soly

To be perfectly frank, I'm tempted to just shoot for no DLC just for less grinding out kid unit stats. It also requires you to be a bit more careful with certain enemy units (other than just longbow spam). In practice I feel that no braves reduces your damage more in the general case, so it's harder to kill mooks, but mooks are pretty easy to demolish for the most part. It does open up some fun options like picking Mjolnir or Mystletainn for 100% Dual Strike runs on certain units; or Laurent's 100% critbuild; or Levin Swords and Bolt Axes to hit through Aegis+ against someone like Thronie. As well as easing some units into higher speed tiers with weapons like Ephraim's Lance which carries +2 Spe bonus. And no more Celica's Gale meta means setup is so. much. easier. Not being locked into Brave weapons opens up some more class variety, too - you'll never see a War Monk otherwise, for example. No DLC means you drop Limit Breaker + Rally Heart + Aggressor, so you're not only doing less damage but need to push harder to make things like speed tiers and survival thresholds, so you have to be more careful. That makes a bunch of difference in setup - maybe you're dropping something that's otherwise important for a skill like Defender, which eases you above a certain threshold. That may make your unit better for someone like Anna, but it also makes you worse against mooks, so there's a tradeoff. In terms of actual challenge, there's not much contest, it's no other DLC. No Brave weapons opens up more variety, but also takes away some tools.

Vaike is one of Severa's Luna dads; Vaike!Severa is a one-trick pony (Axefaire singleproc galegirl) with a very strong trick (high damage Axefaire attacks) and will usually want to be part of a physical Galepair. Gregor!Severa also has Axefaire; his other major selling point is Swordfaire which syncs with Bow Knight and Assassin (as well as Hero, if you do that). Either of these options is a good choice depending on her support; I'm leaning towards Vaike, personally, because he just feels better all around. Kellam nerfs her major selling point (Speed) in exchange for almost nothing; she gains only Luna, Tomefaire and Sage and the speed loss is really bad on Severa, whose greatest natural attribute is her speed. Owain is not particularly amazing as a child; his major options are Ricken, Libra, Henry, and Stahl for physical - Bowfaire is really amazing on physical units for the most part. Plus Kellam if all four above dads are really gone, but that shouldn't happen ever. Because Owain is always fishing for a proc and Brady isn't, for the most part Brady is considered better - he goes for Lon'qu or Virion traditionally to build for speed, while Owain fishes for his proc. Ricken!Severa is... not commonly recommended. It's not strictly a bad pairing. Cordelia has decent offenses but her major selling point is usually her speed. Ricken!Severa is a solid, versatile unit - you have Sage, Dark Flier, Paladin, Sniper, Bow Knight as finishing classes, with the appropriate weaponfaires for the lot, plus Hero if you toss your faire and even Dark Knight if you want to try that (though DF is just better). The problem with versatility is that you can only ever use one set at a time. Stahl!Owain doesn't mind having scattered mods for physical versatility because he's Owain, his mods are always funky. Severa minds quite a bit more and Ricken!Severa's mods aren't the best ever. She'll mostly be worse Chrom!Cynthia. That's not necessarily bad if you like the pairing or your team calls for it, which it might. Needing more female mages is not uncommon - you can switch Lucina and Cynthia, usually, but Kjelle is usually physical, Noire tends to lack Tomefaire, and Nah's... Nah (Nah is good magically, but to be great she wants to try to get Henry, who is high demand). Severa doesn't want to go magic unless she's Virion- or Ricken-fathered. Which both work, and work well, but Ricken!Severa is a bit of a waste of Severa and Virion!Severa is a fast, powerful Sniper. Your best bet is almost always going to be Morgan-F or Avatar-F if you need another caster girl. I hope this has been somehow useful to you. I might be able to offer more help with your full pairings list, as well as listing out any issues you personally have with it and what you want to try to do differently. Also don't forget that 4-6 combat pairs in Apotheosis is generally sufficient, so if two or four kid units aren't really helpful to you, you might get better in-map results by dropping them from your planned Apo team and giving their (high-value, sometimes) fathers to kids you're actually optimising. If you need to spend Henry on Cynthia or Gerome, it makes no sense to give him to Owain if Owain isn't even going to Apotheosis.

