Czar_Yoshi

For Cht.2, pair Fred and Avatar, attack the Merc in the forest with Thunder, and have everyone else get out of the way to the left. Chrom can stand on a forest to distract that Barb on the mountain and finish it with help from Miriel and Virion. Just keep trying until you get enough Dual Strikes to reach the fort on turn two, once you're there the chapter is in the bag. Lunatic with grinding isn't very special outside the first four chapters and your pairings won't make much of a difference. There's a pairing thread floating around for postgame/Apo pairing advice in general. That said, if you want Manakete Morgan use Nowi or Nah. Tiki!Morgan messes up the rest of your pairings pretty badly.

Bond also doesn't stack with itself and doesn't work in the back, making its applications slightly more limited than you would think.

Growths aren't relevant to minmaxing. Physical has a better dedicated support than magical (Zerker vs Sage) because Zerker boosts Spd instead of Skl and doesn't waste any support points on less useful stats. Brave Axe Zerker also has 11 more base Atk than Celica's Sage- if the foe's Def and Res are equal, that's 20 more damage on the first four swings in Apo. Physical can also target Pavise or Aegis, while magic is locked to Aegis. Furthermore, there are only 3 magical fathers. Magic is good, but not good enough to force, say, Yarne to become a Sage.

He'll certainly work as a support GK just with a shaky hitrate and a comparatively weak DS. If he's going to support Paladin would be better as it gives Str/Spd/Skl. You probably wouldn't use any of these characters except Chrom on Apo, the whole point of this list (to me, at least) is if you were going to. Outside Apo everyone can be fine at anything.

As I said, GK Fred caps at 35 Spd. He's this close to being the slowest thing in the game. Growths don't matter when minmaxing. Fred has no Faires and his Skl is tied with Vaike!Gerome@Berserker. His DSes are decent by virtue of Agg but I wouldn't count on them. Tank any hit? GK Fred with LB/All+2/Defender/Def+2 x A General, max rallies/tonic and barracks boost in Def/Spd (aka everything he can possibly do to survive with 100% accuracy) Vs Apo's Nightmare Sniper. NS's atk: 96. NS's Spd: 70. NS has Luna+. Frederick's Spd: 37(base) -2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +3(General) +2(tonic) +4(Barracks) =64. NS doubles, he has a Brave Bow++ so four hits. Frederick's Def: 48(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(Def+2) +1(Defender) +2(S.Dance) +10(General) +2(tonic) +4(barracks) =93. NS has Luna+, so Fred's effective Def is 46. NS does 50 damage x4 to Fred, Fred has 85 HP and dies in two hits. Even if you swapped General out for something to make him faster he'd kick the bucket. So no, there's definitely stuff that Fred can't reliably survive.

Agg and Rally Heart are great, but you don't have to be a DF/Bride to use them. Things are never rendered obsolete by other things that stack with them (other rallies and tonics). As for Bride's strengths, they primarily lie in its pairup boosts: mainly, it's a physical unit with both Aegis and Pavise weapons that gives +Mag/Spd.

Promotion boosts should be the least of your worries, it's the caps that matter. If you don't promote until Cht.16, you'll have around 7 chapters of capped stats under your belt. Promoting is also necessary to give you more room for levels without using up Second Seals. I always promote my Avatar as soon as I get Cht.8's Master Seal, or before Cht.7 if I get an early one from Anna.

That build was mostly for fun by trying to pack as many offensive options on two units as possible. But really? Putting Lucina up front with a Brave Lance isn't enough? Libra!Inigo's atk from the rear: 38(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +5(TF) +2(tonic) +11(Celica's) =88 -45 /2 =21 x4. Inigo can KO with Celica's even if Lucina does no damage. With Inigo in front with a Brave Axe... Inigo: 42(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +2(tonic) +3(Lucina) +19(Brave Axe+WT stuff) =97 -60 /2 =18. Lucina: 40(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +5(BF) +17(Brave Bow) =84 -60 /2 =12. 18+12+12+18+12+12 =84 damage. Again, the point of doing Bride x DF is versatility. If you're just going to stick to one weapon type, you might as well use Sage x DF or something x Zerker.

My new headcanon is that you may be right on the money. Anyway, it's probably best if jokes keep to topics that don't have a high probability of offending people.

