but the loss of good 1-2 range (Levin's aren't particularly common or durable), which is my answer to small amounts of Counter. Armsthrift is pretty good, especially since it allows high powered forges to fuel Sol later on, but I can't really justify being stuck at 1 range that long. There's no way I would have pulled off chapter 5 if I hadn't been able to use tomes (even if I had grabbed an Orsin's and given Fred a speed support, I don't think it would have quite substituted, especially against the Wyvs). I'd probably only really consider chancing it with a strong Miriel in my army.

If you reclass Syrena to Merc, I'll definitely be interested in hearing how she does.

Same as far as Ignis goes. Rally Spectrum, I'm not really sure if I'll get. I mean, it's a great skill, but with FeMU spearheading any given charge, I don't think I'll be using it too often (especially with a smaller force). I'm pushing hard for Dark Flier 15, as a Galeforce Hero is highly mobile and thus able to kite and fight almost indefinitely. This in turn allows me to minimize risk and the rest of my team can go for other objectives or poke at the enemy flanks as they chase FeMU in circles.

I'm in a totally different situation with regards to MU using tomes. Syrena has terrible magic and only a D rank currently compared to a much stronger Miriel (who recently acquired the ability to use those 2 Cellica's Gale that I've had in store for so long now, Yay!) Because she is so weak to begin with and considering that there are few second seals (and i need to use one on Fred ASAP), I am thinking that a reclass probably isn't in the cards for her. I can see her becoming mainly a Rally- Spectrum bot at this point, but if she starts to get more powerful I will have to reconsider

Although if I kept Lon'qu as a Myrm->Swordmaster and did Panne as a Wyv, perhaps they could pair off as a team where both units are competent fighters (or maybe I could do something really weird and have Wyv!Lon'qu paired with a Taguel!Panne, since as a support, Panne's poor Taguel defense wouldn't come into play as much).

That's what I would suggest doing (although if you don't want to use both I totally understand because I can't afford to train and reclass Panne). Swordmaster Lon'Qu looks to me like a way better option than reclassing to Wyvern, unles yours is extremely SPD blessed (or maybe mine is just SPD screwed).

No, you deserve all the praise here.

The fact that you even got this far means you've proven how much more skilled AND masochistic you are than most of the people who pick up this game will ever be.

You are high tier.

*blushes* Thank you!

Couldn't have said it better, myself. Seriously, I'm leaning so hard on my FeMu (and Fred) right now.

You were definitely right about chapter 6 and paralogue 2. Where chapter 5 took me several nights of back-to-back attempts, I got both within the first dozen or so resets. Paralogue 2 was still a bit rough, as I was going for the Physic Staff (since Anna wasn't kind enough to grace me with one in her shop). Getting a run where Anna's face didn't immediately explode (even when resetting to get both Fighters near her without Hawkeye, Pavise+ or Counter). Because the game wanted to either mock me or pity me, an event tile also spawned a Catharsis. Chapter 6 was largely a matter of not having too many enemies with Counter, since FeMU/Chrom and Fred/Sumia (with Physic healing from Lissa) could handle just about any non-Counter enemies. Lon'qu snuck in a bit of combat, but a lot of the dark mages I could have had him double to pick off had Counter. Vaike was largely twiddling his thumbs in a corner because there were too many enemies around Fred most of the time. He did snag a dark mage kill near the very end, though.

That's cool about the Catharsis and I respect you for trying to save Anna (like I said I didn't try very hard but I probably should have). Having some sort of long-range healing should definitely help. I have around 11 uses of Physic remaining between my one almost broken staff and my hammerne (which I will probably use on my physic unless there is a better thing to save it for that I am overlooking). And "twiddling her thumbs in a corner" is a perfect description of what Syrena has been doing this whole time. She must think i hate her :(

(BTW, hope you don't mind me comparing notes at length here. If it gets annoying, let me know.)

I don't mind at all, on the contrary. In addition to providing a place for me to post my log, I also intended for people to discuss Luna+ strategies here. So, by all means, you can share your notes and even criticize my moves as long as it isn't the "you cheated because you got an Orsin's hatchet from barracks" argument (which luckily I haven't had to deal with from anyone yet!)

I took a swing at chapter 7 for the heck of it, and to my surprise, I got it first try (second reset, because almost the entire map spawned with Counter the first time). A strong tome user wrecks most of the enemies, since they somewhat choke-point themselves. Lon'qu is finally getting rolling, although I've decided to leave him as a Myrm, as at LV8 his speed is only 15 (on the plus side, his strength is already at 10), so he can kind of barely when paired with Panne. He still has issues doling out damage to the Wyvs, so Fred still needed to lure and weaken, but squishier targets should be no problem for him now (Anna was also kind enough to sell me a discount Wyrmslayer afterward, so Lon'que will be bringing the pain in chapter 9 and 10). Vaike squeezed in another level, grabbing some strength and speed. He probably should've had another from the boss kill, but I was dumb and didn't unequip Chrom before having my FeMU weaken, so Chrom assisted and made her take it. I also wiped out the enemy before the reinforcements arrived, which was another big surprise (I hope I don't miss that lost EXP).

Yeah this chapter seems pretty easy. I tried it like once and then put it down. I've been incredibly busy lately between trying to juggle 2 sports and academic commitments, since quarter grades closing hasn't left me much time to play. Hopefully I'll have time to do a chapter or to within the next week (although I'm pretty busy this weekend to so I don't know how realistic this is).

Oh and after doing the LV20 reclass back to LV1, I definitely agree that the Renown Second Seal has the potential to make things too easy. My FeMU has already looped back around to 15 and despite some lackluster level ups, she's packing some pretty scary stats (~20 Str, Mag, Def, capped out Skl and Spd). Then again, your Chrom and Lon'qu look like powerhouses too, so maybe it's just early seals in general.

Oddball note: Ricken has been surprisingly helpful. That is, the increased Physic and Rescue range Lissa gets has been a life-saver on more than one occasion. Sure, Miriel could do the same, but this would free her up to fight if I did want to use her (since she doesn't get doubled by everything and its mother). Although, to be fair, Ricken did get some last ditch chip damage a couple times that even resulted in a kill in paralogue 2 (when Vaike missed an ~84 hit ).

The thing about the second seal is that it's free and guaranteed. The master seals I got from Anna, although they required a little bit of luck to spawn, also cost a TON of money (2500 is a fortune that early in the game) and required me to sell a LOT of stuff. I bet Ricken would help compensate for the MAG difference between an umpromoted Lissa and a promoted one like mine, but I usually leave Lissa unpaired because her Mag is pretty good as it is.

[Interceptor]

I don't mind at all, on the contrary. In addition to providing a place for me to post my log, I also intended for people to discuss Luna+ strategies here. So, by all means, you can share your notes and even criticize my moves as long as it isn't the "you cheated because you got an Orsin's hatchet from barracks" argument (which luckily I haven't had to deal with from anyone yet!)

Lunatic+ is already cheating with hax skill combos; I say all's fair in love and war. Luna+ puts one of your guys in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue, etc.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

That's what I would suggest doing (although if you don't want to use both I totally understand because I can't afford to train and reclass Panne). Swordmaster Lon'Qu looks to me like a way better option than reclassing to Wyvern, unles yours is extremely SPD blessed (or maybe mine is just SPD screwed).

That's pretty much what I've been doing because, sadly, Lon'qu needs that offensive boost. Unfortunately, that leaves him rather squishy.

That's cool about the Catharsis and I respect you for trying to save Anna (like I said I didn't try very hard but I probably should have). Having some sort of long-range healing should definitely help.

Yeah, the Physic and Cartharsis have been very helpful and I'm definitely finding my army less effective without the ranged healing now that the staves are running out.

Also, call me cold, but I wasn't trying to save Anna so much as use her as a decoy so I could get to the village for the staff. >.> I guess I would have saved her if I could, but there were just too many enemies. I had to have Fred unequip and book it out of there after he got the staff.

And "twiddling her thumbs in a corner" is a perfect description of what Syrena has been doing this whole time. She must think i hate her :(

Poor Syrena. :/

I don't mind at all, on the contrary. In addition to providing a place for me to post my log, I also intended for people to discuss Luna+ strategies here. So, by all means, you can share your notes and even criticize my moves as long as it isn't the "you cheated because you got an Orsin's hatchet from barracks" argument (which luckily I haven't had to deal with from anyone yet!)

Cool, I've been recording some thoughts (they're kind of log-like but much less thorough than yours), so I'll probably start tossing those up here too.

Yeah this chapter seems pretty easy. I tried it like once and then put it down. I've been incredibly busy lately between trying to juggle 2 sports and academic commitments, since quarter grades closing hasn't left me much time to play. Hopefully I'll have time to do a chapter or to within the next week (although I'm pretty busy this weekend to so I don't know how realistic this is).

Ah, well good luck with those and hope you find some quiet time for yourself.

The thing about the second seal is that it's free and guaranteed. The master seals I got from Anna, although they required a little bit of luck to spawn, also cost a TON of money (2500 is a fortune that early in the game) and required me to sell a LOT of stuff. I bet Ricken would help compensate for the MAG difference between an umpromoted Lissa and a promoted one like mine, but I usually leave Lissa unpaired because her Mag is pretty good as it is.

Yeah, technically it's been the same case with the Anna Second Seal I got. I was just commenting on how broken it made FeMU even when I had to shell out 2500 on a randomly generated item. A guaranteed free one can only get more broken.

Lunatic+ is already cheating with hax skill combos; I say all's fair in love and war. Luna+ puts one of your guys in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue, etc.

I think it's the unlimited Counter is the really big thing that screws up the mode. Like I'll often get randomizations where the map is unwinnable because 90% of the map spawned with Counter and there's not enough room to maneuver. The mode would probably be a lot less tedious if there were restrictions placed on Counter like making a unit unable to randomize Counter if another unit within 3 tiles has the ability or maybe making Counter take up both Lunatic+ skill slots. As it is, sometimes I feel like I'm playing the reset button combo more than the game itself.

And here are the promised notes (the flood gate may have opened a bit once I beat chapter 5 >.>):

EDIT3: Figured I should post everything from before chapter 8 too.

Premonition

Character generation - Medium build FeMU with dark blue hair in the braid and ponytail style. Asset is speed, flaw is luck.

