Redwall

Point me to a single post in this thread where someone "enables" Olwen. The most we've done is (correctly) point out that it is wrong of others to harass him. For once I agree with you (though I removed the parts with which I disagree). While there's no question that Interceptor treats you more poorly than he should, it is extremely hypocritical of you (Olwen) to overreact to everything he says while criticizing others for overreacting to your own elitism. My jaw dropped when I saw that you actually tried to justify for a second time your RTU put-down. Your social problems on this forum aren't going to magically go away merely by having a mod step up.

I don't think the moderators did enough to quell the grudgewanking threads in FFtF; nonetheless, that doesn't preclude forgiving eclipse for her post, which doesn't have anything to do with those threads to begin with.

I just marry for gameplay benefits: Chromatar for Veteran Lucina and RK Morgan. Most of the characters in this game aren't believable to begin with, so I don't see how people could see themselves in romantic relationships with most of them. Also Tharja is butt-ugly; come at me bros.

Some of your arguments have been addressed. Both your playthrough and Interceptor's playthrough were dependent on the RNG for growths; this is obviously not a problem in Awakening due to the high enemy density, so as long as Frederick isn't getting many kills, a player who plays optimally has only a vanishingly small chance of getting held back by bad growths. Interceptor's argument is that his long-term strategy is more robust than yours specifically when it comes to skillset distribution. Your task is to show that the odds of an optimal Sol/Nosf player losing are less than or equal to those of an optimal bow player. Also, no need to lash out at anyone, certainly not Tables, who wasn't attacking you personally at all.

I like to start by chipping the nearby Mercenary with the Avatar and finishing with Frederick (or vice-versa, if it doesn't have Luna+). Alternatively, if you have a C support with Chrom, you should be able to double the Barbarian with the Avatar. Either option buys you a bit of time. Sully should ferry Lissa to the left and drop her into a forest so that Lissa can scoop up Miriel on turn two.

Using Frederick as a lead during the early chapters is fine, and necessary if you want to play quickly. The only chapter where reliability suffers from not feeding the entire map to the Avatar is Chapter 2, and even that can be done reliably at a quick pace with a Frederick-heavy strategy. That said, feeding the Avatar kills that would otherwise go to Frederick opens more options if you're playing at a more leisurely pace.

You could try watching dondon's videos or Chiki's videos on YouTube.

Eh, Vantage+ isn't that big a deal in Awakening since more of the legwork is being done on the enemy phase than in the other FE games.

I saw the highlights on ESPN. Holy shit. Haven't watched a full NBA game since last year's Finals, but I will see if I can tune in for Game 7.

bearfireclaw your postemblem doesemblemn't hafire emburemuemblem in every sentemblemence.

Emblem != Fire

It's definitely wrong for Interceptor to snark at you the way he does. With that said, you are really not doing your own reputation any favors with posts like these.

Although she doesn't have Rally Strength, Flavia is otherwise functionally similar to Basilio in that both make good pinch-hitters in C23 and C24. 2/10; 3/10 after bias because it's Flavia.

You can be a talented drafter/specialist who plays casually. No problem with that.

Don't you put any stock in this availability hogwash. Minimizing expected turncount in C23, 24, and Final on both Hard and Lunatic requires his combat presence since efficient (in the strict sense) playthroughs won't have very big teams. Rally Strength helps a lot against Grima; bows and axes are convenient in 23 (Hammer) and 24 (Short Axe, maybe a bow shot). 4/10; 5/10 after bias because I like his bad jokes.

I don't think the implication was that your playthrough wasn't worth caring about, but rather that Counter et al. would potentially pose problems if, for example, the entire map spawned with Counter. I wouldn't know anything about this, since I've never tried using Nosferatu on Lunatic+.

I think you're correct about Armsthrift being unhelpful for tome users in Lunatic+, now that I look at some numbers. Even with an unforged Nosferatu, the enemies in C23/24 are all ORKOed reliably by the Avatar+Chrom combo, with some of the beefier enemies needing a single Chrom Dual Attack at high odds. Though the accuracy problems for a -Skl Avatar are not as big as you claim: the Lv 10 Mercenary skill gives +10 Hit/Avo during the enemy phase; Chrom's Charm gives +5 Hit/Avo always; and there are also support bonuses. With other strategies (for example, bow-spamming), Armsthrift is pretty decent, though. You get a Blessed Bow in Paralogue 3, and Anna shops can sell other Blessed weapons on occasion. When attacking with physical weapons, you don't have the luxury of hitting Res, so in these contexts, forges can become staples of an army, and not just as a means of OHKOing the limited number of enemies vulnerable to effective weaponry.

I wasn't advocating a Sol + Longbow combo; I only brought up Longbow since it is among the weapons that benefits the most from forging, and since player-phase bow-spamming is among the more reliable long-term strategies for Lunatic+. Sol + Nosferatu looks like another reliable long-term strategy, and it's certainly not necessary to have Armsthrift for that, but I can only see it helping. You can still get Armsthrift without any hassle by reclassing from Tactician to Mercenary, then promoting to Hero, and finally reclassing to Sorceror; once you're in the Sorceror class, a +5 Mt, +15 Hit Nosferatu gives you extra healing against anything that doesn't have Counter, which can help against the Luna+/Hawkeye combo. When faced with a lot of Counter enemies, you can simply kite and switch to an unforged Nosferatu if need be. I'm certainly not claiming Armsthrift to be on the level of Veteran or Galeforce, but it is rather easy to get and gives the team some benefit, which is more than you can say for many abilities.

Mercenary is fairly practical in Lunatic+ as a pathway to either Sol or Bow Knight. Reclassing as a promoted unit imposes a high penalty on the internal level, so it's preferable to instead get to the Hero class by means of a Master Seal rather than a Second Seal. Veterans make good use of Armsthrift to preserve +5 Mt forges since they will flirt with the Luck cap before too long. Preserving these forges isn't anything special during maingame campaigns on the lower difficulty settings, but dealing with the rather strong L+ enemies can be a bit easier with abundant +5 Mt forges. A max-forged Longbow has 14 Mt and 85 Hit, and is nice for avoiding counterattacks from any non-Longbow enemy.

The game is completed most efficiently by investing in a select few units rather than spreading out EXP in an attempt to have more viable combatants. For this reason, I'd still prefer reclassing Morgan over some hypothetical Virion who just so happened to join at Lv 10 without needing to be babied.

Armsthrift is only worthless in a postgame setting if you disregard the value of human time spent farming weapons.

The easiest way to beat C2 is to have Pair Frederick with a +Def Avatar who took most of the Prologue and C1 kills. You can start a new file and get up to speed in a jiffy. Alternatively, you can beat it by taking out the Mercenary near the start point and maneuvering Frederick carefully while hiding your other units in the lower-left corner.

This may or may not be explained by the amount of damage your units have taken. In my five-turn clear of Lunatic C3, I needed a Fighter to hit my lance-wielding Frederick for the enemy positioning to go my way. Have you tested the Prologue Mage movements while accounting for the damage sustained by Frederick?

If you've only got one Second Seal, then yes, it would be a bad idea to use it on Lucina instead of Morgan. But I think it would be even worse to use it on Virion.

I understand your point, but like you pointed out, even getting Virion to the point where he can use a Second Seal has costs. I suppose in postgame, Virion would receive priority for Second Seals, but by that point, they're readily available.