Chocoburger

Thanks for the help, Vascela, amiabletemplar, and disjunct.ion. After skimming through half this thread and looking at the various formulae, calculations, etc., I realize now how much nuance there was to my question about a "general" list. It was a bit cheeky of me to ask everyone else to do all the work. I restarted my Hard/Cla run, because I felt xp distribution was done poorly by me, and I wanted to focus more on the pairs we came up with. I'm at Ch. 10 now, and here are my pairings and plans: Chrom@Great Lord x Sumia@DF Lon'qu@SM/Assassin x Cordelia@FK Gregor@Hero/BK x Panne/Cherche@Wyvern Lord Stahl@Paladin x Panne/Cherche@Wyvern Lord Stahl is a filler, here, and he and his partner will be replaced by a pair of whichever kids I manage to pick up without too much hassle. I'm not sure what to do with my avatar. I think he must go magic, since my team is heavily physical right now, and I'm trying to use as many different classes as I can work in for variety anyway. The choices are Lissa, Tharja, or holding out for Lucina, though child pairings may change depending on how many I collect/how convenient it is. This is what I'm thinking about this question: If Avatar x Lucina, then Stahl!Owain x Morgan. If Avatar x Tharja, then Stahl!Owain x Lucina. If Avatar x Lissa, then Owain x Lucina. (Originally, I had planned to marry Lissa and the Avatar, but I didn't like her supports. Since then I've had a love/hate relationship with her as we made the damned arduous journey to get her levels. I'm much more accepting of her now, especially since she gets a cool sage outfit, but I don't absolutely adore her character or anything). I dumped Miriel, because I got bored of her. Actually, I've dumped and brought back a lot of characters. I've been experimenting with everyone, though I must have dropped about 15 or more levels of xp on people I'm not using anymore... oh well. I'm really not sure how much xp there is to work with, so I'm trying not to get too fancy with the class changes. I've no need or intention to put everyone through six different classes, or even going out of my way to make sure Sumia/Cordelia will have passed down galeforce. I don't know how many classes can be gone through reasonably in the time I have left, but Avatar and the kids will get priority from here on out. Thoughts/opinions on where to take the Avatar in terms of marriage? I guess it's personal preference at this point. Also, I've no idea how Ylisse is independent. The only competent military force in the country seems to be Chrom and his elite bodyguard.

Oh, I like those ideas. I've done a bit more reading through the thread, and I had no idea how absolutely flexible and good Gregor lets Laurent be.So, I think these are all good, then: (M)Avatar x Lissa Chrom x Sumia Stahl x Panne Gregor x Miriel Lon'Qu x Cordelia I'm not sure how easy it will be to collect/use children if the only grinding I'm doing is fighting random risen spawns (I'd call it soft grind, if that), but I suppose I might find out. I feel a lot happier now that I have some structure to focus on.

Okayy, no list, got it. I was hoping there might be one to help ease my indecision. For some background, I've +Spd/-Lck and cleared chapter 7 on hard/classic; things have gone incredibly smoothly, even though (M)Avatar has been passed around like the town bicycle and has no high-level supports. I haven't decided if he should be physical, magical, or stay mixed. Here's what I have so far/am thinking of: (M)Avatar x ?? Chrom x Sumia (S) Stahl x Panne Ricken x Miriel Lon'Qu x Cordelia Stahl x Panne ended up together as I didn't know what to do with either. I know Panne can reclass into an impressive wyvern rider, but she's mostly here because Stahl is a bro and needs an attractive friend. Ricken x Miriel came about because I thought Laurent might be one of the children I could reasonably use, and I wasn't sure what he might want besides all the magic. Truthfully, I'm not overly fond of either, but maybe they'll grow on me. If there's a better partner for Miriel/father for Laurent, I'll ditch Ricken without a second thought. Lon'Qu x Cordelia was by chance, but I think the stats she contributes help with his dodging/crits--at least it seemed like it when he was one hit away from death but butchered four wyvern riders in a row during a particularly invigorating enemy phase. None of those three pairs are super committed yet, since they just started working together. Soo.. That leaves the avatar. I don't really want Sully for the Avatar (though I ended up liking her character more than I was expecting) and I don't know what the devil to do with Lissa/Maribelle. I usually bring Lissa and spam heals to try and level her, but I don't know how to get the most out of the two of them. They seem a little lackluster to me. (I've heard Owain is an easy child to grab, which makes Lissa more interesting, but I'm not sure who she should marry or how.) Gods I feel silly discussing this in a thread that's mostly about optimizing for insane maps or challenge runs.

Is there a general list for recommended in-game hard/lunatic pairs? Pairing discussions almost always seem to focus on post-game and heavy grinding. I'm sure I can bumble through fine on my own, even with horrible matches, but I would prefer to have indecisive and bad inclinations mitigated by an idea of what the consensus of much more experienced players is.

Is there ever a reason to take mag/str asset over a speed asset? It seems like the increased odds of doubling will provide far more damage in the long run.

Thanks for the tips, all, I appreciate them—they were quite helpful. This is my first Fire Emblem game, and I am rather enjoying it.

I played this game for a few chapters about a year ago before I got distracted by other things, and I have a few leftover beginner questions. If they've already been covered and there are links handy, feel free to do that if you like, or if there are good "general" guides that aren't walkthroughs or full of spoilers. I made it to chapter 5 or 6 last time before I stopped playing, I think, on Hard/Classic. This time I'll be playing on Hard/Classic again, and I won't be using any DLC, paid or otherwise, for this run. With that in mind, the questions: 1. Should I be concerned about switching around the active char/support in a pair to try and equalize experience gains? It seemed to me that Chrom and Robin quickly and significantly outleveled both their supporting partners and the other pairs. They basically carried everyone else, and were always more than a few levels ahead. I don't recall exactly, but Chrom and Robin were pushing level 10, I believe, their supports were around six, and the rest of the team was five or lower (these numbers may not be exact, or even correct for that point in the game, but I think they are proportionally right). How can I manage experience better? 2. Is there a rough guideline for the number of class changes to make assuming I'm not grinding? I understand it varies based on what level you're planning to make the changes, and whether you just want skills, but I'm kind of afraid of gimping a character by making his internal level too high and ending up in a situation where I need to grind to fix him. I think I'm going to plan around having four pairs. 3. Are there any classes that are better served going it alone? I've heard healers might be better being unpaired, but I don't know for sure, and I think I would be annoyed to have a single unpaired character. As you can see, most of my questions relate to pairing up, but a lot of the information and discussion about the process relates to producing optimal children, which is something I'm not super concerned about for a first playthrough with no post-game ambitions. Thanks for any thoughts on the matter, and I apologize if these are all covered in-depth somewhere else.