XeKr

Terrain is your friend early on. Don't underestimate how good stacking Def bonuses like the Forts/Frederick Pair Up can be. Also take advantage of the weapon triangle, as you get a att/hit rate bonus, but also lower their att/hit plus negate their A weapon rank, which further lowers their att/hit. Also a hint for Chapter 2, note the mountain terrain there and also note how Virion's carrying an Elixer.

tbh, accuracy isn't that good for Avatar in earlygame Lunatic either though (and potential issues later too). Going -Skl lowers long term Str/Skl/Def and going -Res lowers Mag/Spd. -Luck is probably the least likely to negatively affect reliability overall. The differences are marginal though. Though +Hp/Def or +Mag/Spd all have notable defensive or offensive advantages. -Luck/Skl/Res are all good choices for flaws. -Hp demolishes your Hp growth if the Growth Project is anything to go by (it's probably -25% or something). I don't think any of the cap modifiers matter at all. Even Apotheosis is fairly easy with an unoptimized team imo, as skills are way more important. I personally like +Spd/-Luck in HM. +Def/-Luck in LM. I do wonder if +Hp could be better for Lunatic+ as a buffer for Luna+...

Might as well throw some data in since I just got there. Name Hp Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Avatar 53 37 12 30 31 27 31 16 Griffon 22 9 0 10 9 0 8 3 Growth 31 28 12 20 22 27 23 13 Chrom 24 8 2 10 10 8 10 1 Lord(M) 18 6 0 5 7 0 7 0 Growth 6 2 2 5 3 8 3 1 Parents 37 30 14 25 25 35 26 14 Parents2 43 33 14 28 26 40 26 16 Abs Base 12 5 1 8 4 13 3 3 Total 49 35 15 33 29 48 29 17 Total2 54 38 15 36 30 53 29 19 Inherit(floor) 16 11 5 11 9 16 9 5 Inherit(round) 16 11 5 11 10 16 10 6 Inherit(ceil) 17 12 5 11 10 16 10 6 Inherit2(floor)18 12 5 12 10 17 9 6 *** Lucina(Cav) 36 18 5 17 16 17 16 6 Cavelier 18 6 0 5 6 0 7 0 True Bases 18 12 5 12 10 17 9 6 *** Haven't verified the numbers closely (I may have recorded them wrong/math error'd), but it looks like maybe Lucina's absolute bases are off or there's rounding in the middle of formula. EDIT: Forgot Str+2. Also, it looks like maybe Table's most recent theory works. I haven't checked all the cases, but it explains the Hp, Skl and Luck discrepancy in my data. EDIT2: I think that explanation + floor rounding gives the correct numbers for me.

1.3 is like Lunatic+ except playtested better. Kinda. >_> It requires different strategic/tactical skills than FE.

I did this and I'd definitely recommend it to preserve the challenge and "feel" of Lunatic while lowering the temptation of soloing with Veteran characters. It also prevents Manaketes as well as Tharja/Henry from superunit soloing and encourages training up the children (and obviously the parents, to give them good bases/skills). Steamrolling earlygame with Frederick or Avatar can have consequences in lategame where they drastically fall off. It is still possible to train a large team and use a bunch of the parents and children, without grinding and such. It's not "that" difficult and there are ways to trivialize it still, but far fewer ways and it somewhat requires good understanding of the game mechanics. Oh and cutscenes look way cooler with default/canon classes. Nothing there stops Manaketes or avoidstacking from steamrolling. I did no Avatar/Nowi/Panne plus a bunch of other restrictions (all of those and more) a long time ago which was still relatively easy. Easier than No Second Seals I'd say. Way easier than my efficiency run. EDIT: Another good challenge run in general is No Pair Up in Hard Mode, which I've heard good things about.

Map design is fine. Issues are overexaggerated (omgnochokepoints!!!) and are mostly artifacts of other gameplay mechanics. Character balance is fine because everyone is easily usable and can be useful. Some will appeal more to certain player populations, while some appeal to others. The cast and dialogue are the most heartwarming of the FE games.

