Czar_Yoshi

Sniper on Gerome is for Hit+20. Any support Berserker likes it, though Gerome already has Swordbreaker so it's not much of an issue. Astra is either useless or a liability. It doesn't activate enough to be reliable without stacking it with another proc (that will usually do more damage), and against a Counter enemy it can randomly drop the damage output on your first attack and get you killed by more Counter damage. Avatar provides Sorc, GK and DF, which is why he's sometimes recommended with Nowi (if you're going for 2nd Gen Morgan). As a note, Nah makes a better support than lead, so she should focus on Faires and support classes. I wouldn't call any setup including Astra and AT deadly. AT is a skill to make preparation faster and a nice convenience when you have nothing more important to do, but it doesn't make things dead. Astra might make you dead, though...

If people won't agree in other topics, why would they in this one? I'm not going to write an essay because most of the advice already here is sound, but do keep in mind that Chrom always passes Aether to girls and RK to boys- if you want Aether Morgan, marry Lucina. Gerome wants Barbarian so give him someone like Vaike, Henry or Gregor.

If they have no internet, they won't excactly be reading about your run, will they? The point of restrictions is really about pushing yourself and having fun. I personally want to see the day when No Saves/DLC Lunatic+ is possible.

It's impossible to complain about the characters you don't like (the point of this topic) without stepping on someone's toes, so don't sweat it.

Not before you've put a full team together, and especially if you're fighting stronger stuff like the Lunatic Risen.

If you do Dark Flier, do it early. So by cakewalk, do you mean extremely consistent (requiring very few resets), or extremely easy to execute/simple in theory (requiring very few complicated maneuvers)? Anyway, nice job.

Well, don't say I didn't warn you... But this is why you want to train multiple units. Especially Morgan and Lucina. Lunatic(+) Grima is seriously underestimated 99% of the time and not just a quick boss kill. Skills can't proc on DSes, adding Aether and the like to Chrom is a waste. Astra counts as one attack for all support purposes (either all hits or none are DGed, it only allows one DS) so it won't help much there. EDIT: Ninjas. You have two courses of action: add up how much damage you'll get with perfect RNG (Avatar procs Ignis every time, Chrom DSes every time, all attacks land) with appropriate Tonics, and if you can kill Grima with that then just keep spamming until it works. If that's not enough, you could try forging a Katarina's Bolt with +15 Crit, Grima has 45 Lck so you'll have about 30 listed Crit from support bonus + Skl/2. Without the extra Chrom attacks, that might not be enough, but Ignis Crits are fairly potent. Of course, if you don't have an Katarina's Bolts, that could be a problem... At least use Celica's over Brave Sword, it'll bypass Pavise+. If you can reclass to Sniper/Warrior and use a Brave Bow, that's even better (another reason why Bow exp is important). If you can make Chrom a GK, do so for the extra Str on Falchion and the extra Move on Avatar. I don't know if you got Anathema, but that's nice if you're going the crit route. Luna will be better than Ignis, Grima has 50/50 defenses and you're not going to have more Str/Mag than that. Unless Grima does more than 50 damage to you, skip both Vengeance and Ignis (use only Luna) and use something else instead. tuvarkz, where are you getting 0.4 from?

It's been beaten with a lot more restrictions than that, though it becomes significantly more RNG-based the more you pile on.

Beastkiller++ = Dead Griffon. There are also plenty of Silver Swords, Silver Bows, and Rexcaliburs in Valm. Go for a Bow class after Hero instead, probably Warrior (Counter and more Str) or Sniper (the Longbow from Cht.13). You might want to consider Bow Knight over Hero so you can start building Bow exp earlier, the extra move also helps a lot in Cht.9 and 10. There are no reinforcements or fliers in Cht.12, so Cherche can either escape over the water, hide behind someone, or wait at the back of the map.

So you're telling me that Lucina is older than Chrom? ...I wonder how he feels about that. Especially if he marries a generic maiden and Avatar marries Lucina. Poor Chrom.

Asset/Flaw table is here: http://serenesforest.net/fe13/char_max.html If those pairings are for Lunatic, keep in mind that you won't want to raise very many units- I try to keep it to Chrom, Avatar, their spouses, and their children, with maybe one more set of parents max. Having few units with high stats is better than many units with low stats because all the enemies will just go after your weakest unit. Even with DLC, you'll still have trouble coming by Second Seals early on (Masters can be found in Harvest Scramble).

Nowi's Str and Mag are equal, so Nah can run a magical set just as well as a physical one. As for the children, make sure it's someone with Galeforce (so if it's Noire, she needs either Gaius or Donnel as a father), though Henry!Cynthia and Ricken!Severa work well also.