First turn moved Chrom up and paired FeMU to him. Second turn Chrom ORKOs Validar with the Silver Sword.

Prologue

Adapted Interceptor’s “feed the hungry MU” strategy. Fred killed the top Myrm and wounded the two Barbs while Chrom distracted the bottom one. Used the Bronze Sword for the first Barb kill if I could (if no Vantage+) because I have bad luck and thus lower hit rates make me nervous. Thunder kited the Mage (bypassing Vantage+), finished off again with the sword. Healed everyone to full and had Fred lure the top group’s Myrm. Then he ran in, killed the Mage and on EP, killed the Myrm and injured the two Barbs. Fed the last two Barbs to FeMU. Put FeMU within two range of the boss paired with Fred and with Chrom and Lissa adjacent (yay, 10 Dodge). Thanks to a luck proc on one of FeMU’s level up, the boss’ crit was reduced to 1%. On the second EP of doing this, Fred dual attack planted his silver lance in the boss’ face.

Chapter 1

Reset until hammer guy didn’t have Hawkeye. FeMU snuck some some chip damage (which turned into a kill, since Fred assisted) on the first EP, and later on, a Merc kill. However, Fred did most of the work, including killing off the Archer and severely injuring the boss. FeMU got a sword finisher on said boss. Level ups were generally pretty good and Fred’s one level gave him Str and Spd.

Chapter 2

Reset until no Luna+ on the four enemies on the left side. Paired FeMU to Fred and had Fred run up to hopefully kill them all (could only double Fighters, so dual attack was hoped for). Went south again to intercept the second enemy group headed for my scrubs. Had to burn an Elixir use as one Soldier had Luna+. Was left with an injured Soldier and... second enemy I don’t remember the class of. Had FeMU lure them into a more controlled situation via the mountain. FeMU killed guy with the class I don’t remember and Vaike killed the Soldier. Healed up on the forts because my Heal was running a bit low. Fred/FeMU took on the boss’ goons too, retreating back to the right side fort. I had Vaike get in range of a Luna+ Soldier to pull him off Fred and significantly decrease his chance of dying. Had Fred soften up the boss and FeMU get the sword kill again.

Chapter 3

Reset until Soldier on the left side didn’t have Counter and the right side had at most one melee with Counter. Oh and the Archers and Soldier on the left couldn’t have Pavise+ and Knight could have Aegis+. Talked to Kellam, pulled back, put the Javelin on Fred, paired him with FeMU and then had him run left. Killed one of the Archers to do damage and keep out of range of the Knight. EP injured the Soldier, killed the other Archer and the Knight just moved. My turn, Miriel softened the Knight, then Fred Javelin to finish off the Soldier. Had Chrom move over and transfer Kellam for FeMU. Switch and double Thunder the Knight. Chrom got a Rapier assist for the kill, but I was ready to have Vaike finish him off too. EP all enemies out of range. My turn, trade FeMU back to Fred, who can now double the Soldiers. Javelin the Counter Merc. EP, Fred almost dies, but wipes out all but the Knight (who, annoyingly enough has both Pavise+ and Aegis+). Spent the next three turns rotating scrubs taking hits and walling the Knight to allow FeMU and Miriel to poke it to death with magic

Killed the door Knights individually, then pulled the final crowd from the upper right. Both Mercs had Luna+, but Fred could double them now, so I got rid of one of the Mercs and an Archer right off. Swapped to FeMU to take down hammer guy (who had Hawkeye) while kiting. The rest of the enemy units were all covering each other, so I took a bit of a risk. FeMU couldn’t quite kill the Fighter with Thunder, even doubling, so I needed a Fred assist or I risked her dying, thanks to the Luna+ Merc. I’d have targeted the Merc, but the Javelin was pretty much out and FeMU wasn’t fast enough to double him (and Fred meleeing the Fighter would have been just as risky). As it turned out, Fred assisted both the Fighter and then the Merc too when EP rolled around. Raimi had Luna+ and Counter, so it was a fairly easy kill for FeMU. I had Fred equip the Hammer and pair to her, but he didn’t assist at all, so 4 Fire uses ended that map.

Shopping - Anna spawned with a Concoction and a Second Seal. Bought both, but not entirely sure if the second will help. My logic is to get FeMU to 20 and then loop around to Tactician again for more levels (Mage and Dark Mage bases are kind of gross, especially in the Def department and I want Ignis over the other promoted and even the non-promoted abilities... as attractive as Anathema and Hex are).

Chapter 4

FeMU was 1 Spd short of doubling the Fighters and Mages with Fred support, but with just one Javelin use left, I had little choice. So FeMU fought the right side with her tomes and hoped for a Fred assist, then hoped for a Spd proc on level (which she thankfully got). Once FeMU could double, assists became more likely and it was just a matter of not getting stuck fighting too many enemies. Marth was a bit annoying, because no doubling there and Parallel Falchion meant almost endless tanking. A timely Fred sliver lance assist allowed FeMU to go in for her patented Bronze Sword to the face boss finisher.

Paralogue 1

This one was ugly. Thief and bottom Barb can’t have Counter and the Archer, Barb and Thief can’t have Aegis+. FeMU/Fred need to kill the top Barb, then EP kill the Thief (no doubling, so requires assist) and Archer. Lon’qu/Kellam on the bottom delaying the Barbs while everyone else hides. After that, it’s a matter of getting Lon’qu out of there and letting FeMU/Fred handle the rest up to the chests. Lon’qu actually got two Killing Edge crit-gibs, so that was nice. Chased down the two Thieves and made a bit of a mistake. I should’ve let the one grab the Killer Lance, then kill him to preserve a Chest Key. Oh, well. Got both the lance and the rescue. Swapped pairs to FeMU/Chrom and Vaike/Fred. Thanks to Hawkeye and Luna+, the guys on the pillars could probably kill FeMU, although she had a pretty high chance of killing hammer guy. Had Lissa on standby with the rescue just in case, but it ended up working out. Lured the two boss’ Archers out and managed to sneak Vaike a kill on one of them (he picked up a near perfect level up, so yay). Softened the boss up with FeMU and then had Chrom stab him in the face to finish. No Donnel because he was a big liability.

Chapter 5

I realized a Fred paired with Vaike (who had 10 Str, since I had gotten him a level up in Paralogue 1) and a Strength Tonic had just enough damage to exactly one-shot Myrms with the Killer Lance. This helped four times during the map, the third of which was that key point when the tail end of the reinforcements were threatening to overwhelm me.

I had two Wyvs, 2 Myrms and a Barb incoming. The Barb and Wyv on the east side I could ignore for a turn as long as I pulled the troops back a bit. Which still left two Myrms and a Wyv that was just one square out of range of my FeMU.What I ended up doing was switching my healers to their respective mages and trading my FeMU's basic tomes to them (I had to nab the Elwind for her so she could reliably take down the plethora of Aegis+ Wyvs that generated) and had them each poke the same Myrm in turn. This brought him just low enough for Lon'qu to finish him off with the Killing Edge without a crit. Fred one-shot the other Myrm with his Killer Lance. This left the Wyv, which my FeMU still couldn't reach. However, Sumia could. So I moved FeMU as north as possible, swapped to Chrom, then moved Sumia up, transferred FeMU over and swapped again. Bye-bye Wyv Lord.

Oh and I ended up Second Sealing FeMU back to LV1 Tactician about 3/4 through the map when I had a breather. The extra levels have already started to pay off. Now I should be able to have her hold the main enemy force and hopefully isolate a few enemies so I can train Vaike (aiming for an early-ish axe proficient Hero and his only level up so far was a near perfect one) and Lon'qu (he's impressed me enough this run that I'm thinking I'm going to use him as my Wyv Lord over Panne, especially given that he's level 5.99 and has Paralogue 2 to get ahead of Panne)

Paralogue 2

Getting a run where Anna's face didn't immediately explode (even when resetting to get both Fighters near her without Hawkeye, Pavise+ or Counter). Because the game wanted to either mock me or pity me, an event tile also spawned a Catharsis. Vaike missed an 80-something hit, forcing me to use Ricken for a kill steal.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 was largely a matter of not having too many enemies with Counter, since FeMU/Chrom and Fred/Sumia (with Physic healing from Lissa) could handle just about any non-Counter enemies. Lon'qu snuck in a bit of combat, but a lot of the dark mages I could have had him double to pick off had Counter. Vaike was largely twiddling his thumbs in a corner because there were too many enemies around Fred most of the time. He did snag a dark mage kill near the very end, though.

Chapter 7

I took a swing at chapter 7 for the heck of it, and to my surprise, I got it first try (second reset, because almost the entire map spawned with Counter the first time). A strong tome user wrecks most of the enemies, since they somewhat choke-point themselves. Lon'qu is finally getting rolling, although I've decided to leave him as a Myrm, as at LV8 his speed is only 15 (on the plus side, his strength is already at 10), so he can kind of barely when paired with Panne. He still has issues doling out damage to the Wyvs, so Fred still needed to lure and weaken, but squishier targets should be no problem for him now (Anna was also kind enough to sell me a discount Wyrmslayer afterward, so Lon'que will be bringing the pain in chapter 9 and 10). Vaike squeezed in another level, grabbing some strength and speed. He probably should've had another from the boss kill, but I was dumb and didn't unequip Chrom before having my FeMU weaken, so Chrom assisted and made her take it. I also wiped out the enemy before the reinforcements arrived, which was another big surprise (I hope I don't miss that lost EXP).

Chapter 8

This chapter was fairly easy, but I was kind of brain-dead going into it. Got an Anna shop that sold me a Master Seal and then I didn't use it. So FeMU picked up an unnecessary level and a half before I got to the village with the Master Seal and went "Waaaait a second." Didn't want to reset because good level ups and everyone fighting fairly well. Added Nowi/Gregor to my fighting roster and snagged Nowi a level.

Paralogue 3

FeMU was desparately running here and there to kill key targets. Fred spent almost the entire time softening enemies up for Vaike and Lon'qu. Fred apparently got fed up with this because when I was trying to have him soften up the boss, he decided to Luna crit for a one-shot.

Oh and I've started to notice a trend with shops. Anna's been pretty skimpy with seals and other stuff, but she really wants to be sure I've got enough Rescue. I had quite a few extras stocked at this point.