Literally requires an even number of Hand Axe uses to 2 turn. I mad. [spoiler=Chapter 12: 3/58] 2 turns is somewhat possible with Griffon Avatar. The Silver Bows aren’t forged and Avatar’s Def is so ridiculous with Kellam that she can tank the whole map (my Avatar’s Def is a bit above average at 17/30 procs, but she doesn’t really come close to dying in all my attempts. The majority of the map and even the boss tinks and forged Silver Swords do like 6 damage. Most other stuff is inaccurate too.). The primary thing that prevents the 3 turn is the upper left Paladin who is too hard to 2hko on enemy phase. It is possible to do some shenanigans and trade Kellam a Beast Killer obtained in this chapter (the one from Renown is useful forged to help clean the bottom). Obviously his Dual Strikes aren’t reliable at all though. Perhaps if Avatar had a high support rank with someone else that could use the Beastkiller/Rapier and didn’t need the Def, it could work better. Someone like my Chrom doesn’t really work too well because his att and hit are terrible and Avatar does want the Def from Kellam. It is possible though, if not too reliable. In addition, I was semi-joking above, but it just so happens that Avatar cleanly onerounds and 2hkos most of the enemies. The enemy density is so high that her weapon breaks in the middle of her attacks, so enemies consistently manage to live. As she flies across to the other side, the enemy ranges then don’t all overlap so she can’t rout them all. With an even number of Hand Axe uses, she won’t run into this problem. But that requires ridiculous foresight. >_> The bottom can be cleaned in 2 turns (though not super consistently) and I burned a bunch of money to try and set it up. Most of the setup is still used the same way since the bottom left group rushes your initial position and there’s a Beast Killer Paladin in there. This dude has 65 atk against Beasts, which demolishes basically all the competent characters. Also he has 22 Spd and high defenses. Some S rank Dual Strike trickery is needed to deal with him. Deploy Avatar, Kellam, Frederick, Sumia, Cordelia, Lon’qu, Panne, Gregor, Libra, Tharja, Olivia. Avatar, Cordelia, Tharja get Def tonics. Libra, Tharja get Mag tonics. Avatar, Frederick, Cordelia get Str tonics. Forge a Hammer +2 mt and give to Libra. Beast Killer +2 mt and give to Frederick. Forge +1 mt on Chrom’s Rapier. Gregor holds onto a Master Seal. Make sure Avatar’s inventory is full and has lots of Hand Axes. The initial positioning is carefully set to allow the following actions. The movements need to be very precise and are fairly complex throughout because we want Cherche to promote and need to trade around some stuff. Also need to Transfer around the +Spd pair ups for reliability and such. It ends up working quite well. Turn 1. Kellam moves into Avatar, pairing up, and they fly above the Short Spear Knight and diagonal from the Beast Killer Knight nearby, killing it. Send the Beast Killer to the convoy. Olivia dances for Avatar, who then flies way up to a magic square in range of all the top right enemies. Chrom convoys and trades Cordelia the recently gotten Beast Killer, then Pairs with Panne nearby. Gregor moves to that same spot, trades Cherche the Master Seal and waits. Cherche moves over to Libra, trades her regular Hammer for Libra’s forged Hammer, then promotes to Griffon. Cordelia takes pocket Lon’qu and waits in the range of a bottom left Cavelier (Def tonic prevents ohko. Lon’qu allows doubling). Panne moves a bit right and drops Chrom off. Sumia moves to the right. Frederick moves in range of another bottom left Cav, equipping a forged Beast Killer which will ohko. Tharja, with Nosferatu, moves above Gregor in range of the Short Spear Knight (This position for Tharja also gives Anathema for a lot of the bottom fighting next turn). Libra Rescues Olivia to safety (Mag tonic gives just barely enough magic from base). Enemy phase, Avatar kills a bunch of stuff. Frederick and Cordelia will both kill a Cav on enemy phase and Tharja will weaken a Short Spear Knight in range for Chrom to kill. The Knight ignores Frederick despite the fact he has a 1 range weapon. Turn 2. Chrom kills the Knight that Tharja weakened with his forged Rapier. Frederick moves to the left tile adjacent to Cordelia, Transfers Lon’qu, which allows him to double and weaken a Cavalier with a Javelin. Panne flies over and Transfers Lon’qu to her, giving a very reliable kill on that Cav despite Axes vs. Swords (only has to hit 1 of 2 chance at fairly high chances, 90%+ hit). Cordelia Pairs with Gregor who is next to her. Sumia flies to where Cordelia was, rearranges Frederick’s inventory so the forged Beast Killer is equipped, then attacks the Paladin with a Javelin. Olivia dances if necessary, but Frederick needs to Dual Strike at least once (>90% success overall). Gregor moves above the Paladin, switches to Cordelia, who Beast Killers (~90% true hit) and finishes this Paladin. Cherche moves left of Cordelia, Transfers Gregor (Griffon promo gain and Gregor just barely allow her to double) and onerounds a Cavelier with the forged Hammer gotten from Libra (also in range of a Knight). Tharja blocks off Cordelia from getting hit, healing if necessary (Def tonic prevents ohko). Libra does some healing. Avatar heads far left to a magic square in range of a bunch of stuff, healing with a Concoction or Elixer if necessary. On enemy phase, Avatar kills more stuff. A Knight attacks Tharja while another Knight runs into Cherche’s Hammertime. If Cherche was hit by a Cavelier, I suppose it's possible for both Knights to