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Hmm, I’ve actually found my latest Lunatic run really easy so far despite numerous restrictions. No DLC, spotpass, Anna shops, Barracks, shiny tiles, Nosferatu, etc. I’ve actually seen Panne/Chrom/Lucina face 0/0/0, which should not happen in no grinding Lunatic. <_< Reclass -> level to unpromoted caps -> promote at Chapter 12 is pretty op. Unpromoted exp gain is fast enough to facilitate this and you get units with like ~30 in all the important stats really early. As long as Frederick isn’t used much after the opening chapters there’s plenty of exp to fund this. 10/20/1 Panne, on average, has like 58 hp, 33+2 str, 28 spd, 27 def. Gets exp like a level 25 unit. This is just Chapter 12. I had 14/17/1 Wyvern Lord Panne, 20/2 Assassin Lon’qu, 18/15/1 Paladin Chrom, 20/15/1 Grandmaster->Dark Flier Avatar all by Chapter 13. When Lucina arrives she has like 30 all stats after Chrom Pair Up and Rally Spectrum, as well as getting 100 exp per kill for a while. So she quickly becomes op as well. In my run, now at chapter 17, my 14/17/9 Panne with Assassin Lon’qu Pair Up has 67 hp, 49 str, 43 spd, 38 def, 109-119 avoid with Skills/Support, effectively 79% Adept. She demolishes the Heros nearby to the tune of doing 36x2 with an Iron Lance and facing just 50 hit, 4 damage. I could Rally Spectrum to bring that to 42 hit, 0 damage. Sure I have to be somewhat aware of Snipers, but it’s mostly a steamroll. This is where I remember the difficulty jumping, but now my exp allocation is much better (or I didn't use Frederick as much), so it's easy. Again, it’s not like this is a solo, I have Chrom, Lucina, Avatar all with ridiculous stats (Avatar is the worst of the bunch by getting Mag/Spd screwed), like 40ish with Pair Up. I could train Yarne/Morgan for more ridiculous units if I wanted them. These characters are toptier at this sort of thing, but I’m fairly sure anyone with a good unpromoted reclass can do similarly (Stahl, Sully, Vaike, tons of characters). Also I still have Rally Spectrum, Rally Speed, Rally Magic, Rally Luck from various characters and could use Tonics for +2 all stats. Panne could be up to 55 str, 53 spd, 44 def, like 140 avoid, which is just silly. My next run will likely be no Avatar, no Panne to test this, but honestly Lunatic just seems pretty easy in general once you understand the mechanics. I kinda just want to try no Second Seal now. >_>

Gerome's Paralogue has the highest level enemies of all of them, iirc. I think it can be roughly judged by the parent's join time. Morgan/Owain are easy and Avatar/Lissa join early. Inigo/Gerome are hard and Olivia/Cherche join late relative to other mothers. The trend seems to hold. The enemies probably all have forges, maybe hacked ones. Wyvern Lords have access to Lances, and might have Swordbreaker, plus maybe Tantivy/Quick Burn. I think you're underestimating the difficulty curve from all the enemies being promoted, let alone the harder Paralogues.

In general, a consistent Rally Spectrum user and Naga's Tear from Morgan's Paralogue are great for the enemy promotion difficulty spike around Chapter 17. It also helps for the exp. Owain is another "easy" Paralogue for the exp. That seems to be about where people start complaining about the stat curve. >_> Gerome's paralogue is insanely hard, like lategame-Lunatic stats.

I have a few screenshots too. 2nd post. http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=36565 I just directed Lethe the maximum distance every turn and sent Titania alone up there. Should get there exactly in time to block the Bandit. Using others with Ward support probably works too.

If you're willing to reset for stuff, Marcia seems to be clearly better. I'd imagine it'll be a lot of resets, however. It's also possible there's some optimized combination that uses both. It is extremely difficult to one-round stuff at 1-2 range in general, even with Adept. 50+ hp/20+ def is very common on lategame enemies. I was planning on 255 crit Calill for my run. It's on Fixed though, and has been severely delayed by various Awakening runs. >_> The enemies near Oliver move whereas they don't in HM iirc, so if they move before Oliver on enemy phase, Adept is obtainable. Otherwise, probably not.

If you have just 3 tanks, you can surround the adjacent tiles to Tiki in that position and have the others kill the 1-2 range enemies. Some of the tanks can be unequipped so they only face 2 attacks max per turn. It helps if someone can Rally Spectrum and Fortify every turn. Might require Galeforce to be the most successful, but you can probably just use tons of effective damage. I also noticed some AI weirdness, but didn't really bother to figure it out. IIRC it did seem like the bottom person faces by far the most attacks.

