Espinosa

Four Fangs is better than Deadly Breath if you intend to counterattack things on enemy phase - DB only triggers on PP (but can and usually does affect more enemies). Kunai Breaker is ineffective because kunai users tend to be accurate anyway, have WTA against both swords and tomes and will continue to have hit rates against you and your low-avo DK. I don't know what you mean by "viable" but yeah, it can function as part of an army that doesn't lose the game, though I would recommend something more offensive that actually ORKOs enemies. For what it's worth, a DK can still double and ORKO enemies with the right pair-up, but by going with a speed flaw you make it harder for yourself to fulfil the main objective a unit with Dark Knight's mobility and weapon choices is meant to serve - ORKO foes.

I don't understand how Benny / Charlotte "miss out on action in their join chapter". Just chain-transfer them to characters who need str/def or str/spd and start building supports and levelling up.

He's not warpskipping these maps so I'm guessing it's relatively combat-heavy for that very reason.

The same place where you find the list of regular A supports? http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/hoshidan-characters/supports/ Be sure to read this: http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/hoshidan-characters/supports/support-basics/

Tsukuyomi would make a fantastic Shura, combining high magic, good speed and unbelievable Great Knight-like physical bulk. Carrying over his tome rank helps a lot too, but apparently his strength is equally high on average? You could hit tome users and ninja with brass batons or something. As for classes of which you are unlikely to have great representatives of, how about Blacksmith or Great Merchant?

Pretty good class in Link Arena.

Astra grants you 5 hits and nobody has a problem with that. It's true that Adept with Luna's activation rate would be a lot more preferable, though. However, Vengeance did have its activation rate reduced in the transition to Fates, so there's no reason why Adept - a classic FE skill - wouldn't receive the same treatment either.

Until Radiant Dawn, Adept had always been a staple skill in the FE series whenever skills were involved, even being featured in the FE-related TearRing Saga. While its mechanics may have been slightly different depending on the game, it's a little strange that it was omitted in Awakening and it appears that it won't have returned in this game either. Does anybody else feel there's no reason for it to not return when Astra/Luna/Sol are still in?

Yeah, both will be applied with the same command. Sakura can reclass to get Rally Magic + Speed + Luck fairly easily this way. edit: wait, you said Spectrum. Haven't actually had any experience with that so I can't say if it works the same way as it did in Awakening.

My MU hasn't befriended a lot of people on any of my runs so I gotta ask... Can MU reclass to MULTIPLE units' class sets if he's A-ranked all of them? They can never get A+ with anybody, so I'm guessing this to be the case but can anyone confirm?

He loses 4 points of speed but gets +2 str/def and the Outdoor Fighter skill for 3 more points of damage. 20 AS is fairly high (Scarlet has 19 at base and that's pretty good for a class oriented towards raw physical stats) and he now doesn't need to be carried somewhere by a mount since he's a mount himself. So far I can't find anything wrong with this choice, but we'll see how it'll work out in the end. edit: I guess the wrong things would be... no S-rank swords, no Trueblade innate class bonuses, no Swordfaire without a double reclass back to SM (you should still have Astra since you're likely getting one level-up while getting A Silas support).

Frederick with SD!Jeigan-level growths wouldn't last THAT long on Lunatic(+), though he'd still be useful for a while and useful for a long term as a support partner. Veteran needs to go. Make it swap places with Underdog (Villager's L15 skill) or something. I don't know how feasible it would be to nerf Pair-Up (and in which ways it would be possible), but that's probably #1 on the list of things to be modified...

Anyone ever try using a mounted Ryoma? I had him buddy Silas and figured since Ryoma is the one who does most of the fighting out of the two, he might as well be the mounted one, so I buddy seal'd him into a Paladin and Silas to an SM. Let's see how it goes, but so far it's been uncanny (Quickdraw Katana gives Silas overkill speed while Ryoma can fail to double things if he's paired up with somebody else).

Yeah, Corrin can easily drop his sword access for good in Hoshido because LTC runs can halve final bosses' HP with their highest mag-score + B staves user (if it's not Izana, he can assist with Rally Magic). For absolute lowest turn counts, don't you absolutely need a 3-range A rank kunai user who has Lethality and can deal at least 1 damage to a Faceless (Nosferatu?) boss in that one Boots chapter? I guess a bow user would work as well, but getting them both A-rank bows and Lethality is a bit, ahem, out of the way. Elite Ninja in Hoshido is all-around great though, dealing excellently with magical threats and really bulky foes like Generals with effective weaponry.

