Czar_Yoshi

OK, now that's a bit of a better argument.

Grima claims to have had to step in several times to keep events "on track" due to Lucina's meddling/Avatar's different choices. Namely, when Validar kicked the bucket in Cht.6. Things aren't so set in stone there, why do you think they would be in Cht.23 (hint: they weren't there, either). All the predestined stuff went out the window when time travel happened and Grima/Validar know it, they only talk about destiny because they won in the future.

Well, of course they want time to follow it's original course- because they won in the future. Again, they only care about destiny because it says they win. If destiny said Naga wins, Chrom and co would be the ones going on about "you can't change fate!" and Validar would be trying to change it. So since they value winning over destiny, why not revive early? Also, villains can very much win posthumously if their plan doesn't require them being alive to work. Sometimes it even involves them dying. For Validar, winning means reviving Grima, not living happily ever after. It would seem so.

Again, who's Lucina's mother? Unless it's Olivia, she'll be pretty bad at physical due to no Str mods and no Swordfaire. Her best physical classes are usually Sniper and Paladin (Lancefaire), but with Olivia she can be an Assassin too. Avatar can support nicely as a Berserker, Sniper, Assassin or Wyvern depending on how much Spd you want on Lucina, how many +Hit skills you're willing to pack, and how much damage you want your DSes doing. Laurent is VV if paired with Lucina and otherwise magical hard support- options for wives for the latter include Cynthia, Morgan and Ricken/Virion!Severa. Noire works too but she has no Tomefaire and won't do as well.

Avatar and Lucina: depends what Avatar's class is and who Lucina's mother is, but VV and Axes -don't- mix. Celica's Gale is pretty much required for any conventional VV setup, there are too many ranged enemies for 1-range to be possible. Avatar and Lucina should both be Sages for the best VV. Anyway, with no holds barred Avatar should use LB/V/V/TF/All+2 and Lucina should use either LB/GF/Luna/Aether/DS+ or LB/TF/Mag+2/Skl+2/All+2. Nah: LB/AF/All+2/Str+2 or Deliverer/Anathema or Mov+1. She should be paired with physical Inigo (probably Stahl) for best results. Libra!Inigo can work too though. If you want to make Nah magical though (she has +3 Mag and Tomefaire), just swap Faires and Str+2 for Mag+2 if applicable, she'll perform better and fit on more husbands (magical Inigo, and Owain/Brady).

Honestly, her best husband is Avatar-M, because he's the one who's most likely to be facetanking for her and will get all the support from her staves. Because of that and the Prologue she's probably the first unit it's possible for Avatar to reach S with. Additionally, If Chrom then marries Olivia or Maribelle you can have two gen 2 pairs with only 2 gen 1 pairs. Since he's not an option though, Libra might be second, she'll likely be promoted by the time he shows up so they can fight together and their pairup bonuses compliment eachother well. If you somehow manage to get Renewal in time for Owain, he'll like that, too. There are lots of Lances in Valm so Libra's Axes can come in handy there as well.

Grima and Validar only care about "destiny" because it ends with them winning. Do you think they'd be so obsessed with keeping events on track if that meant they were working toward their own extinction? I don't. Thus, it's strange that they would pass up such a marvelous opportunity to further destiny's course of Grima destroying the world. Lissa But...what about Emmeryn! Aversa You changed only the method of her death. Either way, she was planted in the ground... If the end is more important than the means, and reviving Grima is their goal, why not do it when there aren't any heroes around to stop them?

Keep in mind that Lon'qu doesn't have good passdown options for Owain. Also, it's really easy in the first three chapters to stuff Lissa full of exp, but it becomes a lot harder once fliers and ranged weapons become more prominent in Cht.5+. You might want a backup plan if she starts trailing off, or be prepared to spend several 200-turn chapters (probably the Paralogues) breaking weapons with your face to give her stuff to heal. Once she promotes, she'll be fine. Pairings for ingame aren't concerned with class overlap and ending mods, the main things that matter are gender (for making pairs), availability, growths and inheritance (includes base class/stats and passed down skills). Regarding availability, this generally means that they shouldn't come too late, but there's such a thing as too early too: it's hard/dangerous to train multiple non-Avatar units earlygame, and if you try to take too many earlygame units with you you'll either wind up without a crutch character (Avatar) to lean on later or some of them will fall too far behind to be worth the effort.

Validar: I've had your merry little band watched since Carrion Isle. Your every move! So yeah, it was stated. Yes, support convos do count, because they're intended features of the game. If I skip all the cutscenes with Start and don't see any of them, does that mean they aren't canon because they didn't happen on this particular playthrough? If you want another pile of plot holes, go look at Tiki and Valm, though I'm sure there are others out there who are far more qualified to rant about them than I.