Yeah I did +Spd on my first Lunatic run but Avatar was just like level 6-7 by Chapter 3 instead of level 13-14. The level lead +Def/+HP (I don't think there's too much difference) affords is very significant and lets you snowball quickly. +Spd Avatar needs Frederick to feed her kills while +Def/Hp can do the majority of fighting starting from from Chapter 1. Essentially Avatar can get all the earlygame exp Frederick normally takes. By the lategame you have Pair Up (Chrom/Lucina), Speed Tonics, Rally Speed (I use 10/5 Cordelia), Rally Spectrum (I use Morgan since I favor Lucina too much. >_>) which is something ridiculous like +20 Spd so there are no issues. I don't think +Hp for Vengeance matters too much except for the final boss, and I usually have some combination of Chrom/Lucina/Avatar/Morgan + Olivia to Brave + Dual Strike him down.

Well the easy way is Dark Mage, then use Nosferatu. Avatar's ridiculous stats from being overleveled can carry him until Nosferatu is buyable. I haven't actually tried it, but I'm pretty sure going to Merc->Hero for Sol or Wyvern Rider->Wyvern Lord for Avoid stacking similarly trivialize. More "standard" play has Avatar promoting and getting Rally Spectrum so you pass it to your children and also train other units easier. Galeforce is only good if you plan to Rescue-chain and bossrush the later chapters. However, the Bow/Wind magic weakness is pretty severe if Avatar is your main combat unit. It's much easier just to slowly walk up and tank them with Nosferatu, Sol, or Avoid-stacking.

Avatar tank works well and I think it's the easiest way to beat Lunatic. Some brief strats for reference (essentially the standard, except substitute Frederick for Avatar). Prologue: I'm lazy so I have Frederick kill all the Myrms/Mages and weaken the Barbs (all with Silver Lance) to feed the Barb kills to Avatar. Avatar paired with Chrom next to Lissa/Frederick can slowly chip the boss with no chance of dying. Avatar at level 4ish, it's probably possible to be higher. Chapter 1: Avatar paired with Frederick using the Bronze Sword easily tanks this chapter on the north Fort. Has the advantage of not being afraid of the Hammer. Switch to Thunder to counter the Archer/Boss when other stuff is cleared out. Avatar at level 8ish. For these chapters, unequip Chrom/Frederick or whoever Avatar is paired with so she gets a little more chip exp on the bosses. Chapter 2: The easy way is, trade Avatar the Elixer, Avatar with Frederick goes to the leftmost tile of the right Myrm's range. Next turn, Avatar/Frederick go to the Forest. Use Thunder or Bronze Sword depending on what enemies are left, Soldiers or Barbs. Can take some resets, but not much more than if Frederick did the tanking instead. A slightly more consistent strat is to tank on the left mountains but it's a little harder to explain in terms of saving everyone else. With the first strat you move them to the 4 safe spots, then to the right. After, heal up, aggro the north, pull back, tank on the middle forts. Avatar is level 14ish. There are some minor stat benchmarks but Avatar has to really get RNG screwed in Spd/Def growth for them to matter. The averages are sufficient. Obviously the more Hp/Def Avatar procs, the easier it is. Chapter 3/4 are easy with both Avatar and Frederick being good. Afterwards, grind on DLC or buy a Second Seal/Master Seal from Anna or use the Renown Second Seal for Avatar (should be level 20 by Chapter 5). Cruise on. Lategame can be hard without self-healing from Nosferatu/Sol or Avoid stacking so plan for that. The final boss is hard without a trained Falchion user, but the non-Chrom one can have pretty high bases, Veteran for near 100 exp per kill for a while, and you can Rally Spectrum for some easy training. Since I find balanced teams more fun, I actually like using this super-Avatar in a Jeigan-like role to help other units get some levels instead of soloing everything.

