Czar_Yoshi

Not for the sake of seeing any particular quality of play, for the sake of not being constantly distracted whenever you see something and think "why didn't he just..." Fair enough, though.

There's a transcript here, if you're impatient. Sumia #confirmed for Scooby-Doo villain. The Scramble maps aren't too hard, but since the whole point of them is conversation between your units, if you want to prepare, prepare everyone. Robin only has a small handful of convos themself.

Well, it is a trope... PSA for anyone who's not joking: this is Serenesforest, shippers never win arguments here.

Have you tried watching it on Twitch (from someone who knows what they're doing)? There are a good few parts of Awakening I really don't want to drag myself through (as much as I like it as a whole), and watching someone else do it can be a lot more enjoyable. Fight me Shadow Dragon was gr9

Story wise, I mostly see people bothered by an intense lack of worldbuilding. This includes things as complex as motivations (exactly why do the Grimleal worship an insane chaos dragon?) to as simple as location names (compare, say, The Northroad to FE11's Lefcandith Gauntlet). There are also a good number of references made to older games that don't actually stack up with what really happened and/or make no sense (Tiki in Valm), and there are frequent gaps in storytelling that cause apparent plotholes (often to do with what happened in Lucina's future). Some of those, especially the last one, are indeed explained- or at least able to be pieced together- if one goes digging super deep into the game's script, in obscure conversations in DLC maps that 99% of players might not even know exist (there are two different bad endings for FP3, and one of them has a good bit to say about how Grima works. Who knew?), and even in random JP-only official media and the like. Unfortunately, only the people who already like the game would care enough to go and find all that, so its existence really doesn't help things. Ironically, FE4 (one of the best regarded stories in the series) had exactly the same issue, with a good 50% of the story found from external sources and not in the game itself. But because that game was never localized and the only people who can play it now are people who are willing to do a bit of work to find out what's going on, nobody's ever bothered by it. Gameplay wise, there are also a few issues- the biggest of which is that the lower difficulties not only fail to teach you strategies to deal with the harder ones, they actively reinforce ways of playing that will get you killed, giving higher difficulties a possibly undeserved reputation as fake difficulty. Some difficulties, especially vanilla Lunatic, have issues with there being a very fine line between what you can do to make the game nearly impossible, or have it lay down and die- none of the difficulties are balanced unless you know them well enough to play them as they're intended.

Yeah you can get by with a lot less if you try for a first-turn victory. That does cut out a lot of exp though (easy exp, since the foes won't aggro on your squishies), so if you can take the whole map, it's usually worth it.

Despoil on Inigo unfortunately won't work very well because he's going to be a comparatively low-leveled hard support. Not only will he not have the Lck to grab much with it, it doesn't even work in the back. If you want some extra Bullion from Despoil, buy some Leif's Blades instead, or better yet just wait a chapter- there's practically a Bullion(L) every other chapter in Valm. Right now, during the child Paralogues, you'll be strapped for cash for Seals, but soon you'll be rolling in money. Fred is fine as a support, but keep in mind that not all units need support ranks to be useful at this point, so mix and match a bit and don't worry about trying out stuff you haven't built up yet. Tiki's recruitment is doable as soon as its unlocked if you have at least 6 GF units, a Rescuebot or two and plenty of effective weapons. It's a very thin line between surviving and failing though, seeing as the map is all about how many kills per turn you can get.

You have seen that one Sumia Scramble convo, yes? Well, they could have just not made the mistake in that version of the cutscene. Or maybe the devs paid more attention to that scene, since it was probably deliberately intended to be "secret" or barely possible.

There was a guy not too long ago who used a +HP/-Lck Chrom!Morgan. Despite having exactly the same mod total as any other Chrom!Morgan (or a Cord!Morgan, for that matter), he managed to have not a single one of Morgans mods greater than +2. Lack of a weakness isn't a strength when also coupled with lack of a strength.

Well, I was talking about Bradys in general, so he counts too.