So for the most part, no-holds-barred Apotheosis child unit setups can be organised into one of the following three categories: Galegirls. Galegirls (girls with Galeforce, such as Cynthia, Severa, all good Lucinas, and Kjelle and Noire with Avatar, Gaius or Donnel parentage) want their skillset to read Limit Breaker, Galeforce, [weapon]faire, stable Proc (Luna or Vengeance), dualproc or filler. Do not run Vengeance with a second proc. Lucina is an exception and will usually carry Limit Breaker/Galeforce/Dual Strike+/Aether/Luna. (You don't want to stack more than 2 procs as your Lucina currently does, because diminishing returns start to kick in with a vengeance.) Galeboys. Galeboys (boys with Galeforce - Owain, Inigo and Brady) want to carry Limit Breaker, Galeforce, Aggressor, [weapon]faire, stable Proc (Luna or Vengeance). Hard supports. Any unit without Galeforce (for the most part, this is all Laurent, Yarne and Gerome, as well as most Nahs, and any Kjelle and Noire without Avatar, Gaius, or Donnel parentage) will almost always be a hard support unit and permanently in the "pocket" of a galegirl or galeboy. For the most part, these units will want to focus on dealing damage, so look for classes with the most Str and Mag. As to skillset, Limit Breaker, Aggressor, [Weapon]faire, and two filler skills (Strength/Mag/All Stats +2, Dark Mage Aura skills, Hit+20, Prescience) is the usual fare. Some unit setups don't fit any of these three categories but work very well anyway (Lancebreaker sets, Vaike!Noire, Stahl!Nah, and Henry!Nah are some that stand out in my mind. Also the Vantage/Vengeance crew which you don't want to be using). Not many of your units are really optimised in terms of parentage. Some are, but many are not. That's not an issue unless you want to do Apotheosis Secret Route challenge runs (without DLC or without Rally, for example). You do have a few standout units, though, and I'm going to call them out as the "core members" of your army that will be taking on the more challenging enemies. Lucina is almost always exceptional. Avatar!Lucina isn't much better than Sumia!Lucina, but she is better. I'd be interested to know your Asset/Flaw. For the most part, +Spe/-Def is considered the best in Apotheosis, but you should be able to get by with just about anything that isn't stupid. Henry!Inigo is a pretty versatile physical unit with Hero, Warrior and Assassin, but struggles a bit as a caster due to lacking the Sage class, so I hope you're not carrying -Str on Lucina. Strongly consider picking Warrior on Inigo, it's a very powerful class. Gaius!Cynthia is traditionally considered terrible because she's taking up a valuable dad (Gaius) who can be used to pass Pegasus Knight (and therefore Galeforce) to Kjelle or Noire (Nah sucks at leading). Since you already have her locked, though, she's a fantastic unit who will be pulling triple duty as a combat caster. Gaius!Cynthia is just about the fastest unit in your army and you're going to want to put her in Sage with the skillset Limit Breaker/Galeforce/Luna/Astra/(All Stats +2 if you have the DLC, Speed +2 if not). Reason for this - backed by Speed+2 (or All Stats+2), she edges past the highest speed benchmark in Apotheosis: 75 Speed. That lets her double attack the fastest and most threatening enemies in the game (Wave 2 Sniper Boss, the Wave 5 Sniper Boss Clone, and Wave 5 overall boss) potentially allowing her to bring them down in one round of combat. Libra!Gerome is a competent caster, so shift him to Sage. Lon'qu!Severa is considered the best Severa there is. I'm not a fan personally, but there you go. Her best class is considered Wyvern Lord, but Fred!Owain isn't really able to pull off a particularly competent Berserker. Instead, you want to go Hero + Warrior; LQ!Sev in Hero doesn't need the extra speed from Berserker and prefers the accuracy of Warrior. You can just follow the Galegirl formula I outlined at the start of the post, but I'm inclined to say Lancebreaker here. The point of the Lancebreaker build is to knock certain lance enemies to 0 hit (including the Wave 5 overall boss, as well as the Soldiers in wave 4. Check to make sure your enemies don't have the Hawkeye skill before attacking them!), letting Severa attack them with impunity. Equip an Axe and the skills Limit Breaker/Galeforce/Vengeance/Lancebreaker/(Avoid+10, Speed+2 or All Stats +2). I've never used Lancebreaker no-holds before, so I'm not sure if you require Avoid+10. If not, then packing All Stats +2 lets you hit the abovementioned 75 Speed. Those are you major "high notes". For the most part, you want to be carrying 4-6 combat pairs (so the three I outlined above, plus Chrobin, probably plus Morgan, and maybe Noire as your Sniper). Bring Olivia, bring two Rally Bots (it's fine and even preferred to be using DLC or Spotpass characters like Alm and Eirika. There are ten Rally skills in the game, one for each of the seven stats, plus Mov, Heart and Spectrum. Dump Rally Str on Alm, Rally Heart/Res/Speed/Mov on Eirika, and distribute the rest of the skills however. Don't forget that you can transfer them to future saves via Logbook!). The rest of your units should be playing Staff Support - Fortify, Rescue, Recover, Physic, Catharsis. Your basic strategy in Apotheosis is massive player phase offense. Engage the enemies on your turn, kill as many as possible, then use your Rescue Bots to drag your units out of combat range so that they're not attacked or swarmed. Repeat next turn until you win. Snipers are considered very strong on Apotheosis because their Longbows can't be counterattacked. You need to watch out for important enemies, too. Wave 2 sniper boss is guaranteed to double with his Brave Bow and ORKOes every unit in the game, but can be ORKOed back by a powerful, fast magic user (Gaius!Cynthia), or surrounded, since he doesn't have Pass. Don't let him attack you. Wave 3 sorceror boss has 99 Luck Miracle and Nosferatu, so he's a pain to bring down, and Luna+ means he does a lot back to you. Dual Strikes or Snipers will make him regret his life choices. Wave 3 paladin does a ton of damage and has Aether + Ragnell. Tread carefully around him. Wave 4 boss is pretty fast, takes a lot of damage and does a lot back. Don't let him double your units and kill his staff support sages first. Speaking of which, those Sages are really dangerous due to Celica's Gale tomes and Luna+. Wave 5 boss... kill with Lancebreaker Severa. Watch out for the minibosses - you'll see two of the w4 boss, two of the w3 boss, and the w2 boss again.

very nice, it sounds like you had a lot of fun this game! The reason people rag on Chrom/Sully is not because it's a bad pairing in the way you're using it - Chrom/Sully is an amazing option if you're only playing through the maingame and going up to Grima, since Sully's a great combat unit and passes stellar stats to Lucina (and Kjelle gets Chrom's Aether to tear through enemies). The problem is that in the postgame when you're doing challenge maps or just plain seeing how broken you can get, Lucina and Kjelle don't inherit Galeforce access from a pegasus mother, severely limiting what they can do. (Aside from lacking Galeforce, their stats and class access set is pretty solid, offering Swordfaire, Bowfaire, Luna, Astra, Aether; plus Sniper, Paladin, Bow Knight, and Assassin as finishers, and 1 Str/0 Mag/4 Skl/4 Spe.) Aside from that, I think it's custom to summon Spotpass teams if you need to buy items at a blocked shop in a no-grind run.

