Czar_Yoshi

Yeah, it's mostly considered bad because Cynthia's growths and mods get messed up. Ingame though it's very potent and one of the best ways to both make Sumia useful right off the bat and keep Frederick relevant past Cht.6. ? Lissa x Donnel.

You're going to need at least two scales (one for the maximum potential of a setup, one for the player skill required to use it). For example, offensive Vengeance (basically using Vengeance on a Galeforce unit in place of Luna instead of together with Vantage) has both higher reliability and a higher maximum output than Luna, but it requires you to deliberately take damage to work, which some players just have a mental block against. Or Bows in Luantic+- by limiting enemy phase combat, they protect you from Counter, as well as limiting the nuber of times you're attacked per EP- but they also draw the battle out longer, causing restarts to be more significant, require some care to keep from getting surrounded, and can't mop things up. The only stat threshold that doesn't vary by enemy is Skl (160 average on an S pair for 100% DS, 50 for 100% Vengeance). Spd is fairly simple as well, in Apo at least (75 to double everything, 69 to double all but 3 enemies, 66 to avoid being doubled by Anna, and 60 to avoid being doubled by Thronie- 75 is the maximum anyone needs, and 60 is the minimum acceptable). 220 Hit is generally a good minimum for Apo as well, as it gives 100% Hitrate against everything that isn't a Boss. Non-Apo/Lunatic Grima thresholds are incredibly numerous, specific, and usually minor (and there's not much you can do about them anyway) so I wouldn't worry about them yet. Now, some generally good combos (for Apo): Female lead: LB GF Luna/Ignis/Vengeance Astra/Aether/Ignis/All+2 Faire/DS+ Male lead: LB GF Agg Luna/Ignis/Vengeance Faire Male hard support: LB Faire Agg Hit+20/All+2 Hit+20/All+2/DSt+/DSp+/Anathema/Str+2/Skl+2/Mag+2 There are a few other character-specific sets, mostly for Lucina and Nah, but that covers all the standards for Apo. Ingame you generally use whatever you get on lower difficulties and play with a higher priority on class stats on higher ones, and the only real combos that could both see much use and aren't automatic are on Avatar or Gregor!Laurent (Vantage/Vengeance/AT) and Chrom!Inigo (RK/Sol/AT).

Yes.

Because Galeforce isn't everything. Henry!Nah has a lot more options, including a plethora of Auras and multiple good support classes. Since Nah also has a lot of room for skills, it's easy for her to tack on Vengeance and take the last move instead of her partner- and since Agg is twice as potent in the back, this is actually beneficial. Also she'd lack a (good) proc with Gaius, so her Galeforce wouldn't even be that useful. No, he's good, he just can't compete with his sister. (Until the SF forums get back on their feet I'll be checking my PMs on GameFAQs regularly in case anyone wants to find me)

Depends on how good you are at feeding kills. I never go for Maribelle's Galeforce in Lunatic, and Olivia usually takes all of Cht.12. If your Avatar is buff enough, park him in the middle of a crowd of ranged enemies unequipped with a good defensive support, and break all the enemy weapons so Olivia/Maribelle can easily take their exp (this is tedious, but skill-wise the easiest way). Do keep in mind that even once you get Galeforce, their children will come too late with too low of bases to seriously help out, and may never make it out of the liability phase without similar treatment as their mothers (at least until they're strong enough to reliably get kills).

Owain: Henry Kjelle: Gaius Laurent: Gregor Cynthia: Chrom Brady: Henry Yarne: Virion Severa: Virion Nah: Henry Noire: Gaius Inigo: Libra Gerome: Stahl Morgan: Maribelle!Lucina Laurent and Brady are pretty close with Lon'qu, and Inigo is pretty close with Chrom and Ricken. Morgan is also pretty close with Sumia!Lucina, Chrom!Cynthia and Aversa. It feels like it was designed for it, to be honest. Go look for videos of it online (from LPers, not FE vets) and they'll sling just about whatever at it, albeit fully ground, and not have too much trouble. Here's a good example: The player doesn't know how Rally stacking works, doesn't seem to have Galeforce for Brady (and has him as a Wyvern Lord), is using several parent pairs, has several pairs fighting at A, uses Sol, fields a ton of Sorcs, makes a big blunder with Mire and still only has one point where the RNG could have killed them (despite all that, it's still a good watch). DS: I just use Notepad and the Windows Calculator app. You should need three tabs at most though (http://serenesforest.net/fe13/class_max.html, http://serenesforest.net/fe13/double.html, http://serenesforest.net/fe13/char_max.html), but since there are so few relevant classes if you're aiming for 100% DS it should be easy to memorize what you need from the first two (Sniper/Assassin/Hero/Falco/Sage are the only ones I go for 100% DS with). I KOed Anna with a Villager Donnel once, and that's as far as I'm willing to go on that challenge.