Chapter 9

If I could get rid of the two Soldiers on the left on turn 2, it would allow a Lissa/Ricken pair to move just far enough to Rescue Libra, thus removing the need to reset if the three goons by him would murder him with their abilities. All three melee Wyv reinforcements had Counter, which was really annoying. I had to engage in some Rescue shenanigans to get people out of the way (except Fred, who was stuck slow tanking one to death). This left me with no turns or actions to waste recruited Tharja, who I didn't really plan on using. So I let her get herself murdered on FeMU. Tried to feed the boss to Vaike, but even with a Hammer, he couldn't finish off a boss weakened by FeMU (dumb Pavise... and I wasn't willing to risk banking on a dodge with Counter in play on him).

Promoted Lon'qu to Swordmaster in the interlude.

Paralogue 4

This map has a stupid amount of enemies at the start. I found trying to get to the Thief for the Arms Scroll a totally lost cause. For an even half decent start, or at least one that would allow me to safely Rescue Anna and not get overwhelmed on turn 2, the group of Mage, Barb(I think? Or was it a Fighter?), Myrm x2 had to have its melee disabled. FeMU killed one Myrm and put herself in a position to provide Solidarity. Then Lon'qu had to double the Barb to death (or crit-gib if packing Counter) and Cordelia had to crit-gib the other Myrm (that Killer Lance has been really useful). After that, it was a matter of Anna not being stupid while FeMU took on the right and the rest of my team took on the left. FeMU was Grandmaster 9.54, which was a bit short of my hopes.

Chapter 10

Ugh, more Wyvs. Plus swarms of melee that like their Counter. FeMU rushed the boss while the others did their best to protect the staff users. The Wyvs thought they were so clever targeting my weaker group until Vaike whipped out the Volant and Lon'qu the Wyrmslayer. Lissa had to Catharsis FeMU twice to counteract Counter. Class changed FeMU Dark Flier once she hit LV10.

The first time I did this map, I almost go all the way through, but the RNG god wasn't with me and Counter enemies weakened FeMu quite severely (I was counting on Thunder crits or Ignises to one-shot the Counter spammers if I had to let them melee). It probably would've been easier if I wasn't trying to run down the Master Seal Thief, but I kind of needed it. I ended up retreating to heal before taking on the boss and the mass reinforcement spam at the end overwhelmed my weaker force before I could get back to him. In other words, I played too safely, which is interesting. Second time I made sure to come right at the boss (who had Aegis+, ugh) with Wilderwind. Was able to pick off the Seraph Robe Thief while positioning FeMU in the boss' range too. FeMU, enraged that the boss dare have Aegis+, one-shot him with an Ignis crit.

Afterward, Anna sold me another Rescue and I promoted Vaike to Hero and Lissa to Sage.

Chapter 11

This would have been pretty easy if I had just gone straight for the kill, but then FeMU would have ended up hogging even more kills and I wanted to get the money Thief without aggroing the entire map by getting into Gangrel's range. So I spent some time playing back and forth with the enemy. FeMU mostly had to deal with the Heroes and the Counter Wyvs (Lon'qu could get the ones that didn't have it). Vaike it actually fairly formidable and speedy as a 12/1 Hero and he spent a good portion of his map time farming the enemy Mages with a Hand Axe. Reinforcements are pretty much constant until Gangrel dies, so this battle was just one big, never-ending brawl. Oh, yeah and with the final wave of reinforcements, the game pulled its whole cute little "spam reinforcements from every fort on the map" thing again.

I have to say, Vaike takes some babying, but I'm much more confident about putting him in direct combat than Lon'qu now. Once he gets Sol, he should be a half decent sustainable tank (his Def is still a little low).

On the other hand, despite getting nearly half a dozen levels since she joined, Nowi's still really squishy and anything that can double her will destroy her. I guess she's at least fairly accurate and provides a pretty powerful ranged attack, but I have to constantly keep her away from the front lines.

Anna had a discount Master Seal, a Second Seal and yet another Rescue Staff for sale. Oh, and a Hammer too, which I promptly snatched up. Also promoted Chrom to Great Lord.

Chapter 12

This didn't turn out to be as tough as I anticipated. I basically reset until there was only one enemy with Counter (not counting the Paladin) at most in the group directly north, then flew FeMU up and blasted him dead with Elthunder assisted by Chrom's Rapier. Enemy phase ended with everything else getting massacred and the rest of my team gaining some much needed breathing room. This allowed FeMU to come back and take out the Paladin in the group coming in from the west, allowing everyone else to roll the Cavalier escorts. After that, it was basically FeMU taking out as much of the cavalry as she could while the rest of my group picked on all the Knights trundling around. Since FeMU was sporting an insane 98+10 avoid, my main concerns were Hawkeye bows or Beastslayers, Counter and preventing the others from getting ganged up on. Counter forced me to unequip FeMU at the end and kite three guys and the boss around. I messed up and accidentally left Panne/Lon'qu in range of the boss (snagged her a kill for a level up after miscounting squares). Had Fred bodyblock it, then had to have Lon'qu kite the boss back into range of FeMU before getting Rescued away.

Promoted Cordelia to Falcon Knight and read Fred X Sumia's S support. Also moved Veteran to the bottome of FeMU's skill list.

Chapter 13

This one was tougher than I thought it would be thanks to the Snipers being tankier and speedier than I remembered. I had to play pretty aggressively early on and risk FeMU fighting multiple bow units. A sniper tagged her once for 40-something damage, which sucked, but she killed him in return and opened up the west cliff for an escape path once the enemies started zerging. The end turned out to be an insane running battle for about 6 turns because the entire right side was still alive, counting several bow enemies (two of which were Snipers). The longbows were especially annoying and I had to burn through two entire Rescue staves just to keep the squishies from getting run down and FeMU, Lon'qu and Vaike from facing too many Counter enemies. I wasn't planning on keeping Henry alive if it became really inconvenient, but he ended up not really getting in the way, and even contributed by prevent some reinforcements from spawning. I figured if nothing else, that was at least worth 1 Rescue use.

Lon'qu I've noticed is kind of glass cannony. He has really bad durability such that some promoted enemies like the Snipers threaten to one-shot him. He also hits like a truck, but is a bit speed screwed (21 base by the end of the map). Even with Panne and a Speed Tonic, he could only barely double the Snipers and couldn't double the 24 speed Myrms. He's getting rolling, but I really have to be careful with him.

Vaike is getting rather tanky. His Res is still really bad, but he has more HP and equal Def to Fred now. Plus in this chapter he hit level 5, so yay, Sol.

Despite picking up quite a few levels finishing off weak unpromoted enemies in chapter 13, Nowi has really, really terrible HP, so if things double her, she's probably going to die. However, with a Gregor A support, she has something like 26 Def, which isn't too far behind FeMU, and 18 Res, so she's still somewhat tanky (it's just that 8+7 Spd isn't really doing her any favours at the moment) and I think she'd be my next choice after FeMU for facing enemy mages.

Lissa and Anna are my primary staff users (although I do bring Libra in if there's a spare slot) and both are half decent as emergency combatants. Mind, Lissa's Skl is really terrible (11), so was only getting 80 hits against Fighters. Still, both have great ranges on their Rescues and Lissa's Heal will heal anyone other than FeMU to full. Oh, and hilariously enough, Lissa is actually very slightly more durable than Lon'qu (although more susceptible to getting doubled). o.O

Bought a couple more Rescue, then married Vaike to Cordelia and Lon'qu to Panne. Gonna probably do chapter 14 before paralogue 12 so that I can hopefully pass Galeforce to Morgan (4 levels to go). I'm thinking I'm going to Second Seal Lucina to Cavalier (and Morgan to Fighter once I get there).

EDIT: Added more logs below.

>.>

<.<

I may have played just a bit over the weekend. >.>

Chapter 14

Went ahead and Second Sealed Lucina to Cavalier before starting this chapter.

The close quarters with large amounts of Pegasus Knights made getting a good start on this chapter a gigantic pain. The Barracks seemed to be pushing for me to use Vaike as a dedicated frontliner this time around thanks to Str and Def +4 and a Gaius' Confect. So that's what I did and threw my half-broken Volant Axe on him. This allowed him to go north on the first turn and take on four of the five Pegs and one-shot them (therefore allowing me to ignore Counter entirely). Ended up giving him the Speedwing so that he could double and kill later spawns (except for those with Spd+2, although he got a level and gained Spd, which allowed him to do so anyway) with a plain Hand Axe. FeMU cleaned up the top-right ship so the rest of my team could take it over and hide from the Pegs. Oh and Lucina replaced Sumia on my roster.

I took way longer on this than I would have liked due to almost getting deadlocked with the enemies on the gangplank from the middle ship to the top-right ship. FeMU was body blocking unequipped because the volume of Counter enemies would have ended in her dying. A bunch of them had Pass, so I couldn't just charge Vaike up behind and start throwing Hand Axes, because then he'd die to Counter. So I ended up spending nearly half a dozen turns luring the Pass enemies over one or two at a time and having everyone gang up on them. This allowed Vaike and Lucina to pick up a bunch of kills (Lucina gained three levels). After that, Vaike went up behind FeMU and started trying to pick off those Counter enemies. This was slowed down by 2 range enemies deciding to target him, some of which were durable Knights, so this went on for another half dozen turns. Once everything was clear, looted the chests and had FeMU kill the boss (no one else could reasonably take him on, especially because of Counter and Pavise+).

Chapter 15

Because of chapter 14's shenanigans, FeMU was still 2.5 levels shy of level 15, so I decided to go ahead and do this before getting Morgan. Lucina Armourslayer / Fred Hammer totally wrecked the General at the start and then FeMU and Vaike went to work on the rest of the top. Had to Rescue Say'ri because of the volume of Counter enemies near her and she was just not wanting to dodge at all. Once the top was mostly under control, diverted Vaike to the bottom to help Nowi deal with the beach enemies. Managed to set a few Knights up for Armourslayer to the face and by the end of the map Lucina was level 9. Lon'qu was starting to be too squishy to really be helpful in battle, so other than a stray finishing blow or two, he spent the map visiting houses.

FeMU got to level 15 and I Second Sealed her to Hero just before the boss. Popped the Armscroll and whipped out the Hand Axe (because the boss had Counter again).

