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Approaching from another perspective, I'll list off some of the kids who bring you certain limited supply or otherwise notable items upon recruitment… in a few cases, maybe it will be an extra consideration of "oh, if I go for this child, I get this cool weapon thrown in with them". Deere - Physic Matoi - Swordslayer Naginata Seigbert - Javelin Ignis - Javelin Velour - Guard Beastone Lutz - Hand Axe Ophelia - at end of level, Missletainn [personal tome] The Javelins and Hand Axes are technically limited supply items, but you get 10 of them from the Armory, plus anything your characters are recruited with, so they aren't that limited…. limiting the prior list to more limited items Deere - Physic [5 in the store; value: 3000 G] Matoi - Swordslayer Nagainata [2 in store; value: 3400 G] Velour - Guard Beaststone [not purchasable] Ophelia - Missletainn [not purchasable] So, these characters might offer a slight extra incentive thanks to their items. Please correct me if I made mistakes.

Well, true….

Hisame asking Kanna (F) and Matoi out for tea…. interesting….

So, basically, after beating Ch. 6 (or is it 7?)

Fair enough… you two raise a good point…. I was a bit too sweeping with my statements/interpretations. I offer a retraction/apology.

Got mine, not online, but in store at Bloor Street (Toronto)…. as of about 35 minutes ago, there was still about one left (after accounting for the one that I ordered). Someone might have got it between now and then, but I have no way of knowing… who knows, there still might be a chance for someone here if they live in Toronto.

Most of the players whom I've spoken to who have played the game on Lunatic (I myself haven't played it) have asserted that pair-up still tends to be the superior strategy overall, just not as overwhelmingly superior as it had been before. If this is true, then asking for a pair-up is essentially irrelevant as we can presume that most of your units will tend to use pair-up anyways. Rally Luck would only be used in more extreme cases like Berserkers (who have inherent crit bonuses, which would make nulling out everything tricky to begin with). Remember, 14 luck (7 dodge) + guard stance (+5 dodge) + goddess icon or luck tonic (+2 dodge) nulls out the crits of other enemy units like the high-skill Heroes (14). No Yato required. Berserkers and other heavy crit bonus classes seem to be meant to be difficult to avoid facing a crit chance for most characters. I mean, 21 crit would need 42 luck to null out; you simply won't get that high (seeing that the highest luck classes have 35). You simply aren't nulling that out without assistance. Bronze weapons also exist if you're scared of crits as a substitute for Yato's +10 crit evade, although due to their low attack power I don't think they're a great option.

Instant promote someone and pair-up. It works at least until Takumi promotes himself. Promoted units count as higher levels than un-promoted. It breaks down eventually, but it should work in the early game.

I mean, aesthetically I like the look of Hinoka!Matoi and I like that she has higher growths and Lancefaire [even though she probably is sticking as a Pegasus in the main game]…. I just wanted to try reevaluating my assumptions and see "who actually would deal the better damage - the unit with poor growths + victory or the units with better growths without it. Of course, offenses aren't everything, and Setsuna Matoi loses in a lot of other categories too, so having better HP, SKL, LCK, and DEF may be notable, plus Hinoka!Matoi and others like Oboro!Matoi, etc., have better STR and MAG for enemy phase or for play beyond 20/15, where at some point the weaker growths will eventually overwhelm Prescient Victory entirely [such as when grinding for a PvP or hypothetical high-end DLC team]. Shephen had actually sparked the idea a while back when we were talking about Matoi variants on a reddit thread… he had good things to say about a Prescient Victory build, so I decided to do the math here. EDIT: Actually, if I recall correctly form what I've been told, a Setsuna!Matoi could also pick up Prescient Victory on her own in two levels if she promotes to GKW first, so Setsuna wouldn't have to pass it down for Matoi to realistically get it, although having it from the start would be highly preferable.

Okay, makes sense. Ch.8. If you're leaving the prologue at 9/10, what is a reasonable Ch. 8 level? Changing the subject, thinking back to my shockstick calculations at this post: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=58830&p=4113843….Setsuna might be a good mother for this, despite the poor magic growth, thanks to Prescient Victory Prescient Victory might really be a great skill for such a build. Sure, you miss out on Lancefaire, but that's so late in the game (level 15) that it won't really become relevant, whereas Prescient Victory would be highly relevant for the whole game. ADDENDUM: About -LCK….

Discussion of Dark Knights follows (in spoiler box)

To my knowledge, the only magical tome classes that let you use Yato are Dark Blood (Conquest/Revelation only), Dark Knight, and Grandmaster (both DLC & male only). Otherwise, you either have to choose Yato or tomes. Of course, if you relax the requirement of tomes, you can get away with a lot more if you're using Levin Swords, Shock Sticks, etc. Levin Swords are Conquest/Revelation; Shock Sticks are Birthright/Revelation. etc.

Already unavailable on Amazon? I missed it while at dinner?

I'd try heading to the store to pre-order at 10 am (assuming they're doing in-store pre-orders as well), but I'm going to be in a pre-arranged meeting with my graduate supervisor.