There's a huge string of bosskill maps in mid/lategame that can all be easily 1-2 turned for most teams. Really most maps after Anna/Libra join are 1-3 turns. Not even super hardcore optimized LTC, just casually using Rescue + Olivia + Galeforce/Deliverer. Yay buyable Rescue. In that gap, enemies go from unpromoted to promoted to promoted with forges which is a massive stat gap. There's really not that much exp to go around if Frederick dominates the earlygame and the majority of the mid/late is rescue-skipped in an efficiency run. Units can't really reclass much at all except for your main, core fighting units. Others might early promote and stay in the single digit promoted levels for small contributions. Someone who snowballs fast is good, such as Avatar and his/her children with Veteran, or Panne to Wyvern. This is for Hard, btw since I haven't tried efficient play on Lunatic. Unless specifically going for LTC, I tend to play more casually, do more Paralogues, and with a larger team (up to 15 for later story chapters). No grinding is necessary to beat the game, even on Lunatic. I think I can typically get a single unpromoted reclass and units can then either do a promoted reclass or go for the level 15 skill and get it late. This is really good if there are enough early Second Seals from Anna shops since units get tons of stats and skills, and the unpromoted reclass levels are easy to blast through. Multiple unpromoted reclasses are pointless since at some point they'll ram the caps. Or go to level 20, then promote and do a promoted reclass sometime after 20/15, but they probably will barely get to the 2nd level 5 promoted skill. The stat curve is generous around midgame so you don't need early promo-gains that much. The difficulty does ramp up later, so I usually like promoting later. Estimating getting to around total level 40 counting internal levels is pretty fair I think. Something like this depends a lot on team size due to the exp floor for kills being pretty high. Minimum is 8, often around 12-18 is more common even for kinda high level units.

Tanith is probably over there to ferry Ike, so she and Tauroneo with Laguz Lance, maybe some Siege, should be enough against Ena. Schaeffer has just 8 luck, so you could Meteor crit if dedicated enough. Bolting crit is marginally easier and iirc you get one that chapter. Re: Arms Scrolls: Vague Katti has low Mt, I think forged Silver is better overall, particularly for Stefan. It's something that would likely matter most on bosses, who have high Def. Could look into Bolting for Ilyana or Meteor for Tormod, but hit rate issues, etc. Or Bolting for Bastian since he has C Thunder. Maybe Silver Lances for Tanith.

Just do tests without Pair Up. With sufficient data, the statistical analysis is easy.

Depending on your level ups, Avatar does what Frederick normally does in Chapter 2. Typically this involves 8 Spd to not get doubled and around average Def. Avatar should be level 7-8 from Chapter 1 (So Spd benchmark is easy. 8 base def + around 3-4 from growth + 5 from Pair Up/C Support is 16-17 def, same as Frederick with a Pair Up. Hp is slightly less, but Magic also doesn't have Weapon triangle issues). You should get to around level 14 by the end of the chapter. If you got RNG screwed, you can tank with Frederick until you make your way to a fort/mountain and all myrms are dead, and still give most kills to your Avatar. The 2nd wave is easy to tank. You should get to around level 12. EDIT: Also, I personally think early promotion for Chrom is a bad idea in Lunatic. The enemy stat curve is crazy and you don't want to gimp your exp gain so early. I actually like reclassing him first. Chrom is usually one of the better lategame fighters, and either him or Lucina trained are pretty critical for a reliable clear of the final boss if not grinding.

I recommend +Def asset to those who haven't tried it. Avatar can Pair with Frederick for +4-5 Def, while Frederick can usually only get +2 from Pair Up. By the time Kellam arrives you can already be around level 12-14, on par with or better than Frederick's stats and with good 1-2 range. Kellam gives much needed Def, but still doesn't support with Frederick for even more stats + Dual Strike/Guard rate. And Avatar has Veteran + low level, so much higher growth potential. Plus it's much easier to feed kills to others with 2 competent units and it's easier to phase Frederick out. For me, he's still useful later as a Pair Up partner later and for his Lance rank, since other Lance units are hard to train without grinding.

Hmm, I found all the characters I used had good/great offense. Smart use of Pair Up/Rally and frequent Dual Attacks makes things very easy. Cordelia was actually my worst (relatively, she was still good) combat unit, despite being 3rd in kills overall next to Avatar/Chrom. That's probably because I promoted her early to try to get Galeforce earlier and for Sevara. Still, Cordelia doesn't seem that much better than other characters. Rexcalibur has 30 mt, probably around 40 when forged. Cordelia has 8 res base, and just 35% growth. Enemies (maybe 20ish magic?) should easily 2hko. Other enemies frequently have 40+ att as well. @Lord Raven: Just curious, if you don't like LTC arguments, or opportunity cost arguments, what is your metric and its implications? What makes a character better than another one? If it's something like overall utility, is it net vs. gross? Is there negative utility? Is Donnel better or worse than a hypothetical unit that joins in chapter 9 with 15+ Str/Skl/Spd/Def, gets exp like a level 6 unit, and 80%+ growths? I'm not going to push an argument now or if ever, but discussion seems all over the place and it would be helpful to have clarification regarding tiering metrics.

