Czar_Yoshi

What difficulty are you doing, and how do you intend to beat Apo with one LB, no Rallybots, no Staffbots, no Braves and no Pairup with limited resources to prepare? Also, is there any particular order you're doing the Paralouges/DLC in?

Chrom has a unique one too, and Lucina's is shared by the Lodestars in Spotpass and the DLC maps. You just said that.

That used to be the prevailing wisdom (more than a year ago), but it's had a lot of holes poked in it now. See, let's say you do use Avatar x Nowi. You now have all 7 girls with Galeforce, and... Only six boys total. That means one of your females is going to lack an S support, and that's unacceptable for postgame (mainly Apo, but do you really want to leave one permanently without a support at all?) due to the loss in Dual Strike%, so they'll wind up being benched. Avatar will likely get benched too, because during postgame killing things fast matters more than taking hits and Nowi is pretty much the worst wife in the game for doing the former. Thus, you'll be benching Avatar (the most versatile hard support in the game) and one of your female children with Galeforce. You now have six pairs total, three double Galepairs and three single Galepairs. Each of the singles gives you two attacks per turn and each of the doubles gives you three attacks per turn, so you've got a total of 6+9 = 15 attacks per turn with an Avatar x Nowi setup. Now, let's say instead that you marry Avatar-M to a second gen girl with Galeforce (probably Lucina, but Cynthia and Severa are very good too). You'll wind up with six girls with Galeforce and one without, and three boys with Galeforce and four without (since Avatar is marrying 2nd gen, he counts here). Now that there are seven units on either side, the sides are balanced and you can have seven pairings. Nah (the most likely one to be without Galeforce) will want to pair with a Galeboy to be part of a double Galepair, so you'll wind up with two double Galepairs and five single Galepairs. All told, that's 16 attacks per turn, both beating out Nowi by one and giving you a third gen Morgan with higher stats and the change to inherit something cool like Aether. Make sense?

More like every FE except Awakening. Level resets are new, previous games that had reclassing didn't reset your level for it.