Paralogue 12

With Galeforce in hand, I could finally go get Morgan. Had to use Lucina in combat the first turn, but after Rescuing Morgan (and having the dolt get in a magic battle with a random Mage during Ally Phase), turn two was lax enough for me to run FeMu and Chrom back to recruit him before getting danced back out into the field (starting a brief stint where I use Olivia again). Second Sealed Morgan, then realized I was dumb and forgot to get another Bronze Axe, so I had Gregor trade his over and use swords in the meantime. Then I paired Lucina and Morgan up and they were almost as good as Vaike and Cordelia.

Aside from the grouped flyer rushes (which almost got FeMU killed, thanks to me misremembering reinforcements and leaving FeMU in range of a Griffon spawn that showed up with Counter), the map was mostly uneventful with me feeding kills to Morgan (got to level 4) and Lucina (got to level 12, then promoted to Paladin). Cordelia's mobility even came in handy for a few cheap shots at Counter enemies before being Rescued, and she even managed to off the Fortify Thief despite Pavise+.

Bought Gregor a new Bronze Axe and the game threw yet another Gauis' Confect at me via Barracks (which was great, because a Risen had been camping the Spd Tonic store for a really long time now).

Chapter 16

Ugh, I hate this chapter. Too many high mobility, high durability reinforcements on a map that isn't nearly big enough. Plus the beefy Heroes and Warriors don't make pushing forward very easy. On something like my sixth try, I got a spawn set that was a bit lighter on Counter than usual, so I could afford to be more aggressive with FeMu on the right and Lucina and Vaike on the left. By this point Lucina was already performing a bit better than Vaike and Morgan just a bit worse.

Still, I knew from my other five attempts that taking on all those Falcon Knights was practically a lost cause unless I wanted to undeploy my staffers, Olivia, Nowi and Lon'qu. So FeMu made a beeline for Cervantes. Unfortunately, he came packing Counter and Pavise+, so breaking out the Armourslayer or Killing Edge was pretty much out of the question. So I got FeMU in range and equipped the Levin Sword (Chrom with the Rapier... although I really should've had him with the Armourslayer). During EP, FeMU and Chrom only did about 1/3 of Cervantes' HP, which left me sweating a bit because now the rest of my force was in the middle of the map surrounded by reinforcements approaching from three vectors. I knew between my phase and the upcoming EP, I could probably kill Cervantes in time, assuming he acted before the other enemies. FeMU just decided to Ignis crit him in the face and be done with it. FeMU also got to level 5, netting her Sol.

Chapter 17

By this point, Lucina/Morgan can comfortably take on two promoted enemies at the same time. Vaike can take on one for sure, maybe two, depending on enemy class. FeMU/Chrom can, of course, wreck anything that isn't melee Counter. So I had FeMU take on the right starting group (Olivia springboard) before doubling back to take on the enemies in the centre. Lucina lured the left side Valk and closest Hero to their doom, then everyone else ganged up on the remaining Hero and War Monk. Except for Lon'qu, who has become nigh unusable at this point because he hardly gains any EXP for kills and gets one-shot on a 45 hit chance from War Monks. :/

Had Lucina/Morgan and staffers help a bit in getting rid of the Longbow Snipers and Physic healing FeMU (both Snipers hit her with Luna+ on 35ish hit each). FeMU then pressed toward the left treasury, offing anyone along the way and robbing the Thief of the Seraph Robe. Also grabbed the Boots and used them on her. By that point reinforcements were arriving, which she mostly battled with Hand Axes through the treasury walls. The others (mostly Lucina and Morgan) went back to the start point and had it out with the reinforcements coming from the east. This went back and forth a bit with plenty of Rescue usage.

Morgan got to level 10, so I promoted him to Hero.

Once enemy fodder ran out, everyone other than Anna made their way to the boss while Anna robbed the right side treasury. I wanted to give Vaike the boss kill, but wasn't sure about it thanks to Pavise+, as well as Throne healing and evasion. Kept him at two range because that way he could attack during both phases and get heals in between without putting the healers at risk. Vaike ended up scoring a crit on my turn because he wanted the EXP that badly.

Libra picked up Renewal, so I decided it was time he became a Sage.

Chapter 18

Consolidated all my units and went down the right side. Had to turtle up on one of the platforms with every tile filled to body block fliers and Passers. There were only two tiles more or less left exposed directly in front and directly behind. FeMU/Chrom took the front and Lucina/Morgan the back. Vaike/Cordelia flew out for random hit and runs before getting Rescued. The most annoying thing about having to do this was the enemy 2 range kept deciding to run up against FeMU and shoot at either Anna or Nowi and therefore body blocking their own melee (mainly the Griffons, who were preventing me from pushing forward without leaving massive vulnerabilities in my line).

So three more turns than necessary later, I'm chugging along again. Managed to snag the top two chests, but lost out on the Energy Drop and Bullion(M). FeMU faced down Yen'fay with just a regular ol' Steel Sword. Yen'fay decided to Astra, but Chrom said "Nope." Not that it would have come even close to killing her, but at least it was entertaining.

Paralogue 9

Para9 - Went to recruit Cynthia and promptly remembered her stats were awful because Fred and Sumia didn't really gain much for stats. Oh, well. The Berserkers here were kind of scary because they had Axefaire and if they happened to spawn with Luna+, they could actually one-shot Vaike.

Lucina/Morgan went left and hid behind the ruins so they could wreck all the 2 range without the melee being able to do a thing about it. FeMU/Chrom charged straight into the right group and Hand Axed one of the two Counter melee to death. Everyone else clumped up in anticipation of one of the Berserkers coming around the right side of the right side ruins. Lon'qu actually came in handy here as Nowi/Gregor and Vaike/Cordelia just barely failed to kill the Berserker (in retrospect, I could have used a staffer, but eh). Rescued Lucina back to the right to lure the group over. Finished off the last of that first left group and recruited Cynthia.

For the second set of enemies, FeMU took the right and Lucina the left again, although I diverted Lucina to possibly intercepting Ruger (in the end, FeMU managed to run him down first, though).

Cynthia actually contributed by body blocking a tile so I could force my Rescuer to place Lucina in range of a Berserker and save a turn in being able to cross the line that gets Ruger to stop recruiting mercs.

FeMU got Axe Breaker (contemplating class changing to Paladin or Dark Knight next), Morgan picked up Sol and Vaike is just a level short of Axe Breaker himself. Lucina is up there, but still a few levels away from Aegis.

I'm thinking of grabbing Severa as a replacement for Lon'qu (assuming her stats are good enough). The only thing is I don't want to break up Vaike/Cordelia since they work pretty well together and Nah (who should be at least usable) doesn't get to support her. Which leaves (ugh) Cynthia (who, well, is probably actually stronger than Panne, sadly enough). She does get Hero, which is something, anyway. I'm probably going to do Nah's paralogue first, though, because Cordelia is about half a level away from Rally Speed, so in the very least Severa can be a Rally Speed bot. Vaike, unfortunately, isn't going to be reaching Axefaire anytime soon, I'll probably pass down HP+5 (as tempting as early Sol or Axe Breaker is).

I have a feeling chapter 19 (and 20 to a lesser extent) is going to be gross, especially with a fully deployed team. I could just undeploy a bunch of people, but I've come this far without having to do so, so I'ma give it a shot or dozen. Aside from that, I might need more than a handful of resets for 23 (basically chapter 19 again with different unit types), 24 (too many Wyv Lords with Counter will be problematic) and Yarne's paralogue (if I choose to fight both sides, anyway). However, generally speaking, the hard part of the game is done. I haven't even really had to use forges thus far (just a couple +1 mt training Bronze Axes) and doubt I'll have to resort to Nostanking at all.

I think my run is a pretty good indication of just how ridiculous Veteran is, not just for MU, but for MU!Lucina and Morgan, who come at just the right time to take pretty good advantage of it too (although I imagine Kjelle, Owain and Laurent could also potentially have as easy a time as Morgan).

EDIT 2: Just finished the run. I'll probably provide turn counts (some of them were pretty awful) and final character stats (if anyone wants to see them) if I can figure out how to do those fancy table things.

Chapter 19

I really don’t like this map. There’s no really good place to fight and half the uncertainty is in whether or not too many of the stupid amount of reinforcements will show up with Counter. I cracked out the temp buffs and effective weapons (I’ve been conserving Hammers and Beast Killers and buying the odd one Anna stocks) so as to make any given run count. FeMU and Morgan each got a Gaius’ Confect, while Lucina got a Str Tonic, Chrom got Str and Skl Tonics and Lissa was supposed to get a Spd Tonic (stacked with Rally Speed, would allow her to double Wyv Lords in a pinch), but I don’t remember if I actually gave it to her or not. FeMU had an Armourslayer, Chrom a pair of Beast Killers, Cordelia came packing one, as well, another Armourslayer went to Severa, Hammers to Morgan (lance rank wasn’t good enough for a Beast Killer), Vaike and Gregor. In retrospect, I should’ve given Gregor’s Hammer to Lucina (or maybe traded Morgan’s Hammer to her when facing Great Knights or Generals).

I almost forgot how many unit slots the chapter allows and I had two free slots after deploying the usual suspects. At this point Lon’qu and Panne were basically permanently benched, so I brought out Olivia with Fred just to give her +1 movement.

The run started out... dicey to say the least. Lots of multiple failed 80-90% dual attack rates, playing havoc with my Galeforce strategy. Basically first turn cleared out the five guys in the centre: two with Morgan/Lucina, one with Vaike/Cordelia and two with FeMU/Chrom. Rescued Vaike out of the line of attack, as well as FeMU. Olivia gave a third turn to FeMU, who ran up to get in range of some of the enemies coming from the mid-right and buy everyone some breathing room.

The second turn is where everything started to fall apart. Enemy phase 1 ended with FeMU failing to kill one of the Wyv Lords and a Paladin and the other two Wyv Lords going around her because they were body blocked. This basically meant my intended safe area wasn’t so safe anymore. FeMU killed the injured Paladin and Wyv, which left her in a good position to fight more of the incoming enemies, provided I could clear a safe zone. This left the rest of my team vs two Wyvs and three Generals. Morgan ran over to attack a General and heavily injured it, but a lack of a second dual attack let it live. Olivia gave him an extra turn so he could finish it off and Galeforce springboard over to a Wyv Lord so Lucina could assist gib it with Parallel. The second Wyv was killed by having Nowi with Gregor assist and Lissa gang up on it. Vaike critically injured a General, but Cordelia doesn’t have enough attack to actually injure them, so her assist was useless.