Ricken!Owain still has -2 Str, so I still don't like anything on him that isn't a primarily magical class. If the turn ends on Noire, then the next turn begins on Noire and paladin Owain can't go charging around. Paladin Owains want Stahl, anyway. I mean, I can kind of see how Sniper x Paladin works, I just don't know if I'd recommend it; I don't feel like it's playing to the full strengths of the Sniper class. Sniper/Hero is a very high Skl pair that can aim for 100% dual strikes; taking a Berserker or Sage offers powerful Dual Strikes. Paladin still does what Paladin does best - giving strong pair-up bonuses (but not as strong as the Berserker) while being a high mobility class with solid physical stats. Ugh. Put like that, it's hard not to say "Need a physical Galepair? Paladin one of them!" Maybe I'm being biased.

If Inigo is running a hard support set (Limit/Aggressor/Axefaire/Hex/Anathema) then he's fine and Berserker is the best physical hard support class due to very high Str and advantageous stat passes. The problem here is that he's wasting Galeboy potential. If he wants to Galeforce lead then Berserker suddenly starts getting dragged down by a bunch of issues related to its low Skl cap - low proc rate, accuracy issues, and a ~3% dual strike rate penalty (the low proc rate doesn't matter as a hard support, and not carrying Galeforce + proc means he can bring +hit skills). You can work around them if you really want to, but for the most part Berserker isn't used as a lead.

Very good catch on Robin x Brady, @Bane. I often take the Robin pair to be relatively inviolable because it's often player preference and didn't even think about shifting RObin to pair off with someone else. Completely agree, inheriting Brady's +Spe is much more valuable for Morgan than Owain's +Mag. Yeah, I can confirm Bane loves to do Brady @ Dark Knight for the horsie mobility. I'm not a fan, personally; I think that Brady's ability to inherit +Spe means he's really too good as a Sage with a pocket Dark Flier or Valkyrie (requires LQ!Brady). You're correct in that Virion!Brady @ Sage with a Dark Flier pocket hits 75 speed exactly, which is why Virion and LQ are Brady's recommended fathers. IMO Owain makes a better Dark Knight, he doesn't care about the speed drop, has more Mag to work with Dark Knight's lower Mag cap (compared to Sage) and satisfies his Sword Hand. (Unfortunately Stahl!Owain does not have access to the class.) When I said bring Chrom as a "lone support" I meant leave his wife at home and cart him around as a supply bot; you always want S-rank support pairs. (The supply bot thing is most common with Olivia marriages, except that Olivia comes along to dance instead of staying at home. The thing is, though, Chrom is a really good combat unit, both as a lead due to Aether + Luna and as a support due to Dual Strike+ which is why I don't really like Olivia x Chrom.) Chrom's other option with Sumia is Sniper x Sage, by the way. Bane favours Bow Knight which is still exceptional, giving Sumia 75 Speed. But for me the punching power of Sniper Chrom is always the way to go. (I may be biased because I do Chrom x Maribelle and Mari doesn't lead nearly as well as Sumia does, so Bow Knight is worse on her.) Kjelle usually never wants to be Dark Flier due to -1 Mag modifier and no Tomefaire. If he's pairing with Kjelle, Inigo should prepare to be always physical unless Kjelle is picking Bride (All Stats +2 Inigo @ Sage can still do 75 Speed with a Bride). Berserker almost never wants to lead; lead Berserker needs to fix 35 Skl, which forces him to carry Luna for high proc rate, and his girlfriend to carry Anathema/Hex/Dual Support+ for increasing his hit rate since he doesn't have room for it (Limit/Aggressor/Axefaire/Vengeance/Galeforce); it's doable, but a little niche and Berserker lead sucks if you do anything else. If you're talking about hard support berserker Inigo, that's a lot better, though with the caveat that he's dropping Galeforce. Dark Knight might be a thing on Owain, but Owain @ Dark Knight has 36 Str and 46 Mag. As a Dread Fighter he's 40 Str/43 Mag. Up to you. I like the idea of Dark Knight, though. Regarding Owain, Inigo, and Kjelle, it's a good observation that Owain is more accurate due to archer access. But you do lose power; Ricken!Owain's Str mod is -2 which honestly feels very bad to use, he's weaker than an enemy Berserker mook. Libra!Inigo at least has that +1. More importantly, though, are the knock-on effects on Kjelle. Inigo has good physical sets (Hero, Assassin, Bow Knight, Warrior) to work with physical Kjelle as a double Galepair with complementary stats, and he can still Sage x Bride. Ricken!Owain should basically never be going physical because of his pretty bad Str, but Kjelle is always physical, so you're locking them to Sage x Bride. 7.5 support unit accuracy on a set Kjelle probably won't ever use isn't really worth it. ----, I need to up my game. Operation Robin x Anna is a go.