attack and kill her. However, they seem to prefer attacking Tharja and the chance of all 3 hitting against the weapon triangle, and +10 avoid from Support bonuses (Gregor paired, Cordelia adjacent) is pretty low. Turn 3. Chrom finishes a bottom Knight that Tharja weakened on enemy phase. Everyone else helps Panne get 2 kills on the right side and Cordelia a little exp up to level 10. Avatar cleans the top. It’s all very lenient this turn. For reference, the potential 2 turn would just go something like this. Frederick equips a Steel Lance first turn but goes to the same place, Gregor Pairs with Cherche instead of staying in that safe spot. Everything else is mostly the same. On Turn 2 Frederick still goes left of Cordelia, takes Lon’qu and chips the bottom leftmost Cavelier with a Javelin. Cordelia kills the Cav that Frederick weakened on enemy phase. Sumia goes adjacent to Frederick (where Cordelia was), and tries to get 2 Frederick Dual Strikes with Olivia’s help. Cherche with Gregor flies to kill the left Cavelier with the Hammer, also in range of the Knights. Libra with Tharja goes right to Hammer the Knights (needs +Def from Pair Up to not be 2hko’d). Others do the same things. It’s a bit annoying Cordelia blocks Sumia’s position, which lowers the success rate greatly, but I didn’t really find a rearrangement that still cleans up the bottom fast enough. Also, some misc stuff can happen like the left Knights going around the other way, which will also ruin this 2 turn. Dark Flier can do similarly for this chapter, though probably requires Dark Knight Tharja for +1 move. The Hp difference is 3, Def difference is 4-5 which very quickly adds up given the enemy density. Dark Flier may not consistently 2hko with Javelins, so would likely use Tomes instead which has no triangle advantage. Axes have triangle against a lot more stuff like the Knights too. Overall Griffon has much better durability, both concrete and avoid. Notably, Dark Flier wouldn’t have weapon triangle/Tantivy against the forged Beast Killer up there which is very threatening (it's about 23.5% true hit on Griffon who has triangle and Tantivy). For these reasons, it’s expected that Dark Flier needs to slow down for reliable clears. Name Class Level Hp Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Statboosters Chrom Lord /05.29 24 8 2 10 10 8 10 1 Avatar Griffon Rider 10/16/13.70 52 38 12 30 30 26 30 16 Energy Drop Frederick Great Knight ??/12.76 40 22 2 18 18 9 20 4 Lissa Cleric /04.78 20 2 7 5 5 11 3 5 Maribelle Troubadour /05.20 19 1 5 4 7 5 3 9 Panne Wyvern Rider 10/05.09 37 22 2 16 15 11 16 3 Cordelia Falcon Knight 10/01.00 32 13 4 19 20 11 10 12 Libra War Monk ??/03.07 42 16 18 14 15 12 12 18 Cherche Griffon Rider 12/01.51 36 20 2 18 17 10 17 5 Supports: Chrom: S Avatar. C Frederick Avatar: S Chrom, B Stahl. C Lissa. C Kellam, C Gaius Frederick: S Sumia. C Chrom. C Virion. Lissa: C Avatar. Panne: B Kellam, C Lon’qu Skills (Stat bonuses from skills and weapons included in the above stats.): Chrom: Dual Strike+ Avatar: Veteran, Solidarity, Strength+2, Tantivy, Deliverer Frederick: Discipline, Outdoor Fighter, Luna Lissa: Miracle Maribelle: Resistance+2 Panne: Even Rhythm, Strength+2 Cordelia: Speed+2, Relief Libra: Miracle, Healtouch Cherche: Strength+2, Tantivy Avatar got over 6 levels fighting mostly unpromoted units as a 10/16/7 Griffon Rider. Lolveteran. I don’t think any stat growth discrepancies really mattered here. Any issue could probably be solved with a bit more forging regardless. Avatar may not double the boss which requires 28 Spd. However, she could possibly Pair with Stahl for +2 Spd, -2 Def, +10 Avoid (it might be that this avoid is actually better than the Def, but then again, I never saw Avatar die). She also gets plenty of attack chances on the boss so it really shouldn’t be a problem even if not doubling. Cherche is surprisingly good. Panne is almost getting good. Cordelia promoted, yay. Even Chrom got a bit of exp. Some musing about a few future turncounts now that things should start really speeding up. I’m mostly worried by Yen’fay atm, as it may require some preparation for him, so this helps me get some planning straight. I may be overly optimistic about some of these. C13: Easy 1 turn. Get Silver Axe if possible. Dance for Panne to get kills. P12: Hopefully 1 turn. Dance for Avatar if need, else Lucina. Boss needs 34 Spd or maybe save everyone with Rescue Staves. Could delay I suppose. C14: Easy 1 turn. Dance for Lucina (P4: Maybe to train Lucina/Panne and get Anna/chests. 3 turns?) C15: who knows. Start building Say’ri support? C16: Should be 1 turn with Hammertime. Needs Dance to reach boss. C17: 2 turns most likely. Boss requires 39 Spd, so probably Avatar with Say’ri. C18: 1 turn ideally. Likely requires Griffon Avatar with Say’ri and Rally Speed. Need to stay Griffon to ignore terrain. Could probably Avatar solo for 2-3 turns? Or Lucina/Avatar for the 2hko? May go with that instead as accuracy with Axes won’t be great on Yen’fay. I’d still like to try meeting the Spd benchmark and see. Misc: Lucina is first priority for exp when she arrives, training Lance rank. Panne is next. Chrom is high priority so Lucina has a good Spd Pair. Others should spam Rescue as money allows. At some point need to build support between Avatar and Lucina, though the Renown Seed of Trust helps. It’s quite possible taking more turns to train could pay off later on. Difficult to find a good, safe place to do so though. Anna’s chapter seems the best bet as the enemies are fairly tame and she + the Arms Scroll/Bullion could improve turncount/reliability.