Are the unpromoted tome users even useful for LTC on any of the paths? It seems like durability is a big problem for them all, and Orochi isn't even all that fast. Tome access seems mandatory for some LTC routing, but Jakob's mag is poor, while Felicia has laughable durability, so your only bet is MU (going mage screws you over if you want to defeat Nohr/Revelation final bosses efficiently, and also renders MU unable to deal with Ryoma quickly in C25). Anyway, this looks really ambitious and a testament to the fact that Fates is more LTC-friendly than Awakening on the highest difficulty (in terms of challenging the player and whatnot).

I don't remember the number of that one actually.

One thing I've noticed is that simply referring to a chapter as "C18" or whatever is considered sufficient in most FE discussions for players to have a really good idea what everyone's talking about. This is something I haven't been able to relate to, as I have absolutely no clue after playing as many FE games as I've played which chapter is which judging by the number alone. I always remember what the first few chapters (or the last ones) of the game were like and then I'm either no longer that sure or absolutely clueless and need to look up the chapter in question to know what everyone's talking about. There might be some exceptions with notorious or often talked-about chapters (like FE6's chapter 4 or Nohr!chapter 10) but I may still need checking. There are some maps which I remember by their names instead, like Battle Before Dawn and Genesis - I think most of these come from FF7 for some odd reason. So can anyone relate to what I'm saying? Am I alone in not remembering which chapter is which? And I guess since the topic title is sorta misleading, you can talk about the headline here too.

Gunter's personal skill is called Forceful Partner? Uh oh, we're going to look back to the Soleil scandal with warm kindness after this.

Because Marcus hogs exp lmao. It's a defend map and one I'm able to complete reliably and somewhat comfortably without Camilla as long as I have Paladin/GK Jakob and whatever!MU.

C10 must be pretty hard for players who aren't using a reclassed (if any) Jakob. Then again, I always minimise Camilla's use on that map so relying on Camilla significantly more could help endure the last intensive 3 or so turns of the map where the opposition just breaks in violently. I haven't tried Dragonstone MU as an option to last a few turns on that map because you still wouldn't try to solo that map because of the lance fighters / ninja (though weakening these with bow/magic ballistae can allow you to kill them on enemy phase without getting the Defence Seal curse for many turns to stay).

The avoid penalty is fine when you will restore the damage dealt during the same round of combat. If Jakob is your pair-up partner, you get 15 of the lost avo back and can still dodge some less accurate attacks. Avoid penalties are generally the least painful ones as far as weapon side effects go, because you shouldn't be relying on survival from coin flip attacks in the first place and Sorc in particular will never be a dodgebot. One of the most highly acclaimed weapon types around, magical weapons (Levin Swords and Shocksticks mainly) also come with an avo penalty. It is; you'll just be 6 level-ups above the enemy and not 36 like last game's Galeforks MU.

If you don't mind lowmanning and not ORKOing (as Nosferatu doesn't double), Nosferatu!Sorc is a failproof way of facerolling the game in Nohr/Revelations (well, mostly, Nohr does have some challenges a Sorc will not handle on their own). A NosSorc's best pair-up partner is probably a Dark Knight, giving +mag, def and movement. You can simply reclass MU's spouse into one once they're promoted. And yeah, I guess you won't necessarily be choosing Wait at all because some enemies will attack you at 2-range on enemy phase (thus you lose your Hit+20 against adjacent units from Dark Mage) and some foes will be threatening enough that you'll be compelled to eliminate them on player phase.

Nohr does have some resistant enemies, like Elite Ninja, Nine-Tailed Fox, Peg and Priest(-ess) promotions. Dragonstone is basically a poor man's Nosferatu - tanking without the recovery. Dragonstones are particularly ineffective in the midgame period before you can acquire Dragonstone+. They're okay if the player favours the sandbagging style of play - choosing wait each turn and slowly (not fast like Nowi/Nosferatu cheese in Awakening at all) but surely destroying the enemy teams without any thought or effort.

You can easily beat it in power with a forged steel tbqh. You also don't need to remain in a sword-using class to reap the benefits of its bonuses at any point in the game after they first start being provided. Unless playing for turn counts, nobody forces you to keep on using swords since final battles are perfectly doable without wielding the Yato. No point to restrict your avatar customisation to sword-wielding classes only. 15% class luck growth is a "huge surge"? -lck Paladin MU only has a 40% luck growth; 5% more than your fixed Lord promotion. Luck is still not something MU need fret about, but it's still not a huge luck stat if you want more help with dodgetanking or something.

Yato's not such a spectacular weapon outside of endgame bosskilling honestly. But yeah, any +mag MU will hit for a lot of damage with a magical weapon.