Pairing overview: Possible changes: (You're in the realm of small tweaks already and can do nearly anything within reason.) Other questions: On mixed pairs:

If it was stated by Chrobin and Co. that Validar died, then there's an unreliable narrator issue. But yeah, I'm not certain either. Could be that travelling through Naga's portal weakened Grima, because he's like the anti-Naga. Or something. Grima can kill himself (Source: also Future Past). Like, literally, not just via Robin shenanigans.

Aside from that, Grima's backstory is partially explained in FE: Echoes. I think.

Okay, see, here's the problem. (1) Lunatic+. Apotheosis doesn't scale with difficulty. Grinding your stats for it on Luna+ is just annoying. (2) What do you mean, skills that make sense for their personalities? That literally doesn't mean anything. (3) Apotheosis has a 20 unit limit. You're not bringing the parent units in, so we don't care about them beyond knowing which kids have which parents. Exception: Chrom, his wife, Olivia for Dancer utility, and sometimes Robin's partner if 1st gen. More general advice: In Apo it helps to have combat support backing your actual combat units. That means of your 20 unit spots, you won't be bringing 20 combat units that fight the enemies in Apo. Usually 4-6 combat pairs is a good number (8-12 units), leaving the rest for Rally users, Olivia, and staffbots for healing and Rescue mobility. Unlike the rest of the game ever (Awakening is the poster child for Enemy Phase defensive play), Apotheosis is a very player-phase offensive map. Your goal is to hit as hard as possible, as fast as possible, and get out without drawing fire. You can go without being attacked on enemy phase at all. Obviously this isn't the only possible strategy (Enemy luring and specialty Vantage/Vengeance setups are things that exist). But the most straightforwards strategy is to cram your units with heavy player-phase offense setups and use your staffbots to Rescue them out of trouble if necessary. Additionally, effectively infinite prep time means you can afford to walk in with the best equipment. That means forged Brave weapons for everyone and forged Celica's Gale for the spellcasters. Dark Magic is basically not even a footnote in this map - some specialty strategies use it, but by and large it's not a thing. As such, favoured classes in Apo have a heavy focus on combat damage - Sages and Dark Fliers for your spellcasters; Wyvern Lord, Hero, Paladin, Sniper, on the fighters; Berserkers and Sages as hard supports. I haven't listed every useful class, but I think I've hit the high notes. There are middling notes like Bow Knight and Warrior, I'm not gonna bother thinking of all of them. Assassin is a very fast specialty class. Certain classes are disadvantaged and not commonly seen in Apo. Falcon Knight is used for staff utility and never as a combat class. War Monk has pretty much zero reason to be used. Swordmaster is never seen due to Assassin being flat-out better in basically every way. Low Str and Mag doom the Trickster. Taguel is irredeemable in every way. Manakete loses brave weapon access and bulk doesn't matter in Apo, so it sucks too (also competing with Sniper as a physical Aegis-hitting means it has no use either). Dark magic isn't useful in Apo, so Sorceror's major selling point over Sage stops mattering and its lower stat caps start becoming a big deal. In Apo, character skills will usually be set up as follows: Galegirl (eg. Sumia!Lucina): Limit Breaker; Galeforce; weaponfaire; stable proc (Luna or Vengeance); procstack (only if Luna; stack Aether, Astra or Ignis) or other filler (eg. Anathema, Deliverer) Galeboy (eg. Lon'qu!Brady): Limit Breaker; Galeforce; Aggressor; weaponfaire; stable proc (Luna or Vengeance) Hard support (eg. Henry!Gerome): Limit Breaker; Aggressor (if male); weaponfaire; two filler skills (three filler if female hard support) (+hit skills like Hit+20/Prescience on Berserkers, Dark Mage auras, All Stats +2). Hard supports basically always want to marry a unit with Galeforce (so pairing Nah with Yarne is usually a bad idea). Staffbot (eg. Spotpass Nanna): Healtouch, weaponfaire (Lancefaire Falcon Knight with Shockstick or Tomefaire Valkyrie), whatever filler (Charm, Anathema, Acrobat on Valkyries, Mov+1). Skills you want to ignore are... pretty much everything I didn't list, but here are the notable ones. Sol is worthless because your damage is relatively low so your healing will be lower, and you have Fortify staffbots to heal you anyway. Renewal is worthless for the same reason. Counter and Lethality are worthless because every enemy has Dragonskin. Armsthrift is unimportant because you have infinite prep time to forge massive numbers of Brave weapons. Pavise, Aegis, and Dual Guard+ are worthless because you have staffbots to heal you to full HP after every battle, so they don't matter if they trigger... and if they do matter when they trigger and save a unit's life, it's because you screwed up and left that unit in danger of death. Here is the post with my recommended parentage for kid units - I should have listed basically all the Apotheosis-viable parents for every child unit. Think I got them all. It just links to page 314 of this thread.