I actually agree. The first time I did FE13 Lunatic was right after my first Hard run. I found it really hard then (though I suppose I didn't use Nosferatu and didn't know Sol was that good. Also didn't know about +Def Avatar.). H4 can be "trivialized" by sacrificing units. >_>

More like 2-3 turns without Rescue or Galeforce (just Dancing and Griffons). Dancing alone brings some chapters to 1 turn range. Adding Rescue allows 1 turning most chapters. If 1 turning chapters, there's no enemy phase, so not really any time to get kills. Children are actually useful because they grow fast with good bases for their level. However, they're basically just worse Morgans, which makes it not really worth it from a turncount perspective. Basically, 1. They arrive just as there's an onslaught of easy bosskill maps. 2. Veteran is too strong. >_>

Positioning wise, 2 turns is fairly straightforward with 2 competent combat units. However, Avatar with a Hand Axe has 41 disp hit and doesn't double Gangrel. She also just 3hkos the Hero at 55-65 disp hit (needing +6 Spd to double). I don't see any way to 2 turn given how reliable I want these strategies. The expected turncount would probably be far worse. I do think Dark Flier can do it. She goes down the mage side then goes for the Thief, while in range of all of Gangrel's group. Frederick does most of the work on the left (maybe he aggros the middle first turn). Frederick may require forges/Luna/Dual Strikes for the Wyverns and still durability may be a concern for both he and Avatar.

Have you tried seeing if your university has a VPN service that allows connecting to their network? I know some universities allow you to do so and it allows access to some of their academic databases from anywhere.

@Chiki: Why are you asking SF about the problem of evil when there's been multitudes of literature on it (of which you probably have access to, as a university student)? Totally not rhetorical. I doubt members of the SF/FE community have seriously studied theology, though I could be wrong. If you want an academic discussion, talk with a theologian, not religious laypeople (who are imo unlikely to give you answers you'll find satisfactory).