This left me with a mostly dead General and a Counter General with a Spear. I believe this was before I moved Morgan (I’m recalling this from memory, so it’s a bit jumbled), so I had Anna heal Vaike in anticipation of making something work by giving him an extra turn with Olivia. But then Morgan’s attack failed, so... Anyway, to make up for the RNG screwing me, the game gave Libra a clutch kill on the Spear General by giving him a double Vaike assist, which meant Hammer to the face. Now I had a mostly dead General left who could one-shot Olivia. My only pair left unmoved at this point was Severa/Cynthia. I checked the stats and she could double on a 90ish hit for just enough to kill the General and be left with 3 HP herself. I picked an RNG god and prayed and Severa came through for me.

From there it was mostly me trying to recover the health and positioning of my weaker members while FeMU and Morgan did their best to eliminate Counter enemies before they could clump up. Also blocking forts in the lower right in order to limit reinforcements dropping in on me (potential for insta-Counter-spam here had me worried...). This made things odd because I had to get Morgan and FeMU back to cover the second set from the bottom on turn 5 (when the cycle was going to spawn from the second from the top and second from the bottom), as they were the only units who could possibly survive taking on two Counter units in the same enemy phase. For turn 6, Severa had another Armourslayer kill on a Great Knight reinforcement from turn 5. Not strictly necessary, but it freed up another of Morgan’s actions to take out a Counter enemy near FeMU and as bonus, Severa blocked the fort in the process (Anna took up the spot beside her).

Turn 7 I continued to fight stuff, moving Morgan toward the lower centre so as to intercept the Wyv enemies and make the space safe for the rest of my team, as I wanted to get them away from the forts for the turn 8 full fort reinforcements wave.

Well, turn 8 rolled around and Morgan failed to proc dual attack both times AGAIN while taking on a Counter General. This left the safe space pretty much non-existent. I moved the rest of my team as far left as possible and had FeMU block the left fort of the very bottom right set. This meant that Tomahawk Wyv would get a free shot on any number of my squishier characters. So I flipped Olivia over to Fred. I knew pretty much anyone could survive one hit, even if the Wyv had Luna+. Severa provided some clutch offense with Rally Speed, allowing most units to double it on a counterattack. On enemy phase it decided to pick on Libra, who took a pretty good hit, but put the hurt on him in return. This would later allow Morgan to Galeforce springboard back to help FeMU and Vaike clean up the right side reinforcements and reestablish a safe spot for the rest of the team.

After that, it was general clean-up time, followed by moving FeMU up to take on Walhart, with Morgan moving to assist on a few of the goons. I still had to be a bit careful because a couple of them had the Hawkeye-Luna+ combo. Along the way I quickly flipped over to Chrom to class change him to Paladin.

By this point, FeMU had gone through nearly 75 Javelin uses, Chrom about 40 Beast Killer uses and Morgan 75 Hand Axe uses. Apparently enraged that so many of Walhart’s flunkies tried to murder her kids, FeMU, crit Walhart (at a 2% chance, even) in the face for 39 through Pavise+. Between her next hit and Chrom’s assists, Walhart was left a 12/80 HP wreck when enemy phase ended. One more hit sealed the deal.

(Wow, that was really long, but in all honesty, this was an attempt that should NOT have ended well.)

Chapter 20

The start of this map was kind of gross. I had to reset until at least the two leftmost Generals in the right side group didn’t have Counter. This allowed FeMU and Morgan to kill said Generals, then injure the other two, allowing the rest of the group to clean up and create a safe spot in that corner. Olivia gave FeMU a third turn, then was Rescued (out of Sage range) in order to allow FeMU to go get into a brawl with Cervantes’ goons. The rest of the map was pretty much FeMu and Morgan playing ring around the corridors and statues (I think that’s what those 1x2 impassable tiles are) to eliminate Counter enemies before directly engaging the rest of the force. Vaike and Nowi snuck in some potshots before being Rescued. I wanted to try to get Severa some kills, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Cynthia ended up doing some token healing instead.

Looted all the chests while I positioned everyone but Morgan and FeMU farther back. Then I engaged Walhart’s final bodyguard. FeMU injured Walhart pretty badly and Morgan came in for the killing blow.

At some point Lucina hit level 5 and nabbed herself Sol.

Back on the world map, Anna sold me and Energy Drop, which I gave to Chrom. I changed FeMU over to a Dark Knight and noticed her Mag was a bit low (33). I had two Spirit Dusts hanging around, though, so it was all good.

Paralogue 13

The enemies here are way squishier than I expected for their level. FeMU destroyed the Stonewalls while Lucina got the Dawn Riders stuck in the woods. With lower powered, isolated enemies for Nowi and Vaike to target, they safely picked up some easy EXP. I was hurting a bit for gold (what with my Rescue habit), so the 20k between Bullions and the reward for offing both factions was very nice.

There was one scare with some odd AI behaviour. For some strange reason, a Sage with Counter, who usually attack at 2 range (barring body blockage) decided to go into melee with FeMU and she activated Ignis, so that was bad. There was no body blockage going on that would force the Sage into 1 range, so I have no idea why it did that.

Chapter 21

Keeping a good pace was a little bit tough here because aside from FeMU and the kids, Mire had a semi-decent chance to hit and seriously hurt most of my other characters. FeMU with Galeforce and Olivia assistance eliminated the three starting enemies. Olivia had to be Rescued out of Mire range after that, though. Anna ran over and unlocked the closest door (she needed Rescuing too). This allowed Morgan to run over and kill the Nos Sorc and Galeforce up against the lower wall, flip to Lucina, and have her off the Mire Sorc. This exposed her to all the Assassins, the Tomahawk Berserker and several random tome Sorc enemies. With Aether, Sol and Aegis, she pulled through without any really serious problems.

Getting the Fortify and Bullion(L) was a little tight because the reinforcements come pretty quickly, but I positioned myself so I could loot the chests and then immediately have FeMU run over and stab the boss in the face, so it wasn’t horrible.

Chapter 22

This was really easy, although given the type of enemy I was fighting, I couldn’t really risk having anyone other than FeMU, Morgan or Lucina seriously engaging enemies. So they were mostly providing staff and rallies and Nowi and Vaike were on standby for emergency chip damage.On the first turn, FeMU busted out the Arcthunder with Chrom assisting with a Beast Killer. Ran over and killed the Pally and the Dark Knight before they even knew what was happening. Positioned Morgan so he could get the first strike on the right side. Enemy phase, the Bow Knight suicides on FeMU/Chrom’s cavalry buster combo and the Warrior gets himself critically injured.

Turn two, FeMU Galeforce springboards back to the centre. Morgan runs over and kills the Hero, equips the Hammer, then swaps over to Lucina to heavily injured the General. Lissa Rescue them back. Enemy phase the right side group zergs forward.

Turn three, FeMU cavalry busts the Valk. Morgan finishes off the General and then Lucina tries to kill the Sniper. The RNG wasn’t quite with me and he was left critically injured. FeMU finished the job. Enemy phase the other goons start advancing.

Turn four, positioned Morgan just at the end of the Sorc’s range and then Warded him. FeMU ran up, turned the War Cleric into paste, then dealt some damage to the Swordmaster (she couldn’t quite double him, even with Rally Speed). Rescued her out of range. Enemy phase, the Sorc lands both Waste hits, severely hurting Morgan, but the siblings quickly exact vengeance.

Turn five was Morgan and FeMU ganging up on the Swordmaster, then FeMU crushing the Sage.

After that, I had Nowi and Cordelia go for the sparkle sports while FeMU and Morgan spent several turns pushing through those silly desert tiles. Morgan got in range to use a physical attack first and that was the end of Aversa.

Chapter 23

This was a pretty boring chapter in all honesty. First turn had FeMU and Chrom pair up and charge over to Validar. One-shot him to begin the real battle. After that, FeMU danced around the edges of Counter enemies’ ranges, picking them off and freely battling any other enemies in an attempt to push on Validar. Lucina, Morgan and the others fought a retreating battle on the left side, picking off Counter enemies.

The only real worrisome thing was that Validar had Hawkeye, making Vengeance really dangerous. He also had Counter, so I had to fight him with magic at range. This was really annoying, but I snuck a Valflame crit in, which put him away.

Oh and for kicks, Severa got a strictly unnecessary Armourslayer kill on a weakened General. Hilariously, I think this is what pushed her and Cynthia to a C support. Olivia also just barely picked up Special Dance.

Chapter 24

I had plenty of Beast Killers, Hammers and tomes, so the ground forces didn’t really stand a chance. Parallel and wind magic would generall take care of the Wyvs, but first attempt too many of them had Counter and FeMU killed herself with an Ignis. Basically FeMU/Chrom took on the top while Lucina/Morgan took on the bottom. The others hung out in the mid-left (except for Libra, who camped the top-left fort to prevent reinforcements there) slinging heals, Rescues or trying to isolate the odd enemy to gang up on.

After going back to the world map, I realized I forgot to use the Energy Drop from Yarne’s paralogue, so I gave it to Chrom.

Chapter 25

This was a pretty simple one. I didn’t feel like dealing with all the reinforcements, so I had FeMU charge through the right side line and kill the only Counter unit: the Warrior. This almost got her killed on enemy phase, but a clutch Aegis stopped the Hawkeye Sage from finishing her off. Meanwhile, Lucina and Morgan gave the right side flyers a thrashing.

Turn 2, FeMU springboarded off of a Swordmaster so she could get within 2 range of Aversa for Thoron shenanigans. Aversa had Counter, annoyingly enough. I wasn’t looking to kill her with Thoron, anyway. Beast Killer equipped Chrom on the other hand...

Lucina and Morgan took down the left side Griffon Riders just to be safe.

On the world map, I bought a Brave Sword. I contemplated forging it, but I wanted to see if my buff spamming was going to be enough on its own.

Endgame(!)

Well, the strategy was basically just to buff FeMU and Chrom a whole lot and then rush the boss. Chrom brought Exalted Falchion and FeMU brought the Brave Sword, Thoron and a couple other weapons I didn’t use at all.