Unfortunately, the RNG is not reliable. Think of it this way: if Brady takes a hit, PavGis doesn't activate, and he lives, then he's alive and you can then heal him to full with a staff. If he takes the same hit but it activates, he's still alive, and you can just as easily heal him to full with another staff. If he takes a hit, it doesn't activate and he dies, then he's dead and you get a game over. If he takes that same hit, it activates and saves him, then you've just made a tactical error by placing your fate in the hands of the RNG, which is something you should avoid wherever possible (and by the time you have the resources to reach Paladin Lv.15 on a physically weak unit, you shouldn't ever need to do it). Now, if you're not playing aggressively enough, or didn't train enough staffbots, then the HP saved from PavGis procs can indeed be helpful, but it's a random boost so you'll always have to be prepared to get by without it. And even then, Sol infinitely outclasses it as a random stay-alive skill: PavGis only reduces damage, likely by an average of ~20% depending on your Skl (that's a high estimate for ingame, 25% with RK), while Sol can and frequently does restore more HP than you take in damage- not to mention Sol being much easier to get. Sol comes at Lv.5 in a good class, Aegis comes at Lv.15 in a good class, Pavise comes at Lv.15 in a bad class. And finally, you're going to have trouble finding a unit squishier than Brady. Bad Def base? Check. Bad Def mod? Check. Bad Def growth? Check. He's not even that good of a dodgetank.

Oh, actually I was thinking of the game's heavy shipping of Chrom x Sumia, the fact that Maribelle's pretty hard to build support with, and the game's forced marriage in Cht.11. When you're doing beta testing, it's often a good idea to get players who don't know the game inside out, because if something's poorly explained, you're more likely to find out that way. And realistically, the number of people who both want and achieve Chrom x Maribelle on their first playthrough is going to be pretty low. ...And it's entirely possible that the player doesn't even know what S supports do prior to Cht.11. On my first playthrough, I just assumed Chrom's forced marriage was a story thing.

Not using the kids is another very good way to sink yourself, they're there to be used (just like pairup). If you really don't want to, you can try to solo with Robin and maybe Nowi, but Grima will still want some words with you about that. Fred suffers from the same issues he does on Hard on Lunatic, only much more so. If you can't make him work there, you won't be able to keep him on here (except as a low-leveled support) and trying will be a net drag on your team (and sink your run if you try too hard). Chapters 8-11 are the best place to train up scrubs, but any side kills you can get before that will help a lot. Cht.3 has enough exp to get Miriel or Sumia to around Lv.3-5, if you're careful and don't break their weapons (much easier on vanilla Lunatic because there's no Pass). Aside from that, all the training will be snipes for the most part, though if you can get Chrom x Sumia to A for Cht.6 and have Sumia with a good number of levels under her belt, they can usually handle the entire left side for a bunch of exp. Miriel and Sumia are the only earlygame units you'd want to use longterm (except for Chrom and Robin, neither of which have issues with catching up way later, and staffbots which are easy to raise). Panne, Nowi and Cordelia- the good non-earlygame parents- are all strong enough upon recruitment to train in Plegia without much preparation.

Rallybots do have a role later on, but seeing as the only ways to get exp are through fighting and staves, they're going to have to be doing double duty as something else on the way up.

I'd assume the reason that something like that got left in is because it didn't get properly tested; eg most of the beta testers didn't do Chrom x Maribelle. I wonder why.

This doesn't work as well as you might think, because it's very difficult to quantify overkill. Say you try two strategies, and one is very effortless to pull off and crushes the foe, while another takes a ton of work and leaves the foe just as dead- you can't really tell from playing on a lower difficulty whether the easy road will still shut down the enemy, or whether the hard road will somehow give you exactly what you need to win. On top of that, higher difficulties have more enemies, which means more exp. If you try to spend that exp like you would in lower difficulties, you won't be spending it efficiently, and that equates to trouble. I strongly suggest checking out this thread, because it's very much not. While the RNG can screw you over through missed hits and the like, careful positioning can handle the zerg no matter what skills generate. It does, yes. Awakening's difficulty curve in general is extremely wonky, but things start off very hard while you have forced deployment, no shops and only a handful of preset units to work with. Once you can start choosing who to train (and getting enough levels to make a difference) and the terrain changes from favoring the enemy to favoring you (Cht.8) things get much easier, and you have a lull until around Cht.11-12 to train up your team. Things start getting harder from there, and it ramps up all the way to the finish, but if you built your team nicely you can see a huge power spike from the recruitment of the children (and the exp from their paralogues) that will see you through for a while. The relative difficulty can go up and down for a while from there depending on what else you do.