You raise a very good point…. You are absolutely correct that Rally Speed exists. Of course, a Pegasus pair-up and a different Pegasus doing Rally Speed exists, so these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. You are also totally correct about Hinoka/Sakura and their aura effects. As it happens, the Pegasus I specifically had in mind was Matoi, so Hinoka and Sakura would be assumed to be free in my example. But if I was planning on Hinoka, etc., then I'd have to be concerned about losing their aura. You raise a good point about the movement. That would get you even further; you're absolutely right. You could even move your unit, pair-up with a target unit, move that unit, switch, and then drop off the original unit. 8 + 9 +1 = 18 spaces, if I count correctly.

Compacted rambling section into spoiler tags below 2nd Addendum: Hm… considering a hypothetical 1/0 -> 10/0 Nohr Prince (not sure which level I should assume for the first 2nd seal), 10/0 --> 20/0 Dark Mage, promote to Dark Knight, 20/0 --> 20/15 Dark Knight, this is the average stats that a +MAG/-LCK Avatar would end up with: 39.3 HP, 26.35 STR, 29.15 MAG, 23.8 SKL, 25.1 SPD, 13.85 LCK, 24.05 DEF, 18.05 RES Leveling this way, as pointed out, would let me get the Avatar a better tome rank… as for sword rank, he has Yato (which is probably most of what he needs, although he probably wants to get B (the highest Dark Knight can go) for using it later on. Luck is pretty terrible, but there are at least two Goddess Icons from the chapters that I know of, including a CH 4 one… if I balanced out the flaw with Icons, I'd get 21.85 LCK If I did -DEF instead for some reason (becoming much more of a "squishy wizard"), the -5% STR, -5% MAG, -20% LCK, -2 starting luck from the flaw would be replaced with -5% LCK, -10% DEF, -5% RES, -1 starting DEF. Over 33 levels (to 20/15), these would change the stat averages to: 39.3 HP, 28 STR, 30.8 MAG, 23.8 SKL, 25.1 SPD, 20.8 LCK, 19.75 DEF, 16.4 RES In both cases, Yato's possession bonus would offer +4 STR and +4 SPD, and when equipped +1 SPD and -1DEF/RES. The Hoshido boss (according to my sources) seems to have 61 ATK in Hard and 66 ATK in Lunatic. 39+18 (do to Yato) = 57, so the averages wouldn't predict survival on Hard with -DEF against the boss, except with an HP tonic (1 HP survival), and Lunatic would need more. With -LCK, 39+23 (post Yato) is 62, so they'd survive the 61 ATK from the Hard Final boss with 1 HP (on average), while an HP tonic would be needed (on average) to survive the Lunatic final boss. This is ignoring pair-up bonuses from class bonuses and personal bonuses.

How would a Dark Knight + Falcon Warrior combination be in pair-up in Hoshido? Obviously, I'm referring to an Avatar Dark Knight, as Dark Mage doesn't exist in Birthright as a playable class outside of generic captures or some marriage seal class-analouge shenanigans unless you take the class yourself. Dark Knight's class pair-up bonus is +3 MAG, +3 DEF, and +1 Move. Falcon Warrior's class pair-up bonus is +3 SPD, +3 RES, and +1 Move. A lot of the praise I've been hearing for Falcon Warrior is to exploit the Shock Stick, which is magical. Dark Knight gives a +MAG pair-up bonus and its +3 DEF also places extra points to shore up one of Falcon Warrior's stat weaknesses [not that it will fully overcome it, just mitigate it]. Because running a Dark Knight in Birthright that's not a generic implies the Avatar, Mysterious Appeal would also be granting an extra +2 damage given/-2 damage received on top of this. Also, the personal pair-ups of the Avatar are guaranteed at least another +1 DEF/+1 RES and +1 SPD; a +MAG Avatar would be giving +1 extra magic and another +1 extra speed as well, so we could be looking at a pair bonus of +4 MAG, +2 SPD, +4 DEF, +1 RES, and +1 Move. Stacking with Mysterious appeal, this would be +6 shockstick damage given and -6 physical damage taken for the paired unit. Falcon Warrior's +SPD would help offset one of the notable weaknesses of Dark Knight (SPD), as does the inherent Yato Bonus later on (+2 --> +4). RES is also the weaker defensive stat of both the Dark Knight class and the Avatar's growths. So we're looking at a 5/7 (6/8 when equipped) speed bonus of stacking Yato and a Pegasus, before personal pair-up. Both units are naturally 8 move and they give +1 move in pair-up, so they'd end up as mutually 9 move when paired with each other. A key drawback that I could see is that the Avatar would end up with dual weakness (horse and dragon). How would this combo work?