I was originally thinking that if Morgan gets ~70 exp per Veteran+Rescue spam, he could eventually be a decent fighter with Celica’s without swallowing kills from Panne and Lucina. In addition to being a 7-8 move Rescuebot with decent Mag. However, iirc I tested this sometime and Veteran doesn’t actually work like that, so I may indeed change those plans. At this point Panne isn’t going to contribute much to routs if she doesn’t get more kills and I think Lucina needs as many as possible (for the most reliability). Cordelia needs a few more kills so she can start Rescue-spamming up to Rally Speed (may be needed for Pheros. Yen’fay is a huge problem in several respects too). Avatar also needs kills to keep up for the midgame bosskills. It mainly depends on how fast Lucina can snowball, which I’m still unsure about. I suppose I could stop training Panne and have Dark Mage Morgan take a bunch of kills in Anna’s paralogue. Maybe easier since Nosferatu makes him immediately competent (even still, there’s 35 atk, 14 Spd Barbs, 28 atk, 20 Spd Myrms and such, from a glance). There’s a few other misc issues though such as Morgan having bleh base Mag from lowlevel Chrom and Griffon Avatar, not having enough Second Seals, and not enough really good +Spd Pairs. We’ll see. I originally planned to train Panne because she doesn’t directly compete for kills with Lucina for several chapters. I didn’t want to split too many kills between Lucina and Morgan, but still wanted the extra combat unit and flier. I expected Panne to snowball quicker than she is currently doing. As it stands, I’m still babying her as Lucina/Morgan’s recruitment nears. This could likely be improved with better exp optimization but oh well. <_< So uhh, probably Morgan will go something like Tactician (get a few kills here) -> Grandmaster (for helping C15 rout) -> Priest/Sage later. Or maybe just Dark Mage -> Sorc if there’s enough exp and I can get both the Bullion and Seal on C14. Maybe possible with convoy shenanigans as there’s apparently a chest key in that chapter. Still don’t want to split exp too much, as I’ve already overestimated the exp available even with conservative estimates.