Let me confirm this for you. It is true. In Apo, you usually don't want to field too many combat pairings, because it takes away from your support unit structure (rescue staves and rally bots). 4-6 combat pairs (8-12 units) is a good range. If Apo is your only goal then don't feel bad about letting Nah and Laurent warm the bench. I'm only saying that if you ever want to switch up your team for fun, or use a different kid setup, or do other maps, then Nah and Laurent will appreciate being part of a pair with Galeforce. Notably, also, you can always build Nah and Laurent as staffbots. They won't be as good at it as spotpass units, but they'll be fine. Inigo and Nah's support chain is horrendous, which is actually one reason I don't normally recommend Vaike!Nah. Lon'qu!Severa!Morgan has 4 Str/0 Mag/10 Skl/6 Spe; I feel like she shouldn't be in a magic-focused class like Dark Flier. A powerful physical class like Wyvern Lord or Sniper, instead, might be called for. Carry dual procs (Luna, plus Astra or Ignis) to take advantage of your incredible Skl mod. Sniper is one of Sumia!Lucina's best sets - she prefers pocket Berserker to pocket Sage, but it's not like Gregor!Laurent (and Henry!Gerome, too!) can't do both sets. If you like Great Lord, though (and it is a very cool class) it's honestly fine to do that. If you're concerned about not having enough Snipers, you can do Sniper Morgan, but neither is Sniper a necessary class, just a good one. In general though, Bane is right; we're more or less in the land of minor tweaks now so do whatever makes you happy. If it means Great Lord Lucina, well, Great Lord is cool. One thing I'm curious about - why +Skl Asset? It's not a bad choice, just that it mostly gets chosen when you have something specific you want to do with the +2 Skl (like reaching for 100% Dual Strike without Dual Strike+).

Firstly, it's worth noting that going in no-holds barred, with all DLC skills, Brave weapons, and Rally skills, will make Apotheosis a lot easier for you. Enough that most pairings and setups will be able to clear the map with only a minimum of difficulty. With that said, here are your general notes: First, don't worry much about 94-97% dual Strike rates. You have to push really, really hard to hit 100% without Dual Strike+. On 75 Speed: On Snipers: On Luna, Vengeance, and Severa: As for your pairings, you don't have any pairings which are actually bad, so yay for that. General details:

If using Virion is desired, you can do Virion!Yarne which is effectively the same as Stahl!Yarne, then do Stahl!Inigo, which is effectively a straight upgrade to Fred!Inigo in Apo (but without Griffon Rider). Or you can give Virion to Severa, but it sounds like you want a change for her; or Brady, who doesn't really mind losing 1 point of speed.

Regarding Owain and his girlfriend: One thing you always need to be aware of is that Apotheosis is nothing like the rest of the game; what is good and what works in Apo is nothing like what works elsewhere. Which is why you see Snipers getting recommended in Apo while Sorcerors are one of the lesser classes - Dark Magic doesn't bring that much to the table in Apo; at most you see niche Gregor! or Lon'qu!Laurent critbuilds. In regular Awakening, Enemy Phase combat is super important, which is why Sol Nosferatu Pavise Aegis were popular when the game came out. In Apo, if two enemies attack one of your units in Enemy Phase, they're probably dead. Staffbots (or just Staff Users in general) are important. Fortify is Fortify, but the big winner here is Rescue, which lets you traverse the map much more quickly and crunch a lot of time. More importantly, if you attack and fail to get a kill and are in danger of getting swarmed by the enemy, Rescue lets you pull out of danger and try again next turn. This is why people have recommended bringing only 4-6 combat pairs to Apo (8-12 attackers) and filling the rest with staffbots and rallybots. Bring too many fighters, and some of them will be stuck moving around doing nothing. Combat pairs including a Sage or Valkyrie (or Bride) can pull double duty as fighters and healers.

if you're doing a normal, casual playthrough (as in, up to Grima) then honestly, it doesn't matter much, but Cynthia's inherited base stats from Sumia are better than Inigo's from Olivia, and her paralogue is easier, so that's probably better. if you're going up to Apotheosis in a casual sort of everything allowed way, both Lucina mothers still work. Chrom is still a good parent for Inigo, but he has a huge list of other good parents, while Cynthia's list is pretty much limited to Henry (Gaius is good too but you're usually better off giving Gaius to Kjelle or Noire).

@ZantaRay So I did a little bit more thinking about this Double Galepair thing. Basically, in Apotheosis, enemies tend to (but do not always) spawn in groups of 5 in an x-shape; think of the four corners of a tic-tac-toe board, plus the centre. As such, if one member of a double galepair (two S-support units, both with Galeforce) can attack at 2-range, and the other can attack at 1-range, it should be possible to position them in such a way that they are always adjacent to each other when attacking, so long as they are so positioned at the start of their turn. What that means is that one of the pair ('b', in the example given) has to be rescued precisely to their first location. An example of such exact positioning is as follows, though clearly the pair should be able to target any four units in the group: Wave 0 generals, plus Invincisorc spawns in wave 3 and 5 have slightly different positioning, but the double galepair will still be able to hit all 3 invincisorcs (or any 4 of 5 generals). And even if one unit fails to kill their target (at any point in the gale-chain), the other can still position themselves adjacent to their partner to get their other attacks off. So don't double galepair two units locked to 1-range (eg. 2 heroes, or Hero and Wyvern Lord). Sniper + melee is fine, any unit with range 1 and 2 (eg. Assassin, Warrior, Bow Knight, Tome users) can pair with either 1 range or 2 range units, but give the versatile-range unit the weaponfaire complementary to their partner (so if it's Assassin x Wyvern Lord, use Bowfaire (2 range) Assassin to complement the 1-range Wyvern Lord). You'll want to follow that train of thought to its conclusion for Snipers, because Range 3 can mess up what I just told you. I'd suggest Sniper x Caster; when the Longbow is called for, the caster can go to 2-range, but if the Brave Bow is in play, the caster can go to 1 range. And logbook boots Falcoknight your staffbots so that you have good Rescue positioning. EDIT. Guess what I just realised. Since there are no pair-ups, the value of combat proc skills (Aether, Astra, Luna, Vengeance) just increased. The traditional "hard support" units are (quite clearly) perfectly capable of "leading" in a no pair-up run; one might even say better (though of course this is debatable) as they don't have the skill slot requirement of running Galeforce (or you can drop Galeforce from a Galeboy). That might add Gerome, Yarne, and Nah (but not Laurent, who has natural Vengeance) to the list of proc-seeking kids (Owain and Inigo). Stable proc dads, if you will recall, include Stahl, Fred, Kellam, and Ricken (Luna); and Libra and Henry (Vengeance). Conversely, since you're still moving twice the number of units around with Rescue and Rally, the utility of Galeforce also goes up - so that the units you do have can move around more. The more I think about this, the more interesting it gets.