Marry Chrom x Sumia and Robin x Cordelia, solo with the Pegs from Cht.8 out and get GF on both of them in time for inheritance, then grab two of the three Galeboys without passing GF (all three of their parents can build support without combat) and use them as hard supports for Morgan and Severa. Chrom and Sumia stay on as combat, Cord becomes a partial staffbot along with Lissa and/or Maribelle, Robin either supports Cord or freelances (great if you want to drop in Tiki or something, or have to protect Anna). All told, that's something like 12-14 units, which allows everyone to participate while still ramming the deployment cap. Of course, you'll be a little below it for part of the earlygame, once you're too strong for drop-in pairups like Vaike and Stahl to be important but before you've got the children and a full company of Staffbots, but you should still manage 6 or 7, plus whoever you're recruiting at the moment (and maybe someone to protect them, if there's only one). The most important part of making it with full deployment is to not get into the mentality that each and every one of your units must be the same level as the rest of your team. That will cause you to lack critical roles and you'll wind up unable to punch a big enough hole on turn 1 to keep your squishies safe for the rest of the map (because you'll have nobody who's not a squishy).

[spoiler=This is too easy] cat1803: I'm not pulling a brb until he's in the full swing of the run tbh cat1803: I seem to jinx it when I do cat1803: as does Yoshi Czar_Yoshi: Fortunately, you don't have to worry about jinxing it tonight GVRoyale: We don't have Yoshi to blame tonight Czar_Yoshi: I've got that covered, right now GVRoyale: Damnit Kendriin: lol Czar_Yoshi smiles devilishly Now to see if you sink or not.

Panne is a Lv.2 Taguel? But she joins higher than- Oh. Taguel is a horrible class, if you want to use Panne (she's really good), you need to SS her to Wyvern at Lv.10. Otherwise she'll be a drain on resources and a net loss to your team. Fred is likely Gerome's worst father, you don't want him to be taking kills after Cht.6 if you can help it (that's on Lunatic+, on vanilla Lunatic you should bench him earlier). If Lissa really is Lv.13 on her second promoted class, stop using her as a healer and start having her frontline. She's good at it, provided you remember to raise her Tome rank and give her an S support (doesn't seem likely, though). Lunatic(+) nogrind/full deployment is very much possible, and can even be a good idea if you know what you're doing, but trying your hardest to keep everyone in your team the same level isn't the way to go about it- you need to have a lot of level variance to make it work. Use frontliners/tanks with lots of early investment to reach key skills and outmatch the enemy in stats, and back them up with lower-leveled glass cannons for securing important kills, staffbots, ferries/interference, and utility units. Make sure to get all your children directly after Cht.13 so you can fill out your team with fewer parent pairs, and before even starting the run plan out who will do what when so you never waste any exp on short-term investments that won't pay off. Since what you currently need most is a heavy lifter who can protect the rest of your team and allow them to fill more productive roles, try to stuff Robin as much as possible. Not sure how possible it is if he's really only got 32 levels under his belt, but you haven't left yourself with many options so you'll need to be clever and make it work. If you have money for Tonics and their shops aren't blocked, grab some of those. Have a Second Seal ready at Lv.15 to go to Dark Knight or something, and forget about forcing the rest of your team to stay at an equal level- let them help out wherever useful. Nowi could be very helpful if you can get her a decent pairup (forget about dual strikes, she needs Def/Res. Try Tharja?), and Lissa might be nice too (use an Arms Scroll if she's still at E and you have one, forge an Elthunder if possible). Panne and Virion are probably doomed, and I'm not hopeful for Fred/Cherche and Lon'qu/Tharja. And if worst comes to worst, there's no shame in resetting. Lunatic(+) punish very hard for not knowing what you're doing, and as long as you've made it far enough in the game to make decisions about teambuilding you will always find there are mistakes you made before that you won't make next time. But if you do keep going, don't rush down Walhart. You need exp very badly, and it will only get harder to get from here on out.