I can't speak for others, but I don't think of it as dropping any number of pairs- rather than starting with a full team and eliminating the ones I don't want, I start with an empty team and take only the ones I need. Anyway I've made plenty of both large and small teams, though I prefer the small ones better (partially because they're a lot quicker to grind up).

That hypothetical Peg is needing a lot of combat exp to get Rally Spd (far too much to justify on a support unit), and since the default Pegs are already some of the best units for Lunatic they should be part of your main cast and not an extra. Adding all the children into a 10-parent team without benching any of the parents is certainly possible, but then you'd have 7-8 pairs, which is nearly twice the optimal level. 5 pairs is a recommended maximum, not average. No Grind No Pairup Lunatic: it's definitely possible, Avatar could easily pull it off as a Sorcerer (with a little luck needed on the final boss and some careful maneuvering on the early chapters).

Equipping your units with Elixirs can help, but on the bigger/timed waves you'll want Staff users too. Enough that it'll pretty much always fully heal you with two charges. The exact amount depends on your unit's Mag. I don't think anyone's ever done an extensive study on how IR's chests work, but if they're completely random then it's 1/31 per chest (with 3 chests per map). Maybe swap Astra for something else. She should never fight something if there isn't a 100% chance for her to win, so a proc doesn't help her much. I usually use Bond or All+2 instead.

Nothing in the game hints at him being sane, either, and Shadow Dragon is pretty clear that all Earth Dragons except Medeus are insane so that's the default assumption. Also, check out his mood swings in the "bad" ending of FP3 (Lucina lives, but 1 or more other children died).

I give that advice to people who are using Awakening as a gateway to the series, but in this case TC is very familiar with the other games and is specifically asking how similar Awakening is to the rest of them and how to get the best experience from it. Given that he really didn't like Chris, it's a safe assumption that Awakening's "think with your heart, not your brain" style won't work on him.

I'm under the impression that Grima just doesn't understand time travel. He's (almost definitely) an Earth Dragon, therefor he's probably also insane, which probably hinders his understanding of complex things like this. And that jumbled mess of implications is officially known as a Timey-Wimey Ball.

Different people have different definitions of fun, so I can't speak for everyone but I can definitely have fun on Lunatic. Lunatic+, too. My bit of advice is to be careful with your money management. Especially without the boost from Renown, there are several useful big-ticket items that you can sink your cash into (like a forged Javelin, a Dragonstone+ from Spotpass, or Seals from Anna), but if you try to get them all you could run low on mundane weapons and have to start using the strong stuff you were saving for later (like the Killer weapons). Until Valm starts, be conservative with your cash and don't buy something just because you can (and don't underestimate AT either).

A little babying is required (as in a little), but it's worth it when a child can take one chapter's worth of exp and be functionally tied with their parents in stats, but have way better skills/growth rates. The way the exp formula works in Lunatic, you can get through your first promoted class fairly quickly, but your second one (after reclassing while promoted) is slow as molasses- but since the children inherit better than average bases, they'll have the stats of a second promote on their first one, not to mention likely having two promoted skills that they inherited, plus a third gotten early into their first promote. This effectively gives them a two skill and 15-20 level lead on their parents after they promote, which is massive. Reclassing in base classes also doesn't hurt their exp growth much, and they start at a perfect level to do a base reclass, so they can pick up two more unpromoted skills and then promote directly into their promoted class of choice from there (parents can't do this well because there are very few Second Seals before the children show up). They are a little weaker in Normal/Hard because their parents don't have to be as awesome to survive long enough to tie the knot, and thus can pass down lower bases.