Oh yeah definitely start out with DLC. Agreed. This is a doozy of a challenge run, you won't get it if it's your first Apo run. Play the map a few times without restrictions first, or with easier restrictions. Then give it a shot with DLC, but without Pair-Up, because dropping Pair Up changes things like positioning, Rescue, and Rally. Then, when you're more confident with the map, try it. Unless you know, like, exactly why you want to do VV, I wouldn't recommend it. Even if you do know, I wouldn't recommend it anyway. Especially for this run, I don't think it's a good idea. What you're suggesting is a double VV pair. VV alone requires Vantage (Myrmidon), Vengeance (Dark Mage line), and (usually it's said) Tomefaire Sage (Cleric/Mage line). Setting aside Avatar and Morgan, the boys who can pull off VV are Libra!Inigo, Libra! or Henry!Owain, and Laurent with Myrmidon. The girls who can pull this off... Libra!Kjelle. Don't forget that VV requires you to kill the attacker before you're counterattacked, which may be hard in the extreme challenge setup you're proposing. If you don't get Dual Strikes, this is nearly impossible. Gregor!Laurent and Lon'qu!Laurent can just about do it with a dedicated critbuild, but that requires marrying an Avatar-fathered daughter for Solidarity and losing +Skl from pair up basically stops its reliability in its tracks. On to Lancebreaker. This page is important. The SF skills list is handy for a list of skills which affect Avoid (Ctrl+F Avoid, and don't forget Dual Support+). The purpose of the Lancebreaker set is (primarily) to deal with Anna by dropping her displayed hit rate into the single digit range (or outright zero it). This is pretty important in challenge runs where one can't afford to invest in enough speed to prevent Anna from doubling (66 Spe). A proc or procstack, if one can afford to carry it, is also good for turn crunching. Anna's displayed Hit is 232. What you want to do is to look for a unit/build (including combat partner) which can drop Anna's displayed hit to very low numbers, plus carry a proc to increase one's own damage. Luna is a good pick because if your Avoid fails you don't die instantly (as opposed to Vengeance) and you can step into melee range without dying to Counter, but sometimes you don't have a choice but to pick Vengeance. Aether/Luna procstack is probably the best but requires Lucina! or Chrom!Cynthia!Morgan-F (or Avatar!Lucina, Sully!Lucina, or Chrom!Kjelle. Don't do the latter two). Lancebreaker is required for the first step; you may need to pad out your skills list with other Avoid boosters like Avoid+10, Tantivy, Slow Burn (Slow Burn turns off at turn 16 so it's worthless), and adjacent units with Charm, Dual Support+ as well. It's most commonly seen on Severa, whose flagship builds already involve the Wyvern line. Obviously Morgan can do it; Kjelle probably has a good shot at it, too, with natural Avoid+10 and Lancebreaker. Aside from that, I've toyed with the idea of Lon'qu!Laurent, Henry!Gerome and Fred!Inigo, though all three units will require heavy support in the form of Troubadour-access girlfriends with Demoiselle and Dual Support+. You might find that your Lancebreaker is a highly specialised unit with a pretty deadweight skillset. Severa, Morgan, Kjelle probably won't be, but Laurent and Gerome might be; thankfully they're Hard Supports which can better afford the skill space (or turn them into staffbots). Inigo might not be, but Inigo's girlfriend might. What I did was set up an excel table that let me put in the unit's Speed and Luck stats, plus the bonuses accrued from their 5 skills and their SO's 5 skills (and possible WTA), and it would spit out the unit's Avoid rating.