Gave both FeMu and Chrom Gaius’ Confects, plus a Mag Tonic to FeMU and a Luk Tonic to Chrom. I brought the whole team plus Basilio, but they mostly just moved up to get out of enemy attack range. Exceptions are Severa with Rally Speed, Libra with Rally Magic and Luck, Basilio with Rally Strength and Olivia giving an extra turn and Special Dance to FeMU.

Then I sent FeMU up, Thoronned the left Tomahawk Berserker dead and then got into melee with Grima with the Brave Sword. Combat forecast had FeMU doing 5 damage per swing, which Pavise+, of course, reduced to an intimidating 2. Chrom was doing 20 per hit, though. Annoyingly, he didn’t assist on one of the four swings and missed on another. Grima procced Ignis, but FeMU procced Sol after, so 42 HP would have let her survive another Ignis.

A General was seemingly annoyed by FeMU surviving and went into melee with her (thankfully, he didn’t have Counter). After she dodged several times and then procced Sol three times in a row, Grima gave up on having flunkies get in on the action and attacked. I’m not entirely sure on the sequence of attacks (I know there was some Ignis in there from FeMU), but notable events are Chrom dual guarding Grima’s Ignis and Chrom’s second attack leaving Grima with 1 HP. FeMU got the finisher with a 2 damage Brave Sword poke.

And that, as they say, was that.

For kicks, here's my top five skills of the run:

Veteran definitely ended up being a cornerstone of my success. It allowed FeMU to become strong enough to help carry the team, then it let Lucina and Morgan easily catch up, then become monstrously strong (seriously, I think Lucina was actually scarier than FeMU in the end).

Galeforce was a big life saver too. Being able to assassinate a Counter enemy, then run away or kill two Counter enemies in a turn helped keep the later battles a lot more manageable.

Sol was great general purpose healing, but it did have its limits. Even with it, taking on two Counter enemies in the same enemy phase was a bit risky.

Axe Breaker let me take on more enemies than I would be normally comfortable with. This was especially useful for Vaike, because I could be a bit more aggressive with him despite his awful Def and Res. This ability also actually played a key offensive role in the later maps. That is, the maps with all the Wyv Lords with Sword Breaker. It allowed Lucina to still reliably land Parallel hits against the axe wielders (there's not that many lancers, though).

Aegis was great because aside from FeMU, everyone's Res was pretty low (Morgan and Lucina both had roughly 20). It allowed Lucina to pass as a magic tank and made FeMU very resilient.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

[darkkfan]

If I had known how easy Ch.7 was, I probably would have done it weeks ago until waiting until after the quarter ended in school. This chapter only took me a total of 3 hours, which is surprisingly low compared to the average of around 5-10 hours per chapter. Chapter 5 (and maybe six) took even longer than that, probably around 10-20 each to beat.

I'm debating with myself about outlawing nosferatu/sol/aether because they could in theory make any map winnable with no strategy and enough resets, but I suppose any skill depends on chance to some extent. I will probably end up allowing sol and aether but not nosferatu, since I planned on using Chrom and Gregor but not Tharja or Henry.

The new forum software screwed up my tables, which were already pretty screwed up to begin with, so if anyone could provide some advice on how to fix that I'd appreciate it.

I'm thinking of going Chapter 8->Paralogue 3->Chapter 9 but if anyone can point out a good reason why I should do paralogue 3 another time, I'm open to that.

Also, added a tentative list of units I plan on using (not pairings).

Edited April 14, 2013 by Walhart

[darkkfan]

So I am finally getting some time to work on this now that the quarter is over and I'm on spring break, plus the chapters seem to be gettin easier (knock on Wood, or should I say knock on Owain). I did Paralogue 3 first because why not and it should make Chaoter 8 feel easier.

I added a tentative list of who I am planning to use (at least for the first half of the game). I might add pairings later, but I'm probably using the ones centered around postgame rather than the ones that help me the most on this runthrough, yet another example of how masochistic I am.

I haven't decided who to use the seraph robe on. Miriel and Sumia have very low HP to the point where they are practically ohko'd by everything, but it could help Syrena, who I am pretty much stuck using whether I like it or not (for the record I would just drop her now if she didn't get great skills as a grandmaster) though her offense is terrible compared to everyone else. Lon'Qu would be almost unstoppable with it, too. For that matter, I'm not sure who to use the master seal on either. I'm going to put up polls just because I'm that indecisive, although I reserve the right to disregard them if I think of a good reason to.

Also not sure if I plan on using Libra when I get him because he doesn't offer much that Lissa doesn't, besides being a decent axe user (and my only one aside from Fred), but I'm probably not going to bother putting up a poll for this one. I'm considering keeping Maribelle in my party, although she'll probably end up as the "odd one out" with situational deployment in certain chapters, but we'll see. One thing's almost certain, it's not worth giving her the master seal over Syrena or Gregor. I really don't see any benefit to giving it to Sumia either, since she's at the lowest level and her role right now is pretty much just a glorified pair up partner/chaffeur for Chrom.

[Redwall]

Voted Syrena for both. Miriel's current +3 Mag over her is not unsurmountable; the Seraph Robe combined with Veteran can help Syrena snowball into a good unit. I don't know if I'd promote her immediately upon reaching Lv 10, since she could use the extra leveling speed. Then again, I could see Ch 9 being tricky on Lunatic+ due to the swarm of enemies near the start point, in which case promoted Syrena may be useful. I never got past Ch 5, so I can't say my advice is all that credible, but investing in Syrena rather than your other units should have a bigger endgame payoff.

[Interceptor]

Voted the same. I always default to Avatar when in doubt; Veteran is just too good, so the resources don't go to waste.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I followed the Ch8->Par3->Ch9 route that you had initially planned, although I was getting kind of desparate for that Master Seal.

As far as Maribelle goes, I thought I'd end up using her too, but Libra and Anna were both just way more readily usable for staves, so they just ended up getting put in more. I ended up promoting my Lissa to Sage, and my FeMU was a magic powerhouse, so I didn't need the extra magic offense that a Valk could provide (although you've got Miriel and Syrena isn't lagging that badly, so you might not either).

I"m a bit on the fence about the items. I remember Miriel being pretty squishy when I used her during my grind run, so I figure i she's been your primary magic user, she could really use the durability boost. On the other hand, Syrena has that god of stats potential if only she could get more of a foothold. I agree with Red Wall's concerns of promoting her at level 10, though. Maybe split the difference and give Syrena the Robe to tide her over and the Master Seal to Miriel since Syrena probably wants to wait a bit (then give her the next one).

EDIT: Finished putting together the turn count and characters stats for the parallel logs I've been posting. Hopefully my manual tables don't explode when I try to paste them in. Note that I left out quite a few characters who gained little to no levels.

My (terribly high) turn counts:

Chap Turns Heroes
---- ----- ------
Prem 2 N/A
Prol 21 FeMU & Chrom
Ch01 14 FeMU & Fred
Ch02 25 FeMU & Fred
Ch03 31 FeMU & Fred
Ch04 12 FeMU & Fred
Pa01 34 FeMU & Fred
Ch05 19 FeMU & Chrom
Pa02 10 FeMU & Chrom
Ch06 10 FeMU & Chrom
Ch07 5 FeMU & Chrom
Ch08 19 FeMU & Chrom
Pa03 11 FeMU & Chrom
Ch09 13 FeMU & Chrom
Pa04 24 FeMU & Chrom
Ch10 5 FeMU & Chrom
Ch11 17 FeMU & Chrom
Ch12 19 FeMU & Chrom
Ch13 23 FeMU & Chrom
Ch14 39 Vaike & Cordelia
Ch15 13 FeMU & Chrom
Pa12 21 FeMU & Chrom
Ch16 5 FeMU & Chrom
Ch17 22 FeMU & Chrom
Ch18 12 FeMU & Chrom
Pa09 7 FeMU & Chrom
Pa16 33 FeMU & Chrom
Pa10 21 Lucina & Morgan
Ch19 17 FeMU & Chrom
ch20 20 FeMU & Chrom
Pa13 7 FeMU & Chrom
Ch21 6 Lucina & Mogran
Ch22 8 FeMU & Chrom
Ch23 10 FeMU & Chrom
Ch24 8 Lucina & Morgan
Ch25 2 FeMU & Chrom
Endg 1 FeMU & Chrom

Character stats:

Character Class LV HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res Proficiencies Skills
-------- -------- -- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ------------------ ------
Chrom Paladin 7 57 38 10 35 34 31 28 19 Swd, Lan A Dual Strike+, Defender, Charm, Aether, Rightful King

FeMU DkKnight 11 *80 *37 *40 *42 *44 *44 *42 *38 Swd, Tom A Ignis, Galeforce, Aegis, Sol, Axe Breaker

Lissa Valkyrie 7 52 12 31 19 28 28 8 28 Tom E, Stf A Miracle, Healtouch, Rally Res, Rally Mag, Tomefaire

Vaike Berserker 3 58+5 35 2 28 27 18 19 2 Axe A Zeal, Sol, HP+5, Axe Breaker

Cordelia Falcokngt 7 37 13 7 23 21+2 14 12 16 Lan A, Stf D Spd+2, Relief, Rally Spd

Nowi Manakete 23 45 17 10 12 13 22 20 15 Odd Rhythm, Wyrmsbane

Gregor Hero 3 37 18 1 17 15 9 15 5 Swd C, Axe D Armsthrift, Patience

Anna Sage 4 54 18 30 37 30 47 16 21 Tom E, Stf A Move+1, Locktouch, Lucky 7, Acrobat

Lucina Hero 15 78 40 18 *50 *48 41 33 18 Swd, Axe A Dual Strike+, Aether, Axe Breaker, Aegis, Sol

Libra Sage 10 55 21 32 29 31 27 16 24 Tom E, Stf A Healtouch, Miracle, Rally Luk, Rally Mag, Renewal

Morgan GreatKnt 16 *80 45 *20 *38 *43 36 41 20 Sd B,La D,Ax A Galeforce, Rightful King, Dual Guard+, Sol, Axe Breaker

Cynthia Falcoknt 2 30 13 6 17 23+2 18 12 15 Lan C, Stf D Spd+2, Relief, Luna

Severa Hero 2 39+5 20 3 25 20 13 16 9 Swd C, Axe E HP+5, Armsthrift, Patience, Rally Spd

Olivia Dancer 16 32 10 3 18 18 16+4 4 3 Swd D Luk+4, Special Dance

Frederick GreatKnt 12 40 19 3 16 19 9 17 8 Sd B, La,Ax A Discipline, Outdoor Fighter, Luna

Lon'qu Swdmastr 5 30 15 2 20 21 12 12 7 Swd B Avoid+10, Vantage, Astra

Panne Taguel 7 29 8 1 10 11 8 8 3 Even Rhythm

EDIT2: Okay, after playing with the tables a bit, looks like a Notepad table can be imported if font is set to Courier New. For some reason or other, it didn't want to stick on the second table outside of preview mode until I set it back to a different font, then Courrier New again, so watch out with multi-table posts.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

[darkkfan]

Ok, so here's my plan:

According to the main site I get a Master Seal in Ch.8 and one each in chapters 10 and 11. That's a total of four by Chapter 11, assuming none show up in Anna shops. I am going to use one on Miriel and Gregor in Chapter 8. Then, I am going to try to hold off on promoting Syrena until the Chapter 10 seal. Hopefully, by Chapter 11, Sumia will have gotten enough mooch kills to hit level 10. At chapter 12 they are freely buyable for Maribelle or whatever if I feel like it.