It occurred to me that there seem to be a few cases in this game where NPCs or other characters join after the chapter if not recruited during. If Libra is similar, that could be another potential avenue for the reliable 3 turn in C9. Though still probably not if recruiting Tharja. Also, for C10, I probably could have paired Avatar with Frederick and figured out some other way to obtain the Bullion(M) on turn 2. It would probably be less reliable, but save the Energy Drop and some money. I don’t think it’s a huge deal, as the Energy Drop gives +1 damage on the final boss regardless of who it’s used on. But seriously. Wow Gangrel. Literally 32 mAtk, 29 Spd. 74 avoid (Lucky Seven is silly). Griffon!Avatar is very sad. [spoiler=Chapter 11: 3/55] It feels like Dark Flier Avatar can easily 2 turn this but I dunno. There are a few tricky enemies since the 3 groups (melee, mages, Gangrel) are pretty passive unless getting into range. Some enemies on the side don’t aggro as a group either and the Thief is passive. A strategy for tackling this map centers around dealing with Gangrel and his ridiculous stats (plus some promoted enemies). A highly reliable 3 turn is quite interesting with Griffon Avatar, even though I originally would have been fine with 4. I only pursued it because the 4 turn felt too “easy” since there were just a few enemies left after 3 turns, even with minimal planning. This strat is nearly a reliable 2 turn, but that Thief is too annoying. It is probably possible to 2 turn if really desired at the loss of much consistency (probably with a some Gregor/Lon'qu crit as Redwall suggested in his run). Realistically, an Avatar with ~30 levels gets ~18 Spd, or ~23 Spd with +Spd Asset above class bases after tonics. With a Spd Pair, +Spd Grandmaster or Griffon Avatar can probably be expected to double Gangrel. However, +Spd Avatar probably gets less exp earlier on as well and it’s a bit borderline on the stat. +Def/Mag asset Dark Flier with a Spd Pair can also probably be expected to double, but again less durability. However, against Griffon, Gangrel gets 54 avoid from stats, 20 from Lucky Seven, 15 from triangle advantage, 10 from negating Avatar’s Axe rank. So….he’s pretty dodgy. And he chips her pretty hard at perfect accuracy. Avatar would love to have Tharja to reduce enemy avoid, but she needs 4 Spd plus a tonic to double the Hero. Even with Tharja, her hit rate on Gangrel is still quite bad particularly at 2 range with no Hex. I found it’s best to have Frederick with lots of tonics on a fort do the majority of fighting first turn. He has the Fort Def/Res/avoid boost, Outdoor Fighter, Sumia’s support, triangle against several enemies. Most importantly, he has somewhat decent accuracy on Gangrel with Lances. Frederick can 2hko Gangrel with a forged Javelin/Steel Lance combination. To save some money, we can use the fact that both Luna (17%) and Sumia (65% Dual Strike, just ~60% hit) with an Iron Lance do 5 damage. That leaves just 3 mt to be accounted for when forging, which is fortunately pretty cheap. Avatar has a few additional chances in later turns even if Frederick fails to kill Gangrel. It’s far more reliable to give Frederick at least that ~75% chance of killing (of at least 1 Luna/Dual Strike in 2 chances) rather than not forging and relying completely on Avatar to hit a 30%ish attack. Even given losing so a lot of exp (almost a full level). Durability is still somewhat an issue. Frederick faces around 80% hit from Gangrel, but everything else ranges from 20-30% hit. Several of those have to hit for Frederick to die. It’s a very borderline survival such that something like Mag+2 spawns on the Mages can influence how many attacks he can take. There are many combinations but together, it’s probably around 10% estimated chance of death. This could be mostly prevented with Ward, but Rescue is needed to put Avatar into position first turn. Note Ward requires C rank staves, which only Libra has. He’s also the only one with competent Rescue range. There’s still the Hero and Sage to deal with. By this point, even Frederick with S Sumia can just barely fight them well. Units like Panne, among the strongest non-Veteran fighters, can barely take on a single unpromoted enemy at a time. It’s up to Avatar to do most of it. The general scheme is, she’ll start out in the left, then head to the middle to clean up some enemies. Finally she’ll kill off the Thief. Meanwhile Frederick tanks the middle, is Rescued back and heads right to fight off some mages. So Olivia and Rescue both need to be used for Frederick and Avatar to get to the right places during Turn 1. Olivia starts pretty far back, so she needs to Pair with someone for more effective move. We’ll couple this to Gaius’ movement toward the left chest, as we definitely want that Bullion(L). Olivia needs to Dance each turn, but Gaius needs to continuously move left so they need to separate at some point. He has only 5 move, so Stahl is a useful ferry for him. Stahl with Gaius Pair Up is 1 tile short of safely getting to the chest without Olivia, so she needs to be free for Turn 3. In addition, we still want Panne and Cordelia to get what little exp they can (which is not much). There’s pretty much just the single mage on the right with attack range that won’t also aggro the Sage (which obviously they can’t handle). A Javelin counterhit allows Panne to easily finish that mage the next turn. Cordelia can get crit here, especially if Focus spawns here, but it’s rare. A summary of the setup and Turn 1 movements to get this all to occur: Bring Avatar, Frederick ,Sumia, Gaius, Stahl, Libra, Cordelia, Panne, Gregor, Kellam, Tharja, Maribelle (or Lissa works too). Frederick pairs with Sumia, who flies him down. Olivia Pairs with Gaius who runs down, Switches to let Olivia