It's a fairly buggy game, yes. There are also a handful of really bad ones, like how if you set the voices to JP, save and quit, it won't save your voice settings and you have to turn them back to JP each time you launch the game (the only way to return to the menu without this happening is to beat Grima and watch the loooong credits, which return you to the menu automatically). Also, in non-JP versions of the game, including Spotpass characters in your Streetpass team (Logbook Avatars from past playthroughs don't count) will break your team and cause it to be randomly generated for people who receive it (just like if you Streetpassed someone without Awakening Streetpass data installed). These teams are known as Outrealm Orders, and they're fairly easily identifiable by having no listed difficulty/pairings on their Logbook card, having names and greetings chosen from a list (you'll only recognize them if you've seen them a lot), having teams with skills set up in the order they were obtained, and having fairly even level spreads and seemingly random units/inventories. Outrealm Orders are also buggy, actually, in that children tend to generate with your most recently used hair colors and occasionally with impossible skillsets. There's also a whole host of stuff classified as abuse, which while not caused by exploiting programming errors still blatantly goes against what the devs intended you to do (such as AI abuse).

I'd just leave Noire and Gerome benched and use the extra room to bring more staffbots. That's a pretty solid team and it would be better to support it in a way that actually helps than just adding more members who are worse and usually wind up with nothing to do. She's got a lot of Spd and Skl, a good procstack in Luna/Astra and plenty of ending classes- a solid A tier child. She's usually used in Wyvern Lord or Paladin with a Berserker husband. Donnel is bad at everything. [spoiler=Donnel rant]The reason a lot of people like him- and this might be a bit of stereotyping, but it's a pretty good example of what happens- is that early in the game you get Fred, a unit with high bases and slow growths, and Donnel, a unit with very low bases and high growths. A bit of common sense says that it's better to invest early on and get long-term rewards from that than it is to cash in all at once, and Donnel has a very strong midgame (when his growths have kicked in, but his mods and class pool haven't begun to hurt) to reinforce this. And that should be fine, but there's a problem. The game's difficulty curve is not linear- it doesn't start easy and get hard, assuming the player plays as intended. Awakening's difficulty curve is really wonky and starts hard, then gets easy, then goes all over the place. So an early-investment, late-return strategy has you expending resources when you need them the most, and reaping returns when there's nothing to do. This also has the side effect of making Donnel's boom seem stronger than it really is, since the game is going easy when he's strong. So Donnel's character archetype tends to trick players into thinking the game works a different way than it really does, but doesn't punish it on lower difficulties. The result is a bunch of people who get upset when game-reinforced "optimal" strategies don't work on higher difficulties, and that's bad game design. People like him as a dad because of Aptitude, I guess. Ingame it's kind of nice, but because children gain exp so fast and have such high bases anyway, they're always capping stats before they finish their ingame skillsets without it, so it doesn't make that much of a difference. Postgame, it's expected that all your stats will be capped always anyway, so Aptitude is useless there. His mods hurt everyone. Kjelle has some pretty decent mods from Sully already, so she can bear Donnel's better than others can (she still hates them). Noire's mods from Tharja are much shakier than Sully's, so she gets ruined by Donnel and will have to settle for being a piddly Sniper with bad Spd, Skl and Str. For comparison, Gaius!Kjelle has +3/3 Skl/Spd on Donnel!Kjelle, and Vaike!Noire has +2/2/2 Str/Skl/Spd on Donnel!Kjelle- a +6 increase in relevant stats in both cases. Don't let him within a thousand miles of Olivia if you care about anything other than aesthetics, he has almost total class overlap with Inigo- only Villager will get passed (and Fighter for HP+5/Zeal, but Inigo has both Hero and Warrior already) and Inigo is already wanting for mods too. He'll even be left procless from the pairing.

It's definitely not the only graphical glitch the game has to offer. Archers/Snipers can occasionally get their battle animations messed up, and Inigo's enter battle text in one of the Challenge Pack maps (with the giant Risen, don't remember the name).

That looks bizarre. I wonder how they'll convince developers to make games for an elliptical screen.

I initially facepalmed at the use of Smash slots for promoting upcoming games, then remembered Roy and am now fine with this.

This is an advice thread, and if you're looking for how to make a strong team that works around aesthetic conditions, that's perfectly fine. The only things irrelevant here are people who neither want nor offer help.