This is very interesting. Massive post coming through. Given the rarity of natural GF, I'm not sure playing with a full 7 pairs is the best way to go for this. Since Staffbots are in good supply, though, mobility shouldn't be too much of an issue- it's probably a good idea to use more like 4-5 pairs and use the rest of the room for utility. Fewer pairs would also make it easier to hit everyone with Rallies, since you're going to likely have more than two Rallybots. So, Rallies: first, I'm guessing "no Second Seals" also applies to Wedding Bouquets and Dread Scrolls, so if Rally heart is desired, DLC!Eirika is required. She's pretty weak otherwise, so she may not be worth it. The other characters who deserve mention as good Rallybot candidates: -Katarina: Obvious. -Palla: The only Rally Str user with 8 Mov. Also comes with Spd- completely eclipsed by Katarina, but still worth mentioning. -Julia: Has Rally Mov, which is very rare due to there being no Spotpass DFs. Rally Mag as a secondary. -Saias: Mag/Spc. He's the only non-Katarina Spectrum user. There are others, but there are the most unique. As for staffbots, the only one that really stands out is Ursula, with a natural Valkyrie/TF combo. If using any Spotpass units directly for combat, the three that stand out the most are King Marth (RK/Astra/Luna combo, 41 base Spd), Sephiran (Sage with Vengeance, 38 base Spd) and DLC!Est (35 levels of Aptitude as a Peg with Luna/GF, the only proc/GF Spotpass unit- she'd want to go Falco because of her mods, though. While Aptitude wouldn't put her over 100 in any growth, it would make resetting for her stats much easier). Also, the main story has (including Renown) 8 Seraph Robes, 6 Energy Drops, 6 Spirit Dusts, 5 Secret Books, 6 Speedwings, 6 Goddess Icons, 6 Dracoshields, 6 Talismans, and 2 Naga's Tears. I don't know why there are only 5 Secret Books, maybe it's an error in SF's data, maybe it just feels like breaking the pattern. Anyway, having a smaller pool of attack units would let you focus these more, so that's another reason to keep it small (I haven't had much experience with low-stat Apo challenge runs, but I know that in normal gameplay extra Apt don't make as big of a difference once you've hit 10 as they do below it. Speedwings would likely be in the highest demand, as there are a lot of important Spd thresholds that would be very hard to hit with a limited number of levelups. The minimum acceptable Spd for S.Apo on anything is 51 (avoids doubling by quite a lot of things), but since Rallies are on the table 60 really should be everyone's target. If a 66 or 69 unit could be obtained, that would be fabulous depending on what they were. 75 is probably out of reach to anyone but Morgan, and I'm honestly not sure it matters since everything with 70 Spd is really frail. So, for actually setting this up, I feel like Frederick Emblem is the way to go until the Outrealm Gate becomes available- it's much harder to manipulate levelups when you're getting multiples per map. Though tedious, it really would be beneficial to always get perfect levels because then the final stats can be calculated before assembling the team, allowing for better threshold manipulation. Fred will likely be unused as a father due to his terribad bases, and is thus a safe exp sink for earlygame. As for who else to use... Yarne and Nah have no Braves, so they're off the table. Chrom's family is definitely in. As Noire is naturally a vengeance Sniper before her dad's contribution, she fits in well too. Kjelle is stuck as a slow Knight, so she'll probably get left behind too. Severa inherits GF and has two strong promotions, so she's probably in. For fielded attack pairs, that leaves us with: Sumia@DF x Chrom@GL (assuming they'll be used- it would be a shame to waste DS+ and GF, even though their stats will be a bit weaker than normal) Lucina@GL x ? Cynthia@DF x Avatar@GM Morgan@DF x ? ?!Severa x ? ?!Noire@Sniper x ? Four husbands are needed. Morgan would like Magical, the rest can take either. Only Yarne is off the table, so we've got Laurent (Sage with mag+2 and TF, but limited passdown options from Miriel), Gerome (likely as a Wyvern Lord with Lancebreaker inherited, unfortunately there are no Barb fathers), Owain (his best bet would be with a BF dad (Virion) as an Assassin, but would have underwhelming DSes), Brady (Sage and DS+ from Maribelle), and Inigo (two good support classes, but lacking in offensive mods). Of those, there are several choices. Let's break this down into a table of who gives what to who. Fred: off the table due to bad bases. Virion: Hit+20 (wanted by Gerome), BF (wanted by BK!Severa, BK!Inigo, and Assassin!Owain) Vaike: Axebreaker (wanted by Gerome, Noire) Stahl: Luna (wanted by Severa) Kellam: off the table due to being outclassed by Stahl. Lon'qu: SF (wanted by Severa, Assassin!Owain, Inigo), high Spd mod (wanted by everyone) Ricken: Mag+2 (wanted by Brady) Gaius: off the table due to having nothing anyone want. Gregor: AT (wanted by Noire for DB conservation, since they aren't renewable) Libra: off the table due to bad bases. Henry: Vengeance (wanted by Severa and Brady), Hex/Anathema (wanted by Gerome) OK, Owain only wants things that very high demand fathers have (Virion and Lon'qu), has no good passdowns from Lissa and will have the most underwhelming DSes of the group, so I think he's the one to go. That means Lucina, Severa, Morgan and Noire get to split up Laurent, Gerome, Inigo and Brady. Laurent and Brady are clearly magical, so one of them has to go to Morgan. Of these, I think Noire's father is fairly clear-cut as Gregor, since nobody else wants him and he helps her in both mods and skills. Now I'll organize this by child again: Severa: Lon'qu, Henry, Stahl Gerome: Virion, Vaike Laurent: Lon'qu, Henry Inigo: Lon'qu, Virion Brady: Ricken, Henry Alright, this is fairly tight, but I think Ricken!Brady is pretty clear cut. From there, there are only three of Lon'qu, Virion and Henry and four who want them, so one of Severa and Gerome will have to compromise and take Stahl or Vaike. Stahl!Severa is probably the more appealing of the two, though loading Gerome down with Breakers does sound interesting. I'm seeing three different good sets here, each determined by Severa's pairing: Set 1: Stahl!Severa, Virion!Gerome, Henry!Laurent, Lon'qu!Inigo Set 2: Lon'qu!Severa, Vaike!Gerome, Henry!Laurent, Virion!Inigo Set 3: Henry!Severa, Vaike!Gerome, Lon'qu!Laurent, Virion!Inigo So I'm thinking that any way this goes, Laurent is going to wind up with Lucina. Either he has Vantage and can sweep small-time mooks, or he has Vengeance + 100% DS and can be a boss killer. That leaves Brady for Morgan, because she wants a magical support. Since she has Ignis, it's fine that he has no proc and will stay in the back. Between Inigo and Gerome for Noire and Severa, it'll depend on the set- Lon'qu/Henry!Severa will get Gerome, Stahl!Severa will get Inigo (reasoning being that Henry!Severa is going max offense and wants the big DS power, Lon'qu!Severa is fast and won't mind the no +Spd from Gerome, and Stahl!Severa is a middle ground and would be better off giving Gerome to someone else who can use him. I'm not going to do stat calcs now, it's too late. But I think this run has a good chance of being worth putting effort into (I just spent an hour writing this, after all) and may even do it myself if there are no other takers. if anyone wants to expand upon this start, please do.