Assuming you're still doing no DLC/spotpass, skip Vantage. You really shouldn't put your Avatar through more than two base classes because otherwise you'll hit your caps and waste levels, and it won't help that much anyway- unless you can OHKO foes (with a DS), it does nothing, if you Vantage a Counter foe with a healing attack (Sol, nos) it can actually hurt you, and if you're using Bows it won't do anything either. I've even seen a case where Vantage activated, causing a unit to attack before getting hit and losing a bit of potential Vengeance boost, and died from Counter as a result of not OHKOing. Just try it anyway. Even if you don't make it past the Prologue, you'll get a taste for what it's like and Lunatic isn't the kind of mode that can be beaten entirely through prior knowledge. For Asset/Flaw, it can be beaten with any, but Mag, Spd and Def are usually the good asstes and Skl and Lck don't hurt too much as flaws. I'd advise against -HP because your Avatar's durability is very important early on and it will completely kill that. FYI, Asstes/Flaws don't affect only the stat they say they do- they also raise/lower two others (by smaller amounts). Lunatic is completely beatable without DLC, so don't worry about that. It does make it a lot easier, if you're struggling, but it's hardly necessary. For Lunatic(+), Avatar-F is probably best off with Chrom so that he has a good place to hide on Route maps and Lucina gets Veteran.

In the land of Luna+/Hawkeye, having multiple units stand side by side effectively increases your HP and reduces the number of attacks your units take per EP. Having enough units also lets you form a wall to protect Olivia, a healer, a Rallybot, or other utility unit of your choice. For Cht.23 and 24, the last Route chapters, having multiple units really helps keep you from getting swarmed as well, because you can draw off chunks of enemies, and Grima is very hard (maybe impossible) to ORKO with just Avatar and an untrained Chrom. At the very least, train Lucina and Morgan. Additionally, around Cht.13 your Avatar's exp growth is low enough that you'd get much more use out of the exp if you gave it to the children who are appearing with high bases and low ILs. There's also a lot of exp to be had from doing child paralogues, and raising parents isn't too hard- having a source of magical chip damage, a ferry or an extra healer is very useful. Yes, it is.

Not very well, because the only way to get good at Lunatic is to try it. But it takes like 5 minutes to set up a file and kill Validar (he's no stronger on Lunatic), and there's no harm in trying. The point isn't to beat it, it's to see how different it is from Normal.

Have fun trying to train your units without Levin Swords. The best use of AT in Lunatic(+) is preserving the Gradivus, by far. You start getting cash right around the time that it becomes reliable, so it won't make too much of a difference if you're just packing unforged Silver. It could also be helpful for keeping the Levin Sword intact, but that's a weapon for training, not endgame combat so your Lck won't be very high yet.

If I was including special classes, Villager would be at the bottom (Taguels have the benefit of giving Assassin-like pairup boosts combined with very early availability). The context is how often their selling points are worth using them for, both ingame and postgame. In Griffon's case, they're being the fastest Male flying class (they're still slow) and being the only class to give +Lck/Mov. Those aren't really worth a class, and it doesn't even have an availability advantage as a flier because everyone who can get/promote to it also has the stronger, lance using not-weak-to-beastkillers Wyvern Lord as an option.

If BK's main selling point was not being Bowlocked, they'd be completely outclassed by Assassins. The real point of BK is that they're the only Bow class with 8 Mov, which can often come in handy on higher difficulties (the only other non-genderlocked 8 Mov class with a ranged weapon that doesn't hit Pavise is DK, and magic isn't Counterproof). Anyway, GK vs Paladin: GKs aren't meant to be attackers. They're support units. GKs give high base Str/Def, +Mov, and with full weapon triangle control they don't have to worry about having low Hit thanks to not getting the support boost. Low Spd/Avo doesn't matter because they won't get attacked, weaknesses and bad Res doesn't matter, and their low Skl isn't too much of a problem because they can't proc anything anyway and support ranks matter far more than Skl for procing DSes. GKs also have the highest Str of any unit who gives +Mov, and can wield effective weapons for every single weakness. In LM prologue, there's a Mage who can often 2HKO Fred (depends on whether or not he has Mag+2). There's also a second Mage who can always 2HKO Fred. In Cht.1, there's a Hammer Fighter who can always OHKO Fred, and if you want to kill him first you have to get off your fort to rush him and then hope for an unusually strong DS. So no, I wouldn't call GKs very good tanks. They aren't. That honor goes to Griffons (assuming we're talking promoted) who are axelocked with very bad caps and multiple weaknesses. Generals are good anywhere you need incredible Str combined with useable Skl (or Lances).

No spotpass anything, or just the characters themselves? Spotpass shops are kind of important, and so are the Double Bow and Book of Naga. Without any of those, I grab AT, pass it to Morgan, get her Galeforce and kill things with a Wyvern Lord packing 75+ Atk (Gradivus). Avatar usually ends up as a Warrior with Solidarity, AT, Sol, Counter, and Renewal.