Hero can double Anna/NS and has better Hit, though the latter shouldn't matter. Wyvern can double all but those three, has more Mov, and uses Lances instead of Swords. It's your call, but remember you can change class after you make your pairings (and even mid-battle) so just experiment and see what you like best. Sage has a lot more Skl than Sorc and I'd recommend doing that for Morgan instead. Same goes for Brady, especially since he gets no +Skl from Noire. You could also consider it for Lucina, Laurent doesn't care about doubling and would rather have stronger DSes. Kjelle and Yarne have no Galeforce, they both need to be paired with units that have it. Nah should be a support unit without Galeforce. If you have Libra free, give him to Owain. If you like Nah/Manaketes that much, consider Avatar x Nowi. You can also have Avatar fight with the leftover child at A support, which is probably better than benching both of them. If you do that, give Gaius to Noire, Donnel to Kjelle, and Fred to Yarne.

If you want to play using more characters, the best way is to use Avatar-M so you get four kids from his family + Chrom's alone. Cht.7 is a good place to train sword users, especially Chrom. Cht.8 is a good place to train anyone with ranged weapons, especially Nowi. There are well-defended forts in Cht.10 for training sword users paired with flyers. After Cht.11, it gets pretty hard to catch non-children up. Don't focus on training too hard before Cht.7 or you won't have the power to clear Cht.5 and 6. If you need good husbands to bring along, Gregor and Lon'qu start with good Swd ranks and decent survivability in axe-land, some people like Stahl as well but I find his chance of being Spd-screwed isn't worth the risk. He might work out well for you, though. He's also a bit hard to get started. If you're willing to reset for a male Avatar (this will also reduce exp centralization around Chrom/Avatar), the pegs, Panne and Nowi perform extremely well as females, though only Sumia out of those can marry Chrom. Panne is better for offensive Avatars, Nowi is better for defensive ones, and Cordelia is better for the children. I prefer Nowi though. If you don't want to reset, consider making Miriel a Dark Mage/Sorc and Lissa a Sage, Miriel works well paired with Gregor and Lissa will likely wind up unpaired or with a latecomer (Libra is a possibility). For 2nd gen pairings, consider having Lucina fight mainly with her sibling and not having an S support, while Avatar's kids marry the other children you get. Either way, I wouldn't recommend training more than 6-8 1st gen units and 6 2nd gen units.

Deus ex Machinas have a tendency to leave huge messes behind. It's part of why they're frowned on so much. That Grima seems to think Avatar could have awakened anyway even after Basilio's jig is exposed. Anyway, I always interpreted him as embracing the fact that he's Grima, but without the giant dragon to back it up- essentially just as powerful as Avatar could be normally except evil.

Aside from all of the supposedly optional support conversation plot holes (which do count because the devs intended you to be able to see them), the one that really gets me is the whole Basilio/Grima's resurrection deal. Basilio has apparently already swapped out the Stones before the Shepherds went to Cht.23, but Grima comes back anyway, implying that he didn't need them to resurrect. But Grima seems to already know this, as after the stones are revealed to be fakes anyway, he still thinks Avatar could have been Awakened if he wanted to be. If it's known that they aren't needed, though, Grima could have just revived anytime... Which is a plot hole. On the same concept, Validar had the Emblem, was at the table, and was kind of just hanging out waiting for Chrom's army to come mow him down to revive Grima. That makes no sense, because he had everything he needed to revive Grima already, including a vessel. Still on the topic of Cht.23, Basilio. Avatar is a self-insert, but apparently plans with Basilio behind the player's back to do something, and self-inserts coming up with plans behind the player's back imply that they're trying to dupe themselves, which is... Another plothole. Additionally, Basilio claims he got away with the switch because Validar wasn't watching him. Validar was, however, watching Avatar (who he plotted with), and Chrom (who wears the Emblem on his sleeve 24/7), and Basilio couldn't have slipped by him unnoticed. Those enough plot holes for you? If I might add to these... The soundtrack is pretty good, especially the player phase themes. There's no Canto and maps are tight enough that Cavalry don't completely dominate the game (though Caeda is still pretty good). The touchscreen is used. While the story ingame is sparse, it also never gets intrusive (bar a couple times where Malladus stops you to tell you about completely random things for no reason). However, that's also a large amount of world-building done outside the game through dev interviews, Mystery and whatnot, and I prefer that to cramming it all into one package. Still, Marth gets to make a handful of cool speeches. The enemy range function isn't quite as advanced as Awakening's, but it's still there and a huge help. On the downside, Warp is completely broken, Paralogue requirements are incredibly stupid, and the artstyle is a bit hit-or-miss.

No, stats do matter- 2nd gen units still give pairup bonuses. Aside from Spd/Str/Mag thresholds and DS/Hit optimization, skill synergy is important (eg you don't want a pair with no Galeforce units), etc. It's a very different process from pairing up the parents, but it's still important.

Actually, she's almost always a Wyvern or Hero. Lon'qu!Severa lacks Tomefaire and isn't a very good magical unit.

Virion: Ah, my dear Frederick. Not all bonds take equal time to form, you know! Some are forged in a lifetime, while other spring to life in a moment. … Others still take but one very good night. I'm pretty sure he does. Additionally, Nowi: People forget I've been around the block a few thousand times. Probably her too.