Couldn't another strategy be stacking a bunch of STR and SPD, as well as building a slight amount of shield gauge before engaging the final boss directly? (I haven't played the game, so maybe I'm wrong)…. You'd need 37 SPD to double (or 32 + Swallow Strike) and you'd need 38 SPD to double after getting Draconic Cursed but brought back up a bit with Special Song. If you go with +SPD (to be particularly favorable to this), you already have an average of 30.1 SPD at 20/15. Yato would give you +5 SPD when equipped, right? That gets you to 35 SPD. A tonic gets you to 37 SPD. Or Rally Speed would have already gotten you to 39. Of course, averages won't always happen, but I haven't even considered Speedwings or Personal Pair-ups yet. If you went +SPD/-LCK, you'd be at 28.15 STR on average by 20/15. Shura pair-up (+4; generic, not even considering support ranks), Yato (16 Might, +4 STR), A-rank swords (+3 ATK), Battle Command [from your Servant; +2], Encouragement [+2], and a STR tonic [+2] gets you up to 61 ATK. This is already enough to get the 33 DEF final boss down to 2 HP (78 damage) after accounting for Draconic curse: (61-33)*0.75 = 21; (57 -33)*0.75 =18; 21 x 2 + 18 x 2 = 78. A simple Energy Drop would place you in the territory of beating the boss on your own [well, as a pair and with Azura dancing for you]. You'd want at least one shield icon to charge up the dual guard gauge beforehand, to block one of the bosses' attacks, that said. Again, this assumes averages, so results might not meet the threshold in practice. Although it also assumes 20/15, so if you're higher, you have more levels or leeway with the RNG. Also, things would become much easier if Izana' staffing worked, and also this is ignoring that you also have other characters who could attack the boss.

Could you exploit the child paralogues (such as withholding the paralogue of a child you aren't planning to use on your team until later in the game so that you face higher level enemies who will give high level promoted EXP) as a way of providing an extra resource for leveling your team? Of course, you'd be giving up their EXP in the short term, but you could get a bunch of high level enemies later on [or perhaps more consistent supplies of promoted enemies after Child Seals start appearing], and then you'd get a bunch of EXP in those stages?

Well, my calculations are that Lancefaire would tend to give you +5.20 physical damage per hit (5% extra for 4 levels plus 5 from the skill) and +4.60 magical damage per hit (-10% magic per level for 4 levels, plus 5 from the skill). However, you'd also lose 4 point of magic (and thus 4 damage) for the 4 levels needed to pick up the skill if in Holy Lancer. You'd also consume a seal to get to the class and then another seal to get back to your ending class. Some of the magical loss can be mitigated by taking some levels (for the first two skills) as a Basara again, but its not a huge deal. As a Basara you'd also GAIN 1 base point of magic during this time. You'd still have to spend at least 2 levels in Holy Lancer (Speed Seal, then Lancefaire). I haven't played yet, so I cannot really comment on if using the seals like that would be a good use of resources. Your magical abilities would drop off for 2-4 levels, although your physical abilities would be improved during that time in compensation. The end result would make you better both magically and physically overall, due to boosting both shock stick and regular lances.

If you're using her for Shockstick, as Shephen suggests, or at least partially using her for that, I suppose that a magic user could also be of use in a pair-up so that they could bequeath a +MAG bonus. EDIT: By the way, are these estimates of Shock Stick performance reasonable? (see spoiler tagged section) Well, I've rambled there quite a while… the point is, Shockstick Falcon Knight, even with a character with a 15% magic growth, could actually do quite a lot of damage and get a bunch of kills thanks to lots of stacking bonuses and Spirit Dusts [2 Dusts, Shockstick Forge, pair-up, Mysterious Appeal, A-rank lances, Prodigy, Tonic, etc.]

If I'm explicitly planning to utilize Matoi in my playthrough, would it be better to save the Spirit Dusts for her and make her the Shocksticker over Hinoka? She has a slightly worse base, given that she starts with 3 magic at level 10 while Hinoka has 4 magic at level 9, but her Prodigy skill would (I would think) tend to grant her +4 extra damage, which would tend to outweigh the difference in bases. The reason this is a practicality question is of course Matoi arrives later than Hinoka does, so Hinoka could potentially be Spirit Dust + Shocksticking earlier than Matoi, but Matoi could be better at it (I think) later on. Basically, it is more practical to save them a bit longer for the more powerful option, or should I make use of their power immediately on a slightly less damaging but more immediate option? I'm likely to make Hinoka or Oboro Matoi's mother, so either way they'd leave her with very similar magic growths and identical magic mods [both to each other and to Hinoka herself]; Hinoka has a 15% personal growth, Matoi has a default 15% personal growth, and Oboro has a 20% personal growth. So there wouldn't be a huge difference.

Not really if you aren't planning to stay as one. Basara and Falcon Warrior have identical (10%) class magic growths. In fairness, Basara does have 1 point higher in base (5 magic vs. 4 magic), but that won't apply once you transfer out of the class. Time spent in Basara would be for the skills (like Breaking Sky), not for increased magic growth [as it isn't increased; its exactly the same].

CLEARLY, they'll come out with the reveal that "Abel" the horse is actually a man who has been bewitched by an evil sorcerer and transformed into a horse, thus explaining why he cares about these things…. Okay, I'm only joking here.

Wouldn't that mean that using fliers (Hinoka, Tsubaki, Yuugiiri, Crimson, Shigure [if unlocked], Matoi [if unlocked], etc.) would become a valuable strategy for that map? Of course, it would depend on whom you trained, but there are a good number of options out there.