Double Bow gives Str+5 as a passive bonus. A Forged Longbow will be better on units with Flying weaknesses, but the Double Bow still edges out Longbows in effective mt. Typical forges are 5/15, though if your unit is at less than 220 Hit it's probably a good idea to forge 3/25 instead. You can try one staffbot, but you'll have no room for error because that Staffbot will be busy with Fortify most of the time and can only rescue two units at most (with Olivia's help) if things turn ugly and you need to pull out. You should have enough PPO with 7 pairs to not get into any messes, but you'll need to be more careful than usual. For reference, my current for fun team has only 8 combat units, leaving 12 spaces for Staffbots/Rallybots/Olivia- I may be a little lacking in PPO (actually, I have 2/3 as much functional PPO as a full 7/2 team despite having only four pairs), but my maneuverability makes me practically invincible.

She's actually better off as a solo unit in case she needs to hitch a ride on a Staffbot. If she does need a support (for finishing off a weakened foe), she can stand between the failed pair and the target, grab their support, KO the target, activate Galeforce, transfer the support back, and then Dance. So definitely keep her without a designated support.

Tharja is a scrub. My vote's on Owain.

For best results? Four (Chrom x Robin and their two children). As a practical maximum? Try not to field more than five combat pairs at once (you can train all 5 as adult pairs as long as you get all their children and then bench some to make room for the children later). My preference? Two adult pairs and two child pairs for combat (usually Chrom x Sumia and Avatar x Cordelia/Nowi) and as many extra Staffbots as I can manage. Lunatic+ requires some lowmanning as well to do without grinding (and it's a bit harsher on the upper limit than Lunatic) but combat consists of more than finding a pair tanky enough to survive enemy phase.

Dunno, I don't like Sully enough to bother reading most of her supports. If she does, though, then wouldn't she be comparing herself to a minority? That only suggests she has even bigger issues with men.

Olivia essentially serves as either another staffbot or another combat pair simultaneously, and has the added benefit of giving a pair that failed to get a kill on their opening move another chance to activate their Galeforces (so a potential of four extra kills per turn for running her- she can steal the botched kill since the target will be at low HP for one, than dance a fresh double Galeforce pair to get back their potential three turns). She's usually worth running, especially if she married Chrom and/or has Boots.

Chrom's army is pretty equal-opportunity, I see roughly equal numbers of dudes and gals. Ylisse doesn't seem to have an army proper bar the Pegasus Knights (nevermind their competence level) who are an all-female organization, so I'd say Sully is actually on the more populated side. There's a good reason for this in-game, too- Ylisse has just finished fighting another brutal war, and if they did have conventionally male ranks then, they're 99% dead now. As for enemy genders, there are plenty of female Sages (though the difference can be hard to spot) and several of the Deadlords are female as well.

Lunatic: the enemy growth curve is wonky and will completely pound you into the ground once promoted units start showing up if you're trying to play with full deployment (and actually training all of those units instead of having them go sit in a corner). And enemies are so fond of zerg rushing that even if you want to train multiple units, it's very difficult to actually fairly distribute the exp. You could spend hours grinding Staves to get some staffbots into combat classes to keep up your team's size, but hat's hardly typical play. Robin: Sometimes. The main lords sometimes (OK, often) try to do stupid things for your sake, though sometimes you talk them out of it, but you also repay the favor by doing stupid things for their sake too, so... Most of the times this happens have really good music though, so some people don't mind. Avatar-F x Chrom C through A is also one of the worst supports in the game, though Avatar-M x Chrom is pretty good. Chrom never had a previously established personality to ruin, though. But you can get infinite stat boosters from the Tower as well through random drops, so theoretically it is possible to cap everyone (made easier with RNG manipulation to always get what you want).

You could put Bowfaire over Galeforce. If Inigo is lacking both a proc, 100% DS and an Agg support, he might have a bit of trouble getting kills (especially since neither of the two have abnormally high Str caps and are both physical), so you won't always want to bring him up front. But having an Agg/Faire partner along with DS+ Gives Noire a pretty decent KO rate even without a proc. Also, no Olivia? No, it's pretty bad. In terms of wind magic, you'll shave off 1 Rexcalibur++, 1 Forseti and four unforged Celica's Gales, but never enough to make the difference between being ORKOed and surviving (even if you're a Wyvern- Rexcalibur++ would have 118 Atk, so you'd just need 34 Res to take the hit), and in terms of Bows it's pretty much the same but they're easier to avoid.

Oh, yes! Marching into battle in a tux would be incredible.

I'd go with the second.