EmanEmal

I burned through my 70 dualing swords and this is my best score. Do you guys think I'm doomed is this enough to maybe make it to tier 20?

I don't even like the game letting you customize robin, so no. This is because I believe it makes it more difficult to tell a good story if the writers have to make room for large amounts of customization.

So the main thing about using Donnel is getting him off to a good start. I posted about it before but on the level where you recruit him there are a bunch of archers and you can trap them (so long as they don't have pass) and have donnel stab them to death. Each archer gets him a level because of how many times he has to hit them and it also gets him the weapon exp to reach d rank with spears which lets him equip a javelin which lets him snipe the boss (so long as the boss has his melee axe equipped) Doing all that I got him to level 6 going into chapter 5. From there you just try to make sure to get him a level or two on each map and that involves just knowing what he is effective against (Which generally means things typically that don't kill him instantly so he can finish them off without risking missing and just getting murdered) on chapter five he does well against the dark mages because they can't double him because there so slow and he does kind of ok against the mages and myrmidons on account of them being squishy and him having weapon advantage against the myrmidons and range advantage with his javelin. (the mages can easily kill him though) And at the end of the map when all the reinforcements stop spawning and the waves of wivren riders are all dead there are like 3 enemies just chilling by the event tile at the top of the map and you can easily set it up for him to kill at least like two of them. on chapter six he has the same situation with dark mages but more importantly donnel needs to kill the thieves because he can do it safely with his javelin, reliably because weapon advantage, and they give 50 exp instead of 30. There are thieves everywhere on this map so it makes it a big donnel leveling map, it was defiantly very tricky to do though this map was crazy and defiantly gave me the most trouble out of the early game maps (probably because all of my normal plans for it were just ended by pass and then I had to feed the thieves to donnel on top of that) So this was the hardest part of leveling him. Also I give donnel the skill book I get here to help him hit things more reliably. chapter seven has more thieves and archers which are good for donnel, he needs to kill as many thieves as possible same as on six and around now he should be like level 11-12ish and much less of a liability. things continue in the same way and I try to get him level 15 by chapter 11 and I class change him with the second seal in the chest on the right. Once that happens he becomes very strong and then you don't really have to worry about him. I made him a mercenary into a bow knight so that he would get arms thrift and bows to deal with counter. With all that he can just kind of walk around maps and kill most things on his own in one turn. You don't really need to invest much more into him because he'll just naturally get kills and max his stats before level 20 bow knight and just be solid and useful for the rest of the game. I paired him up with nowi because when nah has aptitude you can just feed her her the vast majority of her map the moment you get access to it and she can instantly become the most powerful unit on the team. I honestly think he is a totally viable and strong. he can solo kill enemies from the moment he cages class to the moment he kills grima (so long as they don't spawn with the agies+ , counter combo) He doesn't need a pair up. he is efficient with weapons and levels. He has a bow, a sword, high health, and high defense, so in basically every situation he is useful. His kid is beyond amazing, which is something I think a lot of people kind of ignore because the future kids are already good but donnel's kid is flat out amazing. So yes Donnel rocks, use Donnel. Also I did a really cool build with vaike where I made him a barbarian into a warrior so that he had zeal, gamble, and wrath. then I gave him all the goddess icons I got and funded a crit forged killer axe with his despoil money, got him the support crit bonus, and used solidarity from the tactician and he could crit at 100% on certain enemies when wrath was active. And then I had him one shot his way through counter and it was supper awesome. (and funny) It should also be easier to set up if you have dark mages because of there -10 avoid aura. Leveling him was supper hard though (sometimes even worse than donnel) and I made sure to feed him all the skill books except the first and I honestly got very lucky with his speed growth. I found the desert sand in level 8 super useful in leveling him. I'm not sure if I recommend him exactly but it defiantly worked out for me and if I tried to use vaike again I would do it the same way. hope this helps.

So I kind of disappeared for like two months ( I've been very busy ) But I'm back and I just completed my lunatic+ run with -no dlc -no spot pass (including renown rewards) -no dark mages -no skirmishes -killed Grima with Donnel and using a full team of people on every map It was a great run, I had lots of fun, am very happy, and now I will go too bed because it is late.

So I reached Donnel's recruitment map and after tweaking my strategy a bit I made it through and I got Donnel to level six. Looking back at the level it would be fairly easy and safe to snag at least level seven probably level eight on a non lunatic+ run. Also, something very strange has happened. I made Robin -strength for the run (With the idea that he would smack people around with magic normally, and then I could kill counter users by hitting them with week bronze sword [or a stick] hits followed up by dual attacks from Crom or Fred.) The thing is though he went and leveled up strength almost every single time, so now at level fourteen I have sixteen strength (That is tied with luck for his highest stat) And so my plan if foiled now but I figure that it is fine. Anyway I figured that that was weird enough to deserve being shared here. (I also was wondering if someone could clarify exactly how much the -stat reduces growths.)

Congratulations Alastor! @Czar_Yoshi That all makes since, but being as stubborn as I am it seems that I'll be doing a challenge run then. And yes, I use so many staffs. Kind of sad about the no dancer thing though.

I'll keep that in mind, it would certainly be a nasty way to mess up an otherwise finished level. Though I'll still make be using him. The team really benefits from aptitude's exp efficiency. and I'll agree with the donnel nah thing, that's what I used in my last run and it was amazing. Good points about counter as well, maybe instead of classing him merc->hero I'll go fighter-->warrior that way he can fight counter with a bow and make better use of his high hp with counter. anyways I started the run! Made it to chapter 2 without to many problems, though vantage+ seems to catch me by surprise more than it should. Crazy luck with robins levels, so far all like 4-6 stats, so he's starting to get quite strong. feeling confident as I am going into chapter 2, but then again it is still chapter 2 so that might change. Also I have a question, if I pair up the male robin with Olivia can I class change the female morgain into a dancer? Because that would be perfect for my plans.

Thanks for the welcome/congratulations everyone! I am making my plans for lunatic+ presently, I'll probably start it later tonight. I'm glad you think so! But I mostly just relied on my super easy Donnel growth plan. There are three archers on the map you get him on (One by the chests and two by the boss) that agro independently of the other units on the map, if you cage them in with your units you can have donned stab them to death risk free and since he has to attack them each like ten times to kill them on lunatic mode he will level up once for each archer and gain enough weapon exp to equip a javelin then you can force the boss to equip his melee axe(Ideally by breaking his ranged one), weaken him, and finish him with Donnel. This gets Donnel to level five without ever even entering the range of an enemy. (I like to break the ranged axe so that if Donnel misses he can still get the kill by attacking again.) With his stat growths four levels takes him from a total liability to a slight one and with a little bit of care, exp priority, a few tonics before fights, and maybe a few more archers and he will catch up to the rest of your party fairly fast. 0% risk 100% repeatable. And then Donnel is awesome (And his aptitude boosted kid is beyond awesome) Also good luck with your run ultmatelifeform!

I have come to announce that I have completed my grind-less run of lunatic mode including all the post chapter 25 bonus maps, with no spot pass items, no renown rewards, no skirmish battles, and no dlc. having discovered these forums yesterday I created this account in celebration of this feet and came here to brag to the people most likely to be impressed by this (Or tell me to come back when I finish it on lunatic +) I am also here to support the +luck cleric avatar meta because it is just the best thing. Also the Donnel meta. (Also hi awesome fire emblem fan peoples.)