No pair-up, no DLC Apo run? Very interesting, I've never seen a no-pair up run suggested. It's almost definitely doable. But it'll be hellish to actually do. It's going to be analogous to no DLC/no Rally, which is pretty tough already. Dropping Pair-Up means, first of all, you lose +3 to all stats, as well as +8 in key stats (eg. Hero/Berserker/Dark Flier's +Spe to their partner), up to a massive +10 to Str (Berserker pair-up). Secondly, when you split your units, you lose automatic Dual Strike, which means that you have to position your units with absolute precision next to each other to get the dual strike benefit. That basically immediately removes the utility of Double Galeforce pairs: they're going to struggle to position to Dual Strike with all four (split) attacks (though I think it's still doable if you have 1-2 range). Thirdly, by effectively doubling your combat unit body count, you double the burden on your rescue bots and rally bots. The rally bots will probably no longer be able to get all your units at once. The rescue bots will need to rescue twice the number of units. Which means you want to carry more of both Rally and Rescue bots, which in turn reduces your combat unit count. That could be very troublesome in Waves 4 and 5 when you need to crunch turns to clear the map. And if you choose to give up Rally Def/Rally Res, then some of your units might start dropping below the 30 Def benchmark needed for general survival. Also, you lose the ability to run low unit Vantage/Vengeance strategies because your support/dual strike partner is targetable by enemies, so you need to find an alternative low-unit strategy setup. Add to that the fact that you're dropping DLCs as well, which means -10 to all stats from Limit Breaker, -10 Atk to male units from aggressor, -2 more to all stats from Rally Heart, and you have a very scary challenge run. Is it doable? Almost definitely. If I were you, though, I'd try the no pair-up restriction in an environment with DLC skills and Rallies first (and if you haven't done Apotheosis yet, do it a few times without restrictions to learn the map layout, enemy spawns, and key enemies like Thronie and NS). Figure out Rescue strategies and proper positioning for no pair-up setups. Think about how many combat units you can run, given Rally and Staff support - you might be looking at 3-4 main combat pairs, instead of the usually recommended 4-6. If you do so, you might need to setup a second save file with different kid pairings when you attempt no pair-up/no DLC. More general information follows. On 2nd gen versus 3rd gen Morgan, and non-Morgan benefit from Avatar parentage: On Aether access for Morgan; included is a rough "Good Morgan Parent" list: On speed benchmarks and sources of +Speed: Check about 6 posts up for a list of which kids want what from their parents, and which parents give that to the respective kid. Bear in mind that no DLC/no Pair Up qualifies as an "extreme challenge run" so stay away from Fred and Kellam for Inigo. Strongly consider Lon'qu!Severa for her Lancebreaker set (or use another Lancebreaker unit; Morgan can do it). Lancebreaker sets are basically the only reliable way to take on Anna in extreme challenge runs, or you get doubled and die.

Severa out of the box has Lancefaire but no really good lance classes; Hero but no Swordfaire or Axefaire; plus a stable proc (Vengeance). You want to remedy either of the first two, or give her something like Sniper. Gregor passes her both Swordfaire and Axefaire for her Hero set, and a nice Str mod. He's not the best Severa dad (LQ and Virion are supposed to be the best), but he works. Probably above the halfway mark for Severa dads. Traditionally, Nah doesn't want Donnel genes. People look at Donnel, see Pegasus, and think "Galeforce inheritance". They look at Donnel!Nah and think "very slow, no stable procs, not a good lead, better to do Gaius!Noire and Donnel!Kjelle and let Nah do what she does best, which is Hard Support." This is more or less true. But Donnel!Nah also has Tomefaire and Dark Flier. If you have a magical Galeboy (eg. Brady) who wants a magical girlfriend with +Spe and Cynthia's not available, Donnel!Nah will serve decently as a hard support or as a soft lead (she still has +1 Mag). Henry would be a better pick - Henry offers positive Mag, Valkyrie, and apparently an interesting critstacking set - but, in my opinion, Donnel is not a trash option. This is an opinion. Feel free to disagree vehemently. Regarding Cynthia, I said I'd be covering most of the decent options, not that I'd be rating all of them as better or worse. I believe I wrote for Cynthia: "Wants to exist > doesn't want Fred." Which is still true, though not specific (Chrom > Henry > Gaius > Fred would be more specific). Spending Gaius on Cynthia is a massive waste of Pegasus inheritance, but if you close your eyes to the opportunity cost and just look at Gaius!Cynthia herself, you'll notice that she has Astra/Luna procstacking. +6 Spe mod gives her 48 Spe Dark Flier, which is fast enough to take All Stats +2 (or Speed +2) and hit the highest speed benchmark (75 Spe) with a Sage support. It's a pretty impressive waste of Peg inheritance, yes, so I'd never actually recommend it, but if you actually like Gaius!Cynthia for some reason, she's not actually a bad unit. And you can do Donnel!Kjelle and non-Galeforce Noire so it's... not perfect, but it can be done if you want. To cover Morgan's options in detail requires a lot of space. I should think "Good mods, and if you can swing it, get Aether from Galeforce Lucina or Chrom!Cynthia" is accurate enough. Though if I were writing it now, I'd include "Partner should be combat-competent to complement Avatar", which would rule out Ricken!Noire, for example, as neither Noire nor Avatar-M will have Galeforce. Standout picks include Virion!Yarne, Lon'qu!Severa, and Lon'qu!Laurent, as well as Galeforce-Aether mothers. Kellam and Fred are usually rated as the game's worst dads. That does not necessarily always condemn them to the bench. Fred is popular for an almost zero opportunity cost high-quality dad for Inigo. If Yarne's missing all of his +Hit dads, Fred can step in for +2 Str and +2 Skl. Noire can apparently take him for some weirdbuild I don't know the exact details of. And Cynthia prefers Fred to nonexistence. As for Kellam, Inigo can take him as a Luna dad with both physical and magic sets (notably gaining Sage). Laurent doesn't care about the speed drop, gets his Str patched out to neutral for Nerdzerker sets, and doesn't lose Mag for Sage, so if Laurent's first-string dads aren't on the table any more, he can afford to settle. Noire inherits Tomefaire if she's going magical hard support and, again, doesn't lose Mag. While I would never recommend Kellam and Fred as first-string dads (and definitely advise against them in challenge runs), they do have their uses; it's hasty to condemn them immediately to the bench. Kjelle's initial class set is very impressive for a lead unit - out of the box, she has Paladin, Wyvern Lord, and Assassin as finishing classes (and even General, though it's probably outclassed by Wyvern in this scenario), plus Swordfaire, Astra, Luna, and Deliverer on the skills side. There is absolutely nothing any dad can offer her that trumps Pegasus Knight inheritance, which offers Lancefaire for her Paladin, General and Wyvern, plus Galeforce. As well, she has naturally low Str and Mag, inheriting -1/-1 from Sully, and a strong Spe rating which is wasted in a support position. Basically, not getting Galeforce is pretty detrimental to Kjelle. In contrast, Noire's natural class set includes Sniper, Luna, and Vengeance. That qualifies her to lead even without Galeforce, which means that not getting it isn't really the end of the world. She still has General (highest str female physical class). Inheriting 0/3 Str/Mag from Tharja means she can pull off a damage hard support set, even a physical one, better than Kjelle's -1/-1. Vaike!Noire is a very potent Sniper, or Libra or Ricken!Noire have high damage support Sage sets to back someone like Owain. Basically, the options Kjelle already have complement Pegasus inheritance very well, while Noire's options are a little more versatile.