iirc, many enemies lategame when forges show up have like 140 hit, and it's hard to get that much avoid without avoid skills. 40 Spd/30 Luck is only 75 avoid. Forged Rexcalibur also obliterates fliers. Axes against Lances is not fun early. Is her dodging really that good early on? I could be misremembering. S support is also just 10 Avoid like C support, plus 1 or so more stats of Pair Up bonuses. It's not a drastic avoid boost. I do think Sumia is better than Lon'qu, however. Gaius is also comparable combatwise. Early Silver/Killer Lance, plus being the first flier, are great too. I found Cordelia to not be that great, but I can see how she's comparable to Sumia. In general Str leads don't mean as much with ~70% Dual attacks at S support, more with Chrom support. Along the same lines, if mid tier gets cramped, you could separate out the high speed ones from the others. Doubling is way more important. The earlier and easier to get kids like Morgan/Lucina still only dominate half the game at best, and they're not so much superior to Say'ri, Tiki or other characters.

The advantage of Rhys is he has the most magic of the Staff users who can be rescued and therefore protected. I think using both him and Elincia could be useful. He adds Purge chip too. Nosferatu could potentially let him survive a hit or 2? Or not, with 0 base def. -_-.

How much reclassing is happening anyway, particularly early? Without Annas, there can't be that many Second Seals before C16, which is quite late though useful for the children. I've found units that do reclass -> promote are pretty dominant throughout the game. But competition has got to be pretty high between those who reclass to something they have a good weapon rank in (Vaike/Chrom/maybe Sumia/Gaius/Gregor) or those with Discipline or those who reclass to Dracoknights (Many characters. Panne is the best, probably followed by Sully/Lon'qu. +2 Str mitigates starting with Bronze, and stat distribution is great with Str/Def class bases/growth balancing Skl/Spd personal bases/growths. Flying, high move, as well as Tantivy, Quick Burn or Carrier are all amazing) or are prepromos (Mostly Frederick) or is Donnel. To elaborate as this limited reclass issue, and as a point for discussion, how is Vaike, for example, that much worse than non-Veteran Avatar? Chrom/Lon'qu support help early speed, and he has ridiculous Str and other growths. 15/10% more than Avatar growths is 3-4 points over 30 levels and 4-6 points over 40 levels. If Avatar goes for Rally Spectrum while Vaike reclasses to Barb, it's Rally utility and general flexibility vs. getting completely destroyed statistically. I think Second Seals are akin to Statbooster allocation in previous games.

Oh I'm sure strict LTC works. The mininum 8 exp and unlimited levels system means it's easy to have a few super-units. I'm just noting how fast growth units can reach their (sometimes overkill) potential. I actually think having some early promo units to carry through early midgame, then some children to carry through lategame would work well in efficient play. Or just Avatar-solo. >_>

The growth unit issue is far more interesting than previous FEs, since they do surpass the prepromo or early promoted units quickly if you do feed those kills. Particularly if not assuming LTC play. At least in my run (I tend to rout all and spread exp somewhat evenly), the earlier children catch up and surpass the parents extremely quickly with a little kill prioritization and/or Pair Up/Rally Spectrum assistance. A reclassed child gets 60-70 exp per kill while your promoted units get around 15. They come with around 15-20 in each stat. They typically can one-round or close to that at base with Pair Up/Rally. The early ones like Lucina (even with Olivia inherited bases, not Sumia or FeAvatar as mother)/Owain (heavily benefited from a trained Donnel's inheritance) can Master Seal immediately to be comparable to or better statwise than say, Say'ri, or reclass then promote (which is very quick, took about a chapter) to be among your strongest units. It's not comparable to Donnel who does need severe babying early, though I found a Support with Kellam lets him chip kills and tank decently. Still, if you Second Seal him early he's comparable to early promoted units. In my run right now he's by far my strongest unit, with his son Owain close behind even though I just got him a chapter or so ago. Meanwhile units like Cordelia who was early promoted and now a ~12/10 Dark Flier is losing in like 10 points in all stats (some stats in teens vs in 30s) and still growing slower. Still, she still tends to one-round consistently and have high durability in the storyline chapters with Pair Up support, but that might change as more enemies start to get promoted. Some of my units like Donnel/Owain could take on the harder paralogues like Inigo/Sevara's now as they're opening (I've done no skirmishes either) while others that were early promoted like Cordelia/Tharja would get crushed. Even Avatar who is like 15/(15/1) loses badly in stats, though I think he got Spd/Def screwed. Other reclass -> promo units like Chrom/Lon'qu are inbetween Donnel/Cordelia statwise. Again, they all destroy (usually one round everything at 1-2 range, don't have much chance of dying) the current storyline chapters. Again, that might change. Essentially it's not that straightforward for the children because of their high bases relative to their low level (Gets exp like level 6-10 with stats like a level 21 unit) and more skills. Smart use of Pair Up/Rally is overkill for some units, at least midgame, and mitigate any lowish bases. So much for focusing on a few characters at once. I may comment on the characters actually being tiered now later. I do tend to favor a stricter measure, like reliable LTC, to better gauge the distinctions between characters. Reliability first, but faster is better. Pure LTC does not seem as conducive to discussion. A leniant requirement is not that interesting to me. I'll leave the arguments about tiering philosophy to others and just go with whatever people decide. <_<