Vantage Sorcs aren't good in Apo, and outside Vantage doesn't make that big of a difference. Vantage/Vengeance is, but 100% DS is a prerequisite for that and Noire can't get that while magical. Besides, her mods will be physical anyway. Support units attack twice as much as lead units. If you're going to put AT on anyone, it should be them. GK isn't wanted for DG+, it's wanted for Luna. DG+ is a nice anti-RNG skill that helps compensate for player error, but when thresholds are on the line it's the first thing to go. Most units don't have room for it, anyway.

Just for clarification, what's your flaw? -Skl? If turtling the last few enemies becomes necessary, don't forget that you can line your units up side-by-side along a wall to give all but the end units one Pass-proof facing each. I don't think there are any ranged weapons in the first group, and there should be enough units who can survive a round of combat to cover the ones who can't (Avatar and Fred would go on the ends, most likely). You could probably even pass the elixir down the line.

He hasn't been here for over a month though. I wonder what happened...

I think you missed a bit, there. No, and neither do Inigo and Virion. Dibs on audience.

Doing Gregor!Brady for AT optimization is fine, but it that's important than consider putting Vaike on a different female so his AT isn't wasted.

Ooh, nice. So while we're talking about the Lunatic+ earlygame, I found a new strat for the Prologue that's probably useless if you're just trying to clear Lunatic+ but potentially helpful for getting any asset/flaw through the earlygame: a way to make Chrom do the Water Trick. He doesn't have Veteran, but he could potentially turn out more powerful than Frederick with a Fred support and a few levels, making him a better alternative to Frederick Emblem. This strat is likely how you'd get him started. I did this a few days ago so I can't promise my write-up is perfect (though if anyone's really curious, I'll go start a new file and do it again), but the essential strategy after the first wave is dead (Chrom got all but the Myrms) is pretty much this: Chrom has Fred supporting, and Avatar has Lissa supporting. I had them enter the water on the left (right probably works too). Avatar equips Thunder, Fred equips nothing, the Mage can't have Vantage+. Avatar enters the water first and stands in range of the Mage to lure it, while Chrom stands directly behind Avatar to lure the rest of the enemies into going south. The Mage attacks, Avatar counter-attacks. Next turn, Avatar moves left, takes a Vulnerary, and Chrom moves up (into the Mage's range). EP, the Mage attacks Chrom. Next turn, Avatar moves up and attacks the Mage diagonally (not necessary in Avatar is +Mag), and then Chrom moves up one and attacks with Falchion/Rapier for the kill. During EP, enemies will move close, but can't quite reach you. Next PP, move both Avatar and Chrom down, out of range. Chrom takes a vulnerary (two if he can't survive a round of combat with one enemy). Next turn, Chrom moves up into enemy range (still on the water) with a weapon equipped. Avatar moves to stand behind Chrom. EP, enemies attack and Chrom gets hit once and hits back once (but shouldn't KO. Equip Falchion if Rapier's crit is worrysome, or even the Bronze Sword). PP, Avatar moves down and drops Lissa on the shore. Chrom moves down. EP, enemies come closer but aren't in range yet. PP, Avatar moves left, Chrom moves down, and Lissa heals Chrom. EP, enemies come closer and are now in range. PP, Lissa pairs up with Avatar and Avatar moves up. Chrom moves left (under Avatar). EP, Chrom fights 1-2 enemies, but no more. The cycle of go to the other side -> drop Lissa -> heal Chrom -> fight 1 battle repeats until all the enemies except the boss are dead. Chrom should be ~Lv.4.5 by the end.

Cynthia with Aether+Luna is too good to waste, if you're benching a 2nd gen magical girl then Nah is much better to leave. Kellam!Owain is really slow, Libra is free so you could put him on instead (or give Libra to Inigo and put Ricken on Owain). Gregor gives Brady backwards mods, I'd recommend Virion instead. Tharja is useless in Apo and Noire doesn't need Avatar to be good, so you may want to reconsider that (the only reason I'd do Avatar x Tharja is to give all of Noire, Kjelle and Nah Galeforce, but all setups for that give Avatar a bad wife, if you're going to do it anyway do Avatar x Nowi because Nah has the most to gain here). Vaike!Severa is a bit unconventional but should work fine. Other than that, it's all good. Keep in mind that Apo can be done with no pairings at all and most of these are just nitpicks for getting as much performance out of your team as possible. Basically bad pairing don't hurt your units, they just don't fully realize their potential. If there's something you're just doing for aesthetic reasons and want to keep it, that's fine.

... DF has 41 Spd. That's nowhere near fast enough to be noteworthy. Res doesn't matter postgame, and if it did DF is beaten by Sorc and Valkyrie. It's also down 6 Skl from Hero, so I'd hardly say it wins there. DFs also have the lowest Mag of any Tome using class in the game (bar Mage/Dark Mage), and even have lower Mag than Monks/Brides, which can't use Tomes. So yeah, it's not the best class in the game by most measures.

On Lunatic+, everyone you can. On Secret Apo, Chrom and/or DLC Ike. Everywhere else, they aren't that good.