Also, according to the main site, I get two Seraph robes at chapter 10 for a total of 3. Actually, after checking a few walkthroughs I can confirm that this is an error and you only get one here for a total of 2. I plan on using the one I have already on Miriel to give her enough durability to hopefully survive one hit from pretty much anyone. Then, I'll use the Chapter 10 one on Lon'Qu, since he needs it to narrow the gap with Fred and Chrom in turns of durability. Hopefully, with the added levels and her promotion, Syrena can wait until Chapter 17 to get her Seraph Robe.


tl;dr: I'm screwing Syrena over again. No wonder she turns into

a dark god

.
If Miriel doesn't turn out great after all this blind favoritism, I am not going to be happy with her. And yes, I did vote on my own poll to justify this, but I'll keep it up just for laughs.

Barring anything unforeseen, there should be an update with Chapter 8 at some point today.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Walhart

[Interceptor]

Well, the nice thing about Syrena is that you can't really keep Avatar down. Veteran is just absurd; the free stats from being over-leveled tend to paper over a lot of problems.

[darkkfan]

I finished Chapter 8 on my first try (it's that easy in case you were wondering). For some reason I get the feeling they won't all be this easy. Anyway, I updated the OP and updated the list of character pair ups I will be using. I promoted Gregor and Miriel and gave Miriel the Seraph Robe. I have a second seal that I am probably going to use on Fred when he hits level 15 to make him into a General (because I've loved having Jagens/Oifeys in the General class since FE12 Arran). My next Second Seal will probably go to Lissa once she picks up Renewal. I will probably make her either a Falcoknight, Sage, or Valkyrie (I added a poll for this).

My tables look terrible, I managed to fix some of them but now the data isn't even going in a table. Oh well, it is still readable (I hope) and if it isn't I'll figure out some way to fix it like putting it into excel and taking a screenshot of it.

EDIT: The poll doesn't seem to be working either now. This new software is gonna take some getting used to. I think the problem is because I deleted one of the old polls to get fresh results, so now the third question thinks it is Question 5. If anyone knows how to fix it, I'd appreciate it if you'd help me to do so.

Well, the nice thing about Syrena is that you can't really keep Avatar down. Veteran is just absurd; the free stats from being over-leveled tend to paper over a lot of problems.

That's what I'm counting on.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Walhart

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

For mine, I just used spaces to manually position the columns. When posting, this requires a font that doesn't have variable width (Courier New). As I mentioned above, for multi-table posts, sometimes the tables after the first get stuck in Arial, even though it will say Courier New in the editor. I ended up having to change back to Arial, save modifications, then edit and change it to Courier New again to get my second table to cooperate.

All in all, a Google Doc spreadsheet would probably be way easier to maintain and make available.

As for Lissa, if you want to keep using her the same way you have been, I think Falcon Knight is pretty much the clear winner (even if she has to go through E lances). Otherwise, she'll have better offense as a Sage, but be a fair bit squishier (I'd only go Valk if she were to hit Sage 15 first).

[darkkfan]

For mine, I just used spaces to manually position the columns. When posting, this requires a font that doesn't have variable width (Courier New). As I mentioned above, for multi-table posts, sometimes the tables after the first get stuck in Arial, even though it will say Courier New in the editor. I ended up having to change back to Arial, save modifications, then edit and change it to Courier New again to get my second table to cooperate.

I'll probably fix the older tables manually when I get around to it. Any ideas why I can't seem to copy the ch8 data into a table, though?

As for Lissa, if you want to keep using her the same way you have been, I think Falcon Knight is pretty much the clear winner (even if she has to go through E lances). Otherwise, she'll have better offense as a Sage, but be a fair bit squishier (I'd only go Valk if she were to hit Sage 15 first).

Yeah I agree Falconknight is probably the best option. Especially with that strength. Dealing with E lances can't be much worse than the E axes I've had to put up with up to this point. The extra movement and ignoring terrain is always a plus, not to mention that Falcoknight Lissa would make an even better mage killer than Sumia.

I still kind of like Valk and Sage though because although Lissa's STR is pretty high for a magic user, her MAG stat is a few points higher and enemies generally have pretty bad RES.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Walhart

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I'll probably fix the older tables manually when I get around to it. Any ideas why I can't seem to copy the ch8 data into a table, though?

From the look of it, you're running into that issue where the post doesn't want to get off of the Arial font, which does all kinds of bad things to alignment. Not entirely sure about that extra whitespace, but if I had to wager a guess, do you have Word Wrap enabled (assuming you're using Notepad)? That can do some strange stuff when copy-pasting to a non-word processor.

Yeah I agree Falconknight is probably the best option. Especially with that strength. Dealing with E lances can't be much worse than the E axes I've had to put up with up to this point. The extra movement and ignoring terrain is always a plus, not to mention that Falcoknight Lissa would make an even better mage killer than Sumia.

I still kind of like Valk and Sage though because although Lissa's STR is pretty high for a magic user, her MAG stat is a few points higher and enemies generally have pretty bad RES.

Yeah, that's why I said she'd be a better offensive unit as a Sage (typically the reason I choose to promote her to Sage in my runs is that she's usually Rescuing or healing from the back, so if I need her to do something else, it's probably to kill something with high burst damage) at the cost of tankiness. Although looking at her stats, the -2 Def will hurt, but won't be totally awful (you'll be losing HP no matter what, although Valk will lose you 1 more HP and Def than the others). Interestingly, Sage also loses 1 Res, but gains 1 Spd. Valk gains a bit of Res (+2) and Falcon Knight gains an impressive +5 Spd and +3 Res.

The Wyvs in the next two chapters (there's some in chapter 11, but they're not as bad there) as pretty annoying, so I guess magic may be the way to go if you want an easier time getting rid of them. The Falcon Knight would still be the better healer due to mobility and durability, though. Also keep in mind that the Valk will have awful mobility in chapter 9.

Oh and side note about chapter 10: I hope you'll have a really strong 1~2 range unit by this point (Fred is kind of looking like that for you), as the Master Seal is dropped by a Thief who pretty much books it from the start, so you'll have to be charging right through the bulk of the enemy to kill him.

[darkkfan]

Beat Chapter 9, although I didn't really deserve it. The OP is too long for me to add more content so I shifted it over to my second post from now on. Fixed some of the tables manually, will do the rest later. I am going to make Lissa a Falcoknight, most likely, to fill a potentially useful niche of mounted healer/rescuer. I wouldn't be surprised If I don't get around to reclassing her until the chapter 12 seal though, since I really want Renewal first.

Oh and side note about chapter 10: I hope you'll have a really strong 1~2 range unit by this point (Fred is kind of looking like that for you), as the Master Seal is dropped by a Thief who pretty much books it from the start, so you'll have to be charging right through the bulk of the enemy to kill him.

Ok, thanks, Fred can hopefully do this. I can probably just pair him with Chrom and switch to him when Fred gets low on HP. They should be fine with a few elixirs/vulneraries/concoctions as long as they don't get too swarmed. Wouldn't the Seraph Robe be harder to reach, though, or does that thief have a bizarre movement pattern?

By the way, does anyone know off the top of their head if there are any other chapters in the near future where Fred's extra MOV will come in handy? Because I plan on reclassing him to General right after he hits 15 (and following chapter 10).

[Vorena]

I cannot think of a single situation where Fredrick is absolutely needed for movement if you are not going for turns in some way. There would be some chapters in future still where its defeat commander where the extra movement might come in handy. I think chapter 14 is one such chapter. You can get to the boss by turn one with a dance or rescue thing.

Finish chapter quickly to avoid having to deal with reinforcements. But you have others who can do this too though like Anna or Olivia for +1 movement.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Vorena

[darkkfan]

I cannot think of a single situation where Fredrick is absolutely needed for movement if you are not going for turns in some way. There would be some chapters in future still where its defeat commander where the extra movement might come in handy. I think chapter 14 is one such chapter. You can get to the boss by turn one with a dance or rescue thing.

Finish chapter quickly to avoid having to deal with reinforcements. But you have others who can do this too though like Anna or Olivia for +1 movement.

Ok, that's good to hear. I'm most worried about Ch.16, since it seems like it'd be difficult to do without going straight for the commander. In my Lunatic run I just had Wyvern Fred drop an overleveled Donnel that killed the boss, but I can hardly do that here, so I'm probably gonna have to worry about fighting all the enemies and reinforcements.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Ok, thanks, Fred can hopefully do this. I can probably just pair him with Chrom and switch to him when Fred gets low on HP. They should be fine with a few elixirs/vulneraries/concoctions as long as they don't get too swarmed. Wouldn't the Seraph Robe be harder to reach, though, or does that thief have a bizarre movement pattern?

They're both fairly difficult to reach. I believe they get to the exit about the same time, so if you can run down one, you'll probably be able to get both in the end. The main issue I ran into was at least three of the goons close to the boss liked to generate with Counter, so in order to get the Master Seal Thief, I had to expose myself to three Counter enemies. I was basically counting on getting at least one crit-gib so that FeMU didn't kill herself.

By the way, does anyone know off the top of their head if there are any other chapters in the near future where Fred's extra MOV will come in handy? Because I plan on reclassing him to General right after he hits 15 (and following chapter 10).