Apo has 20 deployment slots. There are 13 children + Avatar (7 attack pairs, 14 units), and Chrom is force deployed, leaving you with five other slots. Most people bring Chrom's wife for an 8th attack pair, two Rallybots and two Staffbots, but you can bench Chrom's wife for Olivia in the last slot if you want to. GF on Owain will see you more benefit than anything you'd have to leave it off for unless you've got 100% DS and your numbers for getting a certain KO are extremely tight (I left it off him in my 100% DS team, but I had good reason to). So if you don't know what you want the replacement skill to do (and I mean very specifically), GF is a better bet. And your listed set for Owain is pretty standard, there's not much good stuff he's lacking. Leaving it off is definitely OK sometimes, but if you are going to drop a GF I recommend doing it on Noire to open her up to a wider range of fathers. To look at things in a different light, think of GF not as an offensive skill but as a mobility skill. Your units typically start their turns very clustered together so your Rallybots can hit them all. Even with Rallies Heart/Mov and the occasional Deliverer, 8-Mov lead or +Mov support, there are only going to be so many enemies you can reach from where you start out, and odds are there will be fewer enemies than you have attacks. Having two GFs in one pair gives you 1.5x the movement range of your non-double Galepairs, allowing you to reach enemies that are further away and increase your efficiency of kills per turn. It's pretty nice.

Ricken!Inigo is pretty fun too, yeah. Hit+20 for Berserker and Luna is nice, and just for fun he's got all three Faires for Dread Fighter. I consider him to be mostly eclipsed by Libra!Inigo though, who trades Hit+20 for Hex or Anathema (still pretty close) along with 1 more Str and Vengeance over Luna. Normally the two procs are pretty much equal, but Berserkers have such low Skl that their Luna rates generally stink and Vengeance's 100% activation becomes more of an edge. Of course, both of them can make nice Sages as well. They're also both great candidates for Vaike!Nah (General for physical, Hero for either). Think about it, both your lead and support unit are in 50 Str classes... On the same theme of units who generally get overlooked, Stahl!Owain is another odd case of mixing magical and physical parents and getting a hybrid result. He'll have 1 Str and 2 Mag (the same as Libra!Inigo, actually) with roughly the same class set as Ricken!Owain- very nice for doing whatever you feel like. I know being able to run multiple sets isn't exactly the best as far as Apo is concerned, but it's super fun for normal postgame.

Well, it seems like modified roms are now a thing not restricted to just a choice few. In light of that, has anyone done any looking into how the RNG works in Awakening, and how feasible it would be to mess with it in a modified rom? Specifically, I'm looking for a way to make it always use the same seed (like the GBA FEs).

Source? Elice isn't one of the Spotpass characters, by the way.

Ingame? Sure (though Avatar-M's options aren't all good- only a handful can perform as well as Chrom x Avatar, and that's only if you train the wife up first. An example is Maribelle, who gives both children garbage starting classes and requires more attention than usual to get into a weapon using class). Postgame? Pairing imbalance, use caution (and you're even more constrained in terms of Avatar's wife- out of the entire first gen, only Sumia, Cordelia and Aversa have everything he wants for postgame). And nicely matched to their Faires and mods, at that.

Not to mention TF, Mag+2 and a +3 Mag mod. He's not Laurent, but he's actually the second best hard magical support out there (not counting Avatar, of course). Very nice for multipurpose teams. I've been considering adding him to my list of cookie cutter pairings for a while now (and I'm also using him in my 100% DS team).

Fighter and Barb have complete class overlap with Inigo's Barb and Merc, though, so all Inigo gets is mods and Knight. Walhart gives an extra class and more Str- personally I'd pick him (not for story, of course. Olivia x Basilio would be a good read). I'm also adding Yen'fay!Severa/Cynthia to my list of incredible pairings gained from Spotpass- 75 Spd Wyverns without All+2, very nice (Cynthia can run a procstack instead, Severa would likely take a Breaker or AT).

Ingame, P.Falchion is an infinite use Silver Sword/Concoction combo that's useable upon recruitment. That's pretty good. For Apo or any other postgame, it's assumed you're able to prepare, which you always can unless you're doing a challenge run. Therefore, since all weapons are renewable in Awakening, AT is a convenience and doesn't actually change "the metagame". A very convenient convenience, maybe, but one nonetheless. It's definitely not "NEEDED".

Say'ri!Lucina is interesting because she gets both Wyvern and GF. She doesn't have the Spd to use it as well as Severa or Kjelle, but it's probably what she'd want to do (otherwise, she doesn't really have any advantages over Olivia!Lucina, and Chrom gives Inigo a nice set so you'd just want to use her instead). I second Rydia. Fanboying in threads about gameplay is annoying.