Bride's main selling points are being a +Mag/Spd pairup unit available to all females, being the best physical +Mag support, and being the only Bow +Mag support. Yeah, they're mainly about support boosts (highly appropriate given that they're brides). If you wanted to really have fun with them, give Bride!Morgan Ignis and pair her with Vengeance Dread Fighter Libra!Inigo to completely ruin PavGis and get around every defense in the book. Unfortunately because all of Bride's selling points are about teamwork, they're kind of lackluster on their own and don't really fit in when ranking the characters in a vacuum. Furthermore, all the units with the right qualities to use them properly tend to be 2nd gen...

The fun factor? No, I find teambuilding to be great fun, even if 90% of my teams exist on paper. I've probably put more time into this game on notepad than on my 3ds, and I'm still around 800 hours logged. It's a nice way to cut down on grinding time. The story? Oh absolutely yes. Please don't get me started on Paralogue 4's magnificent placement again. When doing playthroughs purely for fun I just skip all the paralogues because none of them are relevant.

He's got RaR3 so LB is on the table. Passdowns: females with Galeforce and male children should always pass Galeforce. Females with DS+ and male children but no Galeforce should pass down DS+. If Panne doesn't marry a husband with Wyvern, she should pass down Str+2 or Swordbreaker. Gaius should pass Sol. Barbarian fathers should pass Axefaire unless there's absolutely no chance of it coming in handy even when training, and then pass either Despoil or anything. Everyone else doesn't matter. Rallybots: leave that duty to the Spotpass/DLC characters. The best Rallybot class is Falco because 8 mov + flying, and they can use staves in an emergency.

Ana is right, Fred is going to be tanking with PavGis because he's too slow to kill, and DF is his highest Res class. Wyvern could be used if you want a ferry, but the best way to play Apo is to reinforce your strengths, not cover your weaknesses (Aegis on WLord vs Aegis on DF), since all weaknesses can be covered by simply staying out of fights with enemies who exploit them. Walhart... Was mostly lumped in with Fred because I was tired of typing. He doesn't get Aegis, so if you want to give him a more offensive set (he has 50 base Str as a Wyvern which is nice) that works too. Conqueror Walhart also isn't as slow as he looks (39 Spd compared to GK Fred's 35) (furthermore it's his fastest class bar the lowly Griffon, and that only wins by 1 Spd), so it is a viable class for him. I'd say he could do well with LB/Agg/Luna/All+2/Res+10 or Deliverer in either Wyvern or Conqueror. Conqueror is probably preferred, as with All+2 and an Assassin Einherjar (or Yen'fay) pairup (+7 Spd) he hits 60 Spd, enough to not be doubled by anything except Anna/NS. Add Rally, and he can double everything but Anna/NS, and switch to a Zerker instead. Astra isn't that reliable as a single proc and doesn't do very much damage unless your Atk is significantly higher than the foe's Def. As an Assassin, his Atk won't be that high either. It's certainly an option, though (if you can't reach wave 2 before L7 wears off, Astra is better. On any non-Apo map except maybe Roster Rescue, L7 is better). S.Apo has 3 non-Hawkeye Beastkillers and 1 non-Hawkeye Wyrmslayer. Neither of the Manaketes are dodgetanks though, those are just there because... They have nothing better to do. Lancebreaker also has a bit of merit as life insurance against Anna, though I doubt it would matter if she doubles you. Anna could go Bride, yes. Tharja: procs don't activate on Mire and stacking Luna and Vengeance is generally bad because Luna effectively lowers Vengeance's activation rate and thus your damage output when you've taken more damage than your foe has Def/Res.

Charging in blind... Will work, as in you'll probably make it through if you're stubborn enough. It's not recommended unless you're looking for something to beat your head against, though. I restarted twice on my first Lunatic run due to poor money management/class paths. Recommended number of units to train: one or two work pretty well as long as you have enough firepower for the final boss, I wouldn't try for more than 6 first gen units excluding Olivia. Four children is a decent number to aim for, including Lucina and Morgan. Skill building: fortunately the most useful skills all come in pretty good classes (Tactician, Merc, Hero). Never go through a class "just to get a skill", only use classes if they either offer a skill you want and are good, or are your preferred endgame class. Examples of bad classes include anything slow, and especially anything slow with a Beast weakness.

Seliph isn't a descendant of Naga, he's a descendant of Heim who blood-bonded with Naga.

However a tendency to completely ignore the big picture (or more likely just flat out not notice it) is, which leads to an obsessive focus on details. Or, in Miriel's case, completely ignoring whoever she's talking to "in the name of science".