You can do it with just Avatar and a support, but Morgan and a support is better, and Avatar, Morgan, and supports for each of them is best. Wyvern Lord x FK, DK x DF, and Paladin x GK work well. You can't raise too many units for this, as there are only two pairs of Boots and those are very important. Before Cht.13, all of your units should either be Avatar or healers who don't hog his exp (I had Lissa to a Valkyrie by Cht.8). Oh, and no Dark Magic. Nos ruins the challenge as well.

None of the female riders except Troubadours/Valkyries and GK Sully have pants. Dark Flier is actually one of the tamer designs (GKs are the worst).

One example isn't enough? Here's some more. From Apo alone, Longbows allow poking of Thronie (often a threshold breaker), baiting of Anna (get her off the Throne), and being able to counterattack the waves of Longbow Snipers in Normal Apo that like to wreck plans (there aren't any Longbows in Secret). Additionally, Longbows are incredibly useful anywhere in Lunatic+ where you come up against a ranged enemy with Luna+ and enough bulk to prevent an OHKO, especially those with Hawkeye/Vantage+ as their second skill. In the regular difficulties, it can save you damage anywhere you can't OHKO a ranged enemy as well, and is useful for poking Gangrel, Walhart 2, Validar 3 (Hard and above), and flat out destroying both Aversas. In Cht.17, it lets you attack over most of the walls and pick off the Longbow Snipers on the other side, and in Cht.16 it lets you attack foes on the mainland from the island in the bottom RHS. It's also good any time you want to feed a unit with a choke that's holding back ranged enemies. Snipers do have a backup, it's called switching to the back of the pair. Snipers give good pairup boosts and are immune to the weapon triangle, as well as getting boosted damage on classes that are very common ingame without the low mt of Wind magic, making them very viable support units. Now, problems could arise if you get boxed in on a river with a non-swimming unit behind you and no Second Seals or other deployed units (which has actually happened to me before), but that's a very niche situation. There's also the issue of Bow exp being hard to get, but that happens to all Bow classes. And variety is important- I often use some Assassins and Warriors as well as Snipers, but more often than not I just have them stick to Bows and just use them for their boosts or other stats. Even with a capped IL, grinding exp isn't that hard if you have the right DLC. LB3 in particular is good: it has 50 enemies, all but two of which auto-aggro (those two are Troubadours who will come to you anyway), there's a conveniently placed Gate to tank on (+3 Def, +20 Avo and Healing) and with Sol or some other form of self-healing, it's hard to get overwhelmed if your Avo is high enough. There are a couple of Legendary Weapons to worry about (not a problem unless you're a Wyvern, usually), but otherwise it's just a free pile of exp. You also get the Paragon skill from that map which doubles all exp gain, on Hard with your IL capped you're getting 16 exp per kill with it. Inheritance: skills to be passed down are determined when you start the battle of whatever map the child is recruited in, except for Lucina whose skills are determined by whatever her mother has equipped at the end of Cht.13 (Chrom always passes her Aether whether he has it or not). All other children can be recruited whenever you like, so especially with DLC to catch them up there's no harm in waiting to recruit the other children until you have the skills you want to give them. Fortunately, the best skills to pass down are either extremely obvious or don't matter (in minmax), so there's not much to worry about about which ones to pick.

Henry's effective level, assuming all your reclasses were at Lv.15, is 64. Olivia is only 60. Tharja looks like Lv.59.

The point of Lunatic with Risen is that the Risen grow extremely quickly. Once you're both capped and neither side can get stronger, DLC or not you're going to steamroll the Risen. The challenge comes from keeping up with their growth while going through bad classes for good skills and training units to either be your partner or the parent of your partner, as well as not running out of money. DLC removes all of those issues, even if you just use it for exp/cash and ignore the skills and characters. It's a fun run when done properly, though.

If that one specific enemy from one specific postgame map is notorious enough that it has it's own widely accepted (at least on this forum) fan name, I'd call it a worthy example. TC, it's important to keep in mind that class paths aren't permanent- you can keep reclassing for more stats/skills until you run out of exp, and DLC provides an infinite source of that. The things you can "screw up" are things that are irreversable- pairings, gender-specific passed down skills, and your Avatar's gender/asset/flaw. The things that can always be changed to focus on are your skills and current class. The other thing to keep in mind is that children, with one exception (Lucina!Morgan due to no DS+) always have the potential to be better combat units than their parents. It's probably better to do your class planning for them instead, and only focus on how to get the parents the skills you want to pass down. For the parents, class routes don't matter postgame anyway because you'll get all their important skills before they're capped with LB 99% of the time. Despoil is nice for farming and can sometimes be better than Armsthrift, but doesn't matter in the long run because a) you can get cash much faster from DLC, and b) Leif's blades do the same thing but don't require going through an axelocked male only tier 1 class.