dance for Sumia. Sumia goes onto the middle fort and Switches to Frederick with the Forged Javelin equiped. Stahl runs down and Transfers Gaius to him. Libra Rescues Avatar with pocket Chrom down. They head down and left to Hand Axe the Hero while in range of many left melee enemies. Hit rate can get shaky from ~65-80 depending on Patience, but Avatar should have tons of chances to kill and I think there are some complex contingencies if needed. Cordelia with Gregor (unequipped) flies down and to the right edge, Switches to Gregor, who drops her into the Mage’s range. (this setup is so Panne can finish next turn without aggroing the Sage). Panne/Kellam and Maribelle/Tharja just move down near Cordelia. Tharja helps marginally with Anathema. I was going to explore the option of her using a +Spd Pair and Nosferatu to tank more stuff, but she needs a Spd tonic and the shop is blocked. Oh well. >_> Turn 2, Frederick attacks Gangrel with Steel, hopefully killing. Libra Rescues him and Olivia Dances. Frederick then heads right. Maribelle heals Cordelia and Panne kills the mage nearby. Avatar goes into the middle, importantly in range of all the Wyverns. Can be more aggressive with Avatar here, but I would try to avoid the Arcwind Mage and Sage combination which is quite dangerous. I find it’s better to have Frederick shoulder slightly more of the load and additionally allows that Sage kill to be fed to someone else. Turn 3, mostly everything should be dead. Stahl/Gaius/Olivia get the Bullion(L) chest. A few different things can happen to clean up the right side. Panne kills the Sage if it’s weak enough (usually if Frederick got a Spd proc. This is also a bit risky as she is onerounded in return. Can play safer if desired.). Libra uses Ward on Cordelia. Cordelia (Gregor allows her to double) can head down to Javelin the Arcwind Mage (barely avoiding the ohko with Ward). If Cordelia gets a Gregor Dual Strike, great she gets more exp. If not, Frederick finishes. If Frederick does not get Spd (or is less Spd blessed than mine), he needs to hit the Sage again on this turn. A Rescue use may then be needed to save Panne in that case. Or just feed that kill to Cordelia instead of going down toward the Arcwind Mage. Frederick can still finish on enemy phase. Alternatively, there are cases where a Wyvern heads over to that side. Usually in that case Panne does some tanking with Kellam (3hko). Basically, various stuff can happen but I think it can be dealt with. For most of these plans, if stuff doesn’t work, there’s usually not a large chance of death so there’s usually an easy transition into a 4 turn clear. I estimate the expected turncount to be sub4 for this chapter, so I think it’s certainly worth it. As a side note: burning through Skill/Luck tonics can marginally improve reliability, but it does quickly add up if buying for the whole team. At this point I’m trying to be conservative with gold as possible. Dark Flier probably just an easier time here and can get much more exp (however, she may have less exp from earlier clears as well). Griffon runs into the (massive) issue of Axes vs. Swords and Lucky Seven/Patience, which is quite the problem. However, Dark Flier may run into more durability problems if trying to solo it all. Using Javelins may help against the Mercs, Silver Sword Hero and Gangrel but Fighters, Wyverns, Arcwind will still all hit hard. The extra Res does help but Avatar doesn’t fight too many mages in my strat (and they’re pretty inaccurate if not the Arcwind ones). Still, something like Tharja Pair Up would be very useful because Dark Flier doesn’t need a Spd Pair, and Tharja gives Anathema/Hex and evens out the Def gap. This is probably around the time the Pegasus Knight class progression becomes a superior option to the Wyvern route. Name Class Level Hp Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res Statboosters Chrom Lord /03.92 22 8 1 9 9 7 8 1 Avatar Griffon Rider 10/16/07.53 47 33 10 26 27 23 28 13 Energy Drop Frederick Great Knight ??/12.51 40 22 2 18 18 9 20 4 Lissa Cleric /04.78 20 2 7 5 5 11 3 5 Maribelle Troubadour /05.20 19 1 5 4 7 5 3 9 Panne Wyvern Rider 10/03.43 35 20 2 15 14 10 16 2 Cordelia Pegasus Knight /08.74 26 10 3 14 15 9 8 8 Libra War Monk ??/02.42 41 15 17 13 15 11 12 18 Supports: Chrom: C Avatar. C Frederick. Avatar: B Stahl. C Chrom. C Lissa. C Gaius Frederick: S Sumia. C Chrom. C Virion. Lissa: C Avatar. Panne: B Kellam Skills (Stat bonuses from skills and weapons included in the above stats.): Chrom: Dual Strike+ Avatar: Veteran, Solidarity, Strength+2, Tantivy, Deliverer Frederick: Discipline, Outdoor Fighter, Luna Lissa: Miracle Maribelle: Resistance+2 Panne: Even Rhythm, Strength+2 Cordelia: Speed+2 Libra: Miracle, Healtouch The high stats of my Frederick finally helped a bunch, particularly Spd. It allows potentially doubling the Sage with a proc in this chapter, and avoids the double from Gangrel. If Gangrel doubles Frederick (actually fairly likely on average), it may be too difficult for Frederick to tank him. May then require Ward, which is less Rescue available for positioning. With dedicated focus, it may have been possible to get Lissa or Maribelle to C Staves for Ward, which would alleviate that concern. With lower Str, it may require more forging for the Gangrel kill (or hope for an Avatar hit. Sumia can also switch to Steel for +3 damage, -5 hit, helping a bit). I probably shouldn’t be switching between Lissa and Maribelle for Staff use as I have been. Don’t really know who’s better though. Might start sticking with Lissa since her Mag is better and she has higher promo gains. At this point, Panne is basically Cherche with no Axe rank. >_>. Exp is so scarce. I think I may go to Anna’s paralogue sometime for Anna herself, some items and the exp for Lucina/Panne.