Nothing specifically. You'll lose the ability to skirt a bunch of the enemies' ranges, but with Fred's Def as high as it is, I'm sure you can work around that.

For chapter 16, a hard push might let you reach and kill Cervantes as the reinforcements are catching up (it's pretty much what I did), but there will be a fair amount of luck involved. The more Counter enemies, the more the strategy falls apart (Galeforce allowed me to cut down enough Counter enemies to make it safer, even though quite a few clumps of them generated up on that side).

Also, your chapter 9 "I should not have won that" run sounds a lot like how chapter 19 went for me.

[darkkfan]

Nothing specifically. You'll lose the ability to skirt a bunch of the enemies' ranges, but with Fred's Def as high as it is, I'm sure you can work around that.

Ok thanks, I am wondering how much longer Fred will be a factor and if it is even worth making him a General since he'll likely never get Pavise (although rally defense will be nice on him). Perhaps I should make him something with better long-term applicability (Griffon for Deliverer?).

At what point, if at all, did you find that Fred started lagging behind? Granted he's gotten some good stats for me, but still, he's not Seth.

For chapter 16, a hard push might let you reach and kill Cervantes as the reinforcements are catching up (it's pretty much what I did), but there will be a fair amount of luck involved. The more Counter enemies, the more the strategy falls apart (Galeforce allowed me to cut down enough Counter enemies to make it safer, even though quite a few clumps of them generated up on that side).

How did you get Galeforce on someone useful that early (and who did you get it on), without grinding?

Also, your chapter 9 "I should not have won that" run sounds a lot like how chapter 19 went for me.

Haha, yeah. I almost felt guilty enough to restart the map until I won it with less luck, or at least with less dumb moves...............almost.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Walhart

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Ok thanks, I am wondering how much longer Fred will be a factor and if it is even worth making him a General since he'll likely never get Pavise (although rally defense will be nice on him). Perhaps I should make him something with better long-term applicability (Griffon for Deliverer?).

At what point, if at all, did you find that Fred started lagging behind? Granted he's gotten some good stats for me, but still, he's not Seth.

Chapter 16 is when I stopped using him. I had him paired with Sumia, but swapped out Sumia for Lucina once I got her. Once I beat Paralogue 12, he was phased out for Morgan (and the whirlwind of death that was Lucina/Morgan began). He briefly made a reappearance for a few chapters starting with 19 to pair with Olivia (for +1 move, but his relative tankiness actually saved her once).

As for the class change, I guess it depends on how long term you want to use him for. Deliverer would probably give him better earlier pay-off, but the amount of wind magic enemies is a bit concerning, especially with his Res as it is. I'd probably recommend Paladin to get Aegis to cover that weakness up, but if you're not expecting to get him far enough for Pavise, he probably wouldn't get that either.

How did you get Galeforce on someone useful that early (and who did you get it on), without grinding?

I got it on FeMU. I was leaning on her a lot early on (she would have got a lot of the EXP you gave to Fred and a pretty good portion of what Chrom picked up), so she was already Tactician 20 mid-chapter 5. Snuck the Second Seal in to reset her level and I think she was either level 7 or 8 again by the end of it. She was level 16 by the time I hit the Master Seal village in chapter 8, at which point I promoted her to Grandmaster. About halfway into chapter 10, she was level 10, so I Second Sealed her to Dark Flier. She just barely hit level 15 by the end of chapter 15 (only the boss was left). This was with Fred and Vaike still picking up a decent amount of EXP (enough to stay competitive), although Lon'qu and Nowi were starving a bit (Lon'qu in particular was also RNG screwed, so it was pretty much over for him).

FeMU is pretty much the only character this is possible with thanks to Veteran (I tried the other candidates when I did my run that allowed grinding and Sumia and Cordelia make pretty weak Dark Fliers due to pretty much no offense and Lissa and Maribelle are a bit too squishy and don't have the EXP gain to support blitzing through two tier 2 classes).

[darkkfan]

Chapter 16 is when I stopped using him. I had him paired with Sumia, but swapped out Sumia for Lucina once I got her. Once I beat Paralogue 12, he was phased out for Morgan (and the whirlwind of death that was Lucina/Morgan began). He briefly made a reappearance for a few chapters starting with 19 to pair with Olivia (for +1 move, but his relative tankiness actually saved her once).

As for the class change, I guess it depends on how long term you want to use him for. Deliverer would probably give him better earlier pay-off, but the amount of wind magic enemies is a bit concerning, especially with his Res as it is. I'd probably recommend Paladin to get Aegis to cover that weakness up, but if you're not expecting to get him far enough for Pavise, he probably wouldn't get that either.

I got it on FeMU. I was leaning on her a lot early on (she would have got a lot of the EXP you gave to Fred and a pretty good portion of what Chrom picked up), so she was already Tactician 20 mid-chapter 5. Snuck the Second Seal in to reset her level and I think she was either level 7 or 8 again by the end of it. She was level 16 by the time I hit the Master Seal village in chapter 8, at which point I promoted her to Grandmaster. About halfway into chapter 10, she was level 10, so I Second Sealed her to Dark Flier. She just barely hit level 15 by the end of chapter 15 (only the boss was left). This was with Fred and Vaike still picking up a decent amount of EXP (enough to stay competitive), although Lon'qu and Nowi were starving a bit (Lon'qu in particular was also RNG screwed, so it was pretty much over for him).

FeMU is pretty much the only character this is possible with thanks to Veteran (I tried the other candidates when I did my run that allowed grinding and Sumia and Cordelia make pretty weak Dark Fliers due to pretty much no offense and Lissa and Maribelle are a bit too squishy and don't have the EXP gain to support blitzing through two tier 2 classes).

Whoa! You weren't exaggerating when you said that you used FeMU a ton! Although, I'll admit, I am curious as to why you second sealed her to tactician the first time.

I'm considering outlawing Children characters, since I want to do as much as possible to ensure that this doesn't because another case where the game is insanely difficult for the first 5 chapters and then drops off significantly after this point. I know I sound insane, but if I'm doing this I might as well try to keep the difficulty consistent. Although, I'd imagine that later on it becomes less about your characters' strength, and more about having an effective way to kill counter mooks (that is, to some extent, the difficulty doesn't have much to do with relative strength of characters).

On a side note, I wonder if an Avatar-only run (maybe with Fred enabled for the first few chapters) would make Luna+ rather trivial (excepting counter, see above). Oh well, I won't be trying that any time soon, one insane Luna+ run is enough for me.

Added new polls. I'm done screwing around with poll options so I guess I'll let these ones sit for a while since I haven't invalidated any of them yet, so we'll see what kind of feedback I get.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Walhart

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Whoa! You weren't exaggerating when you said that you used FeMU a ton! Although, I'll admit, I am curious as to why you second sealed her to tactician the first time.

Hehe, yeah (after Dark Flier, my FeMU also went through Hero, Paladin and part of Dark Knight >.>). As for the level resetting, I took at look at the base stat loss to go to Mage or Dark Mage and compared the skills. As awesome as Hex and Anathema are, I didn't really want to give up Ignis and there was no way I was making Galeforce that early if I had to hop across yet another tier 2 class. If I had had a Master Seal, I would have promoted her to Grandmaster right there, but I didn't. Since I knew she was pretty much my main tank, I wanted her to be able to not waste all that EXP, so I made unconventional use of the Second Seal. This ended up allowing her to become a tier 1 god based on raw stats alone (I honestly didn't expect it to work as well as it did).

I'm considering outlawing Children characters, since I want to do as much as possible to ensure that this doesn't because another case where the game is insanely difficult for the first 5 chapters and then drops off significantly after this point. I know I sound insane, but if I'm doing this I might as well try to keep the difficulty consistent. Although, I'd imagine that later on it becomes less about your characters' strength, and more about having an effective way to kill counter mooks (that is, to some extent, the difficulty doesn't have much to do with relative strength of characters).

I'd say it really depends on which children you're talking about. Like Lucina and Morgan were pretty good because I could get them early, but that was only a small part of what made them insanely powerful. I credit most of their ascension into godhood to Veteran, with Galeforce (on just Morgan) being a somewhat more distant runner-up. In fact, Veteran on FeMU, despite Chrom living of the paltry EXP allowance of a support partner, is the reason their base stats were so crazy good in the first place.

By contrast, I picked up all the other kids and Nah and Yarne were pretty much total weaklings. Severa was just barely usable at all as a combat unit (and typically more useful as a Rally Speed bot) and Cynthia was pretty much stuck ferrying Severa around or contributing token healing (and most of the reason I used them at all is because Lon'qu getting RNG screwed made him a bigger liability than them).

And yeah, having reliable ways to deal with Counter spam is pretty much the name of the game for Lunatic+. For the later portions of the game, a bit of it is also having a good dual attack rate to help deal with Pavise+ or Aegis+ spam on enemies, since their durability does get somewhat formidable (alternately, high Luck, Armsthrift and an uber forge).

On a side note, I wonder if an Avatar-only run (maybe with Fred enabled for the first few chapters) would make Luna+ rather trivial (excepting counter, see above). Oh well, I won't be trying that any time soon, one insane Luna+ run is enough for me.

Added new polls. I'm done screwing around with poll options so I guess I'll let these ones sit for a while since I haven't invalidated any of them yet, so we'll see what kind of feedback I get.

Avatar would have to be paired, otherwise he/she would very likely get overwhelmed. It would probably become fairly trivial if he/she ran a route like Tact -> GM -> Hero -> Sorc. Or using my Tact -> GM -> Dark Flier -> Hero route, FeMU could Galeforce kite (for route) or boss rush to victory in many cases (I think the speed of my run was actually held back a bit because I did insist on deploying all slots every map, so often times FeMU/Chrom had to help keep everyone else alive instead of going for the assassination).

Seriously, I don't think I can say it enough: Veteran is ridiculously powerful.

Also, as far as that poll goes, I feel life drain like Sol and Aether isn't really reliable enough to be worth banning. It helps, because it can counteract some of the luck based elements of Lunatic+ (that is, large clumps of Counter and to a lesser extent, large clumps of Luna+), but it's not a certain thing (although Sol AND Aether together can get kind of silly). At most points in the game, I found myself relying more on hit and run tactics where the enemy doesn't get a chance to even retaliate over life steal because it was safer. If anything, I abused Galeforce and Rescue Staves (a pretty decent part of my budget went toward restocking these) far more than Sol.