Def means nothing postgame, and Nah won't be up front where she can use it in any decent team anyway. Maingame, even if you're grinding, tanks need to have both high Def and high Spd to survive, even before factoring in Counter. Kellam!Nah may be able to take Hawkeye, but she has nothing on Luna+. A proper tank won't be seriously hurt by anything more than multiple Luna+/Hawkeye enemies. It makes a pretty good backup for when your Avo fails you, it's only no good by itself.

Depends on how the children are paired, but it's pretty good. I'd swap Kellam for Virion on Nah, though, she'll have the same Mag but 3 more Skl (1 higher Skl mod, Skl+2 from Archer).

If Aether went on anything, it could only be on Ragnell. That problem is hardly unique to a hypothetical Ignis tome when every single legendary weapon is overshadowed by Braves- Ignis would mostly be used for fun, just like the rest of them.

Henry x Lissa is considered inferior to Libra x Lissa precisely because it takes Henry away from Sumia and forces her to use a suboptimal pairing (assuming Chrom isn't available, Chrom!Cynthia is a boss). If you want Vengeance on Owain, use Libra. Ana, units gain exp so slowly in Lunatic(+) that once their IL is capped, even Lv.30 Entombed in EXPonential Growth give 8 exp to a Lv.1 Dread Fighter/Bride.

But Tharja still stalks Avatar-F... Awakening suffers because it's characters are too tropey. Making them fit closer to stereotypes is hardly a good thing.

Didn't something similar involving a fruit vendor in Tunesia actually set off a bunch of fighting there a few years back? If real world examples are anything to go by, her doing that should have actually made things worse.

Debating who the best Cynthia is is for the pairing thread, or at least should wait until the OP's been properly answered. That said... Before you come up with pairings for Lunatic+, it's extremely important to understand that ingame and postgame are completely different things. The biggest examples of this are Avatar's pairing, Avatar's asset/flaw and Sumia's pairing. For example, a +Def Avatar makes the earlygame (up until wireless/DLC is unlocked) much more bearable, but postgame -Def is generally the best flaw. That said, I'll focus mainly on postgame. Now, about this Cynthia business... Don't disrespect Spd, it's important. Frederick!Cynthia's mods: 1/-1/5/2/1/1/2. Henry!Cynthia's mods: 0/2/5/4/-1/0/1. Which of those has the highest offensive mod? Henry!Cynthia. Which of those has the highest Skl? Tie. Which has the highest Spd? Henry!Cynthia. All other stats don't matter. Which of those has the most proc choices? Henry!Cynthia. So Henry!Sumia is going to wind up as a Sage or Dark Flier. Frederick!Cynthia is stuck as physical due to a negative Mag mod (making her magical also wastes every single thing Fred gives her, making him a bad choice for her). Since Wyvern is her strongest class, might as well use that. Fred!Cynthia@Wyvern's Spd (LB/GF/LF/Luna/All+2): 38(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +8(Yarne@Zerker) +2(All+2) +2(Tonic) = 72. Anna and NS: "You're too slow!" So yeah, that Spd does make a difference- Wyverns need a Spd mod of at least +5 for their Spd to be counted as an asset. Yes, I'm fully aware that that's only the highest Spd benchmark in the game she falls short of, but since, to an extent, all units can be considered super-overpowered, how "good" pairings are is based on how they perform next to other pairings. In Cynthia's case, Fred!Cynthia has the worst magical prowess (magical > physical) and doesn't have enough Spd to shine as a physical unit, and is thus her worst father.

OK, so first off General gives Str+3 and GK/WL give Str+4. However... Nah is locked as a hard support due to no Galeforce, and she's female so she has to marry a Galeboy to be of any use in hyper-offensive teams. That means she needs to marry Morgan, Owain, Brady or Inigo. If Morgan-M is present, Lucina has dibs on him, and Brady and Owain are very magical, so a physical Nah must marry Inigo, who, like Nah, can be either physical or magical. Since magical is better then physical (ranges braves and lower enemy Res in general), why have them be physical? Magical Nah has a greater range of workable fathers due to being unscrewable (she already has Mage/Sage and +1 Mag from Nowi), and can marry Inigo, Owain or Brady which both gives you more teambuilding leeway and avoids Inigo and Nah's bad supports. My preferred Nah is Virion!Nah@Sage (LB/TF/All+2/Mag+2/Skl+2).

Oy, Nah already has Sage.