Steel is forgeable by C14, so you could Steel Bow chip him with Kieran/Astrid or something (Needs Arms Scroll?). I think Mordecai can take a crit if he transforms in time. The boss moves which can give you an extra counter. I don't particularly think Stefan is the best use of those resources. I'm just throwing out ideas for what's possible. Generally I find planning backwards works better since you know what resources you need to save for the long term. That's the main reason I mentioned some of the later bosses first.

Lower activation. I just mentioned Adept there b/c of the 3hko on Petrine. As well as possible Vantage/Adept shenanigans for rout chapters. It doesn't matter too much overall. Either Speedwing!Stefan gives a 60-70% kill or you have enough chippers for a 100% kill or you take another turn for a 100% kill. Or you figure something else out. <_<

Energy Drop on Stefan for the 3hko on Petrine as well as 4hko on Bertram. But really he doesn't even need it because you can always use Siege chip or the ferrying canto units to chip on the turn you seize. Money isn't an issue in lategame PoR. You get >100,000. iirc, I literally forged Max Mt and some Hit/Crit things every chapter and didn't use them all up. I also routed everything in my MM run (~1400 enemies) which is way more battles than you fight in HM as well as LTC. These forged Silvers are just for bosskills. Btw I assumed max Crit too. >_> If the wing on Titania only saves 1 turn, or Ena's speedwings only save 1 turn, Stefan can take it. It's 1 (or more) turns here or there. If Stefan saves multiple turns from these bosskills, then he should get the wings. If you're willing to take an extra turn for Tauroneo or any unit to enemy phase counter the boss, it's fairly trivial for a ~100% clear since you have another extra enemy phase and player phase to bring more units up and chip. As well as another turn of Tauroneo's Resolve/Brave attack. These are seize maps after all, not defeat boss maps. Right. It's alot easier to get Tauroneo somewhere between 21-39 hp during the chapter. That's fairly lenient. If you want to save a turn, you have to plan like exactly between 21-24 hp, and not let Bertram counter meaning chipping him enough with Siege (like 11 damage). Now, as a Speedwing has already been used on Titania, it's probably better to plan on Tauroneo for the bosskills for now. It's clearly possible from this theorycrafting I think. At worst you lose a turn or 2 and have much more reliable clears. And I agree with the idea that you should plan strats around what the numbers require.

Oh lol I'm been half looking at NM boss stats some of the time. If you're going to rely on that kind of luck against Petrine, you might as well go with Stefan who can do 16x2, 100 hit, 28 crit, 27% Adept (~72% success overall) with Forged Silver. It saves a turn too. Really Petrine isn't that hard with Speedwings!Stefan and other units chipping. You just need to watch for Crits and Pure Water/Ward can help with that. If you're close enough to Bertram to drop or Rescue Staff directly in his range, it's not that hard. If he attacks Tauroneo into Resolve range, you get 4 Resolve+Brave attacks before he gets a chance to heal which is more than enough. Normally, Brave Sword against Bertram runs into the low str problem. Base Stefan with Speedwings does 3x4. >_>

Chipping with Siege might be a issue if you don't oneturn him and he gets healed up or you need the Siege tomes elsewhere. A combo with someone and Sonic Sword Tanith is likely your best bet. C25 is the mountain and last Rout chapter. LTC usually involves some super strong and durable unit up top. In 0% it's probably Tauroneo, or some Vantage/Wrath or Adept unit. You have stuff like Resolve!Ena for C28, so it shouldn't that bad. With forge glitch, you might even be able to get a decent turn count in 0% growth Maniac. Without, you definitely have to turtle. Every enemy is stronger than the bosses in the chapters and there are tons.