But I thought they were both fruit!!!

Single player strategy games like FE : multiplayer strategy games like Chess :: apples : oranges ???

Even in your polarized growth examples, those games are still dominated by focusing resources (such as bosskills, bexp, statboosters) into a few amazing units like Miledy or Jill and not using a balanced team with characters like Ward or Micaiah. More specialized units help, but I don’t think it’s the answer (and is hard to balance). If the whole team was Wards and Micaiahs, I'd consider that player stat deflation, and who's to say the best strategy still isn't giving one of those units (probably the most mobile or durable one) all the resources?. FE12 is a good point, because the stat inflation there is very calculated. FE12 requires (relatively) large teams because of high offensive stats coupled with low defensive stats (alongside low caps, sometimes multiple objectives in villages/seize/chests and such). Which, as I believe I mentioned earlier, emphasizes player phase. Good for tactics and good for a larger team. FE12 just runs into the “issue” of having way too many scrubs. I didn’t intend to use “growth unit syndrome” as a whole technical term. I was just using “growth unit” to refer to those common FE units typically with low bases and that require levels/growth procs to become competent. Additionally, I was talking in the context of inflated stats (FE7/FE8 don’t really qualify as quite low stats are still sufficient to easily one-round stuff). What I was trying to say is: In a game with many growth units and inflated stats (alongside fast exp gain, high growths), such as FE13, you only need 1 of these units to be strong (ideally the best one). Because that single unit can get super-strong and just kill everything. There’s no pressure or need to train other units. My point is that if there’s the potential for units to be super-powered (via growth/base inflation, stacking statboosters, etc), then FE mechanics (namely enemy phase) inherently result in low-manning being dominant. Alternatively, if there’s little potential to be super-powered relative to the enemy, it seems that more characters would be usable. And if they’re usable, it’s somewhat encouraging of a larger team over a smaller one. I agree with arvillino in that the issue boils down to durability. I think lowering it while emphasizing offense (on both sides, so discouraging turtling, having few passive enemies, etc) is something that will emphasize player phase and larger teams. EDIT: Note, however, that many players probably like having super-units that can steamroll stuff rather than weak units. So it's something that appeals differently to different player populations.

True enough. However, I made a distinction between combat and utility. Though Frederick and Avatar do the overwhelming majority of combat, other characters have niche utility roles. Nearly every character (but Donnel, I think) will improve turncount/reliability at some time in some way, which is why I mentioned it.

True, it’s not the main issue, I was mainly talking about an interesting trend. Note that your examples are all cases of deflating player stats (less exp, less resources, looking at Thany/Ward vs. FE13 characters). Inflating stats tends to make exp/growths more valuable and makes some of the behaviors you mentioned like focusing exp/resources into a single unit stronger. There is likely little incentive to make other units competent. Deflating stats makes exp/growths less valuable and allows units at base to fight competently. You could imagine a well-balanced game with inflated stats, but because of the FE “growth unit” syndrome and typical abundance of resources, it’s inherently more unlikely. It’s increasing potential variances vs. not. Essentially FE13 vs. FE5 is what I was originally getting at. Or even just looking at lategame vs. earlygame for most FE games. Also, as an aside, I’ll note even in FE13 Lunatic, which is much (and rightfully) maligned for low-manning, the most efficient fastest turnwise and most reliable clears should use nearly every character for utility in some way (even if small like chip/ferrying). Pair Up gives pretty much everyone a niche as well. However in general, FE is just not condusive to large teams for combat. There is typically no pressure to use multiple combat units when the single best one, with the necessary investment, can just counter everything on enemy phase. That’s why I think the first step is emphasize player phase. The strongest unit gets only 1 attack/kill there (even with Dancing, etc, it’s not that many more). This has the added benefit of feeling more "tactical" as the most impactful actions are you ones you do (on PP), instead of watch (on EP).

Bases/growth are fairly mediocre and Tactician is not a great base class without Veteran (dem bases...). If going to Peg/Wyvern, has weapon rank issues and higher internal level. Nowhere near the stats of Panne either. Sure maybe better than much of the cast, but no longer top.

I think he was talking about Avatar without Veteran. Who is really not that great. Veteran and buyable Rescue are by far the most silly gameplay things imo.

Just make player phase more important (lower defenses, higher offenses, multiple objectives). No need to have many units when a single one can counterattack and oneround everything on enemy phase. That's inherent to the FE system. Just inflating enemies stats is not the way. FE13 mostly shows this. It just encourages more low-manning, since it's not worth it to train others to keep up. Deflating player growths/stats can indeed help as then focusing exp into a few units has meaningful diminishing returns. That's kinda "boring" though. I think many players like seeing their units growing a lot, getting stronger, and maxing stats.

Odd Rhythm? The point of Solidarity is to give 10 crit to the active unit in the Pair alongside adjacent units. Stuff like Anathema/Hex/Charm/Aggressor/Dual Strike+/Dual Guard+ all work in the support slot as well, but it's by design. I haven't heard anything about skills like Patience, Discipline or Avoid+10 stacking with the active unit. It'd be cool if it does work though.

Take a page out of Tactics Ogre. 10+ range Without drastically changing mechanics: 1. Make enemies more dangerous to fight on enemy phase or at 1 range in general. 2. Make it so Tomes don't strictly outclass Bows as a ranged option.

Uhh, wasn't there an article about how Awakening saved the FE series? >_> Your rant is the definition of "stop liking what I don't like."