Since Awakening has no real multiplayer, there's no such thing as "competitive" Awakening play, so this is pretty much a moot point. And the last thing Awakening needs is to be easier, there's Normal/Cas for people who don't want a challenge. Anyway... A Chrom x Cordelia pairing would leave the children severely lacking in Faires. Lucina won't care, but Severa does- all she has is BF and LF, so her only good postgame classes would be Sniper and Paladin. Also, Lucina lacks Vantage to take advantage of Cordelia's Vengeance (using it as an offensive proc is ootclassed by Aether/Luna). Stahl is essentially a Chrom that gives no Aether and exchanges 1 Spd for 1 Str. Sure, you've got SF, but there's only one class Stahl!Cynthia gets (Assassin) that can both use it and doesn't both come from Chrom and have another Faire from him it can use. And since Sumia's mods are so great on Lucina, this would be kind of completely eclipsed by Chrom. Sumia x Vaike would be interesting for aesthetic purposes (Cynthia can be the Hero she's always dreamed of!) and Vaike passes good Skl/Spd, so it would probably be one of Sumia's good options (I'd say her third best, behind Chrom and Lon'qu). Most likely Cynthia would be played as a General in this case to take advantage of her high Spd mod (35(base) +5(mods) +20(LBR) +8(Zerker) +2(tonic) =70, which is very nice for a General). Sumia x Lon'qu would be another heavy armor candidate, reaching 75 Spd as a GK (SF or LF) with either All+2 and a Zerker or no All+2 and an Assassin. She could also hit 75 Spd as a Wyvern x Berserker with no All+2, allowing for a procstack of Luna/Astra. Definitely one of her stronger options despite having negative Str, I'd put it at second to Chrom. Chrom x Nowi would be nice for ingame because high Def and all that, but a Lucina with no GF and a Spd mod of 0 would be beyond useless for postgame. This would be one of Chrom's worst pairings for Apo. Panne pretty much gives Lucina the same mods as Sumia but trades GF for +4 Str, which I think is a bad deal. Stahl!Yarne can do everything Chrom!Yarne would except better thanks to +1 Str, so this pairing is likely going to be at the bottom of Chrom's barrel as well. So no, I don't think you went overboard. You didn't even mention some of the possible pairings that really would make a big change, namely using the spotpass characters- Chrom x Aversa (just for fun), Nowi x Priam (assuming his Fighter became Peg- he can pass down Luna, giving Nah a Luna/Astra procstack with GF and nice Str), Panne x Yen'fay (already better than Virion by mods alone and with a massive Spd boost for any 3rd gen Morgans), Sumia x Gangrel (again, see mods), and Walhart x Olivia (+5 Str and Luna). A lot of those would pretty much run over many existing good pairings.

I believe you can forge a weapon with just a name and no stat boosts to prevent the difficulty from giving it a forge if you want to leave one unforged on a higher difficulty. Other than that, it shouldn't give you much trouble.

No, the fact that you just wrote that is TMI for me and probably a lot of other users here.

*Wrecks Grima's mooks in the final chapter* That skill pretty much disarms all enemies within range of you, which is better than an OHKO. It had better be LB-hard to obtain.

You don't say? I think that falls under most people's definitions of "too mich information", FYI. That's likely a bug in the game (if it were deliberate, it would make her less special because all of Avatar's other spouses get Avatar's own theme playing).

The save data will be completely separate, so your support logs won't be deleted- they just won't be on your physical copy. You can just play the digital one again if you want to read them sometime.

Actually, the only ones with exactly 60 are the Invincisorcs. There are several more 59s (64) and also several 70s (66) so one down or one up would still give you a lot of thresholds.

Technically, there is (in game, no less). It has Avatar single.

The threshold to hit isn't 65, it's 60. 55 is where most mook's Spd caps out, and it's the minimum needed to not be doubled by Thronie. 66 is a threshold, but it's for not being doubled by Anna, not for doubling anything.

I can confirm that it's 0/4/9 (for parent-child supports at least- haven't tested siblings). Support grinding takes me one map and one Seed/Event Tile for B, and one battle with six Seeds/Event Tiles for A. One less on either doesn't work.

They're more to do with the parents, actually. Other than that, the most important two are that Morgan-M can marry Lucina and Morgan-F can get away with much slower classes while still packing 75 Spd (thanks to being able to marry a Berserker). 60 is the minimum acceptable Spd for non-challenge run Apo- any less and you'll have to constantly watch your back to make sure you're not failing to double mooks. Fred!Inigo has a 0 Spd mod and Wyvern comes with 38, so with Rallies and a tonic he does hit 63. Male Wyvern Lords are a little less common than female ones because they can't marry Berserkers, and Wyverns really like Berserker supports. They're still powerful and perform nicely for damage and Mov, but they're not at their best.