The first question is always, what are you optimising for? The usual assumption in this thread is "Apotheosis" unless there's reason to think otherwise, which I believe there is. So if you're just going through the main game up to final boss (chapter 25) it shouldn't matter much, though there's a rough "kid tier list" which tells you which kids are better for maingame clearing. No surprises, Morgan is right at the top. Interesting and fun are subjective, which can make them hard to discuss. Likewise support quality and hair colours. if you are going up to apotheosis, then here is a general overview of what kid units want from their dads (plus Lucina's mother and Morgan's non-Avatar parent). Exceptions always exist. There are always better options and worse options between parents, and I'm not going into too much detail on which parents are better or worse for each kid.

Only risen skirmishes in Lunatic and L+ scale with your highest-leveled unit. Awakening child paralogues scale with respect to when you recruit the child's fixed parent. Sully shows up in chapter 1, so her child's paralogue (Kjelle's) map is on the easier side with generally level 20 unpromoted enemies and a number of promoted ones at level... 3-ish. Probably with Steel weapons, if I remember the map correctly. (This actually puts the map enemies at around the equivalent of the Mila Tree chapter in-game, which is I think Ch16.) The only paralogues with weaker enemies are Morgan's and Owain's, and even then the enemies are roughly the same level 20 unpromoted and level 3 promoted ones, just with more of the former and less of the latter. Noire's mother, on the other hand, is Tharja, who shows up at chapter 10, the third-last fixed parent you recruit. The enemies in Noire's paralogue are therefore on another level compared to those in Kjelle's, even setting aside the foibles of the map (lots of fliers and horsies) Part of the issue is probably that you're using only Generals. Tharja isn't exactly an exemplary example of a General, she's not a great example even of a Dark Mage. But you're also trying to do a (relatively) tactically challenging paralogue with a lot of hyper-mobile, aggressive, probably flying enemies that are higher leveled than you are. Even with a pretty balanced team, this paralogue is going to be challenging if you're doing it fresh out of recruiting Lucina (or even a couple chapters after). Maybe go do chapter 14, 15, and 16 first, then revisit Noire's paralogue.

If on normal mode, just move him down as far as you can on turn 1, and wipe the Barbarian and Dark Mage on the same turn. That should let you rendezvous with him easily If you're on hard mode: Try to kill the Myrmidon on turn 1, it opens up a tile or two of safe space that Ricken and Maribelle can sit it. If you can get the Barb to low HP as well, you can kill him with Ricken as the Dark Mage won't target him on EP turn 1. On turn 2 there'll be a Myrm, some axe guy, and a Mage coming in from the left, and a Wyvern Rider coming in from the top that sits 2 tiles into a cliff (you can't melee this one). The Dark Mage from the previous turn will probably still be alive, and there's a second Wyvern in the top left that comes for you, too, but the skirmish area is on the border of his range. Here I usually drop all semblance of formation and send Avatar/Miriel deep to kill the Wyvern Rider, if they can double him, and try to wipe as many of the trio from the left as possible, plus the Dark Mage. Prioritise the Myrm so that he doesn't double any of your vulnerable units (Ricken). After turn 2 the level eases up a lot. If you decide to turtle, this centre fort is a good place to do it, no reinforcements spawn from there, nor can anything reach you from their spawn points. If you're on Lunatic or L+ I can't help you, sorry.

Can confirm that at least one map exists which disables Rescue - Ch23 before the purple barrier breaks. I think I read 5 Anna Firefight does, too, but can't confirm. Can also confirm that all weapon ranks go up to A in Awakening regardless of class. Rescue Staves are E rank and available for use so long as (1) you actually have the Rescue Staff, (2) your unit is in a class which has staff access, and (3) there is at least 1 target unit in range of your Rescue. Obviously if there's no one to rescue, you can't use it. If Lissa is a Pegasus Knight or Dark Flier, she can't use it due to lacking Staff access.