Czar_Yoshi

Yeah, sticking with the characters you pick is much more important than which ones you pick (with the exception of Ricken and Donnel, who are bad). Since pretty much everyone starts behind the curve, you need to put a lot of investment into someone before they start making a net contribution to your team. Once you have them making that contribution, you really want them to keep making it, because otherwise you'll have put in the same amount of effort getting them going with a lesser return for your work... And which characters are good in Lunatic depends entirely on how big of a return on investment they can give.

What's Fred going to do with that Bronze Sword? You'll want it to stay on Avatar for Cht.1. There's also a whole thread dedicated to this stuff that never leaves the top page. I'm sure you'll get more traffic asking there.

The jump between Hard and Lunatic is a good deal bigger than the jump between Normal and Hard, especially at the beginning. You may want to go through and finish that Hard playthrough first. In general, Avatar will be the bulk of your army, marrying Chrom if female and either Cordelia or Nowi if male (Chrom then gets Sumia or a dance-spammed Olivia). Miriel and Panne are other capable combat units you could add. Gregor and Stahl are fairly potent husbands with good futures, and Kellam and Fred (and maybe Vaike) have good utility as earlygame supports so they're easy to build support with. You can also take as many Staffbots as you want- Lissa is always a good idea, and Maribelle, Libra, and Anna are good secondary options. They won't keep up by themselves, though, so you will have to go out of your way to heal every speck of damage (and sometimes take extra damage for them to heal) if you ever want them to graduate to combat units. Fred is a good tank/support who can generally ORKO things with his DSes and can take an enemy phase if needed. Don't be afraid of giving him kills, but also make sure he doesn't take any that aren't needed, as his combat potency drops off whether he's raised or not. Generally good assets are Spd and Def. Spd is more powerful if you know what you're doing, Def makes the mode less of a headache if you don't. The most commonly recommended flaws are -Skl and -Lck. -Skl will hurt your early hitrate a bit, but that's generally a lot more palatable than other flaws since it stops mattering once you get some weapons with decent Hit. -Lck doesn't have as much of a penalty to your Hit, but also makes you much more vulnerable to the occasional Gamble Crit early on, which are rare but extremely annoying. It also effectively ruins your chance of doing Armsthrift shenanigans later, which could otherwise let you spam powerful forges all day.

No, she has room. Start her with GF/proc as a Lv.14.92+ Sage. Since Laurent will OHKO everything and always be up front, she won't ever get more exp. Then when it's time to take her out, grab a kill, level up, and replace DSp+ with Tomefaire. Also keep in mind that Laurent can't handle the Snipers safely since they have 60 Lck.

Well, I'd definitely use them for Alexandria and Miriel... The question is whether you want to go with Kuroi strats or Int strats. The former will mean DM, the latter will mean Merc. Either way, wait to reclass until after Cht.4 (and Miriel can probably hold on a bit past Lv.10 as well).

I believe Ikeadin also gets blicked by critstacking Laurent, if you're using him.

That's correct. Also the glitch isn't present in the JP version, so if you have that then you can go ahead and use them. Do note that Logbook Avatars don't count as Spotpass/DLC characters and will function correctly on Streetpass teams.

Do you consider there to be a difference between running away (kiting) and turtling?

Without pairup you'll have a harder time keeping the enemies off your force-deploys' backs in the early chapters, but can still take them down with a bit of luck.

The reason that non-GF males are always hard supports (and why double Galepairs always end on the female's turn) is because of Aggressor. Since giving both units Brave weapons means the front will get to attack 2/4 times and the support attacks 4/8 times, you effectively get all your Atk bonuses doubled when in the back. The advantage from doubling that +10 Agg bonus is waaay better than anything you'd get out of bringing Yarne up front (and even if it wasn't, Lucina wants to be up front anyway for her Aether/Luna procstack). Hit+20 is also a general +Hit skill instead of a weapon-specific one. If it puts you over 220 Hit, it's good enough. Owain doesn't have to go up front if you don't want him to- my 100% DS team leaves GF off him when in 100% mode so his pair can get a 100% Thronie kill and because he'd be horrendously weak with it anyway (he'd have a Falco support and no proc...). The funny thing about Assassins is that looking at them, they seem so perfectly suited to the current metagame as to be overpowered, yet they're rarely recommended outside of challenge runs. It happens because the traits they bring to the table are already emphasized so much that we've figured out how to get them on other classes, which can then bring their other, non-central perks to the table, resulting in Assassins having nothing special anymore. In challenge runs though they become good again, because it becomes very hard very fast for everything else to reach those old benchmarks they used to hit by the skin of their teeth without sacrifices. But you still don't want to use too many of them, because bosses still make up a small part of Apo and your other units can hit the grunts just fine.

Any difficulty means all four of them. Normal, Hard, Lunatic, and Lunatic+. Obviously you'll want to use pairup well on the harder two, but the principal of giving 90% of the exp to Avatar and having them hit Lv.19-20 by the end of Cht.4 is a very dominant strategy in Lunatic(+).

You can't put those on Streetpass teams though.

Avatar solo is the easiest way to clear earlygame on any difficulty that won't hurt you in the long run. You might have issues with enemies going for the non-combat units since you can't un-deploy them yet and there's nowhere for them to hide, but that's about it. Allowing other units to pair up with Avatar (even if they're unequipped) would make it significantly easier, since Veteran and Fred's pairup bonuses are good and Chrom will need a place to hide (since he's permenantly force-deployed, but isn't part of your run).

Morgan and Severa: Lancebreaker isn't going to be doing them much good since they'll be blicking everything before it can touch them and should never get OHKOed anyway. They'd really like to procstack Ignis and Luna (or use All+2 if you're +Mag instead of +Spd), and if you really think you have a spare non-combat skillslot, AT could save money since they're likely to be some of your most-used units. They're also both lacking Tomefaire, which will significantly impact their offenses, especially without a procstack. Deliverer is nice but since they already have 8 Mov, they won't be hurting for Mov anyway. Brady: no TF will hurt his output as well. Since Tomes can't get WTD they don't usually have Hit problems, so his pair should be fine without Anathema. Yarne: Luna does nothing in the back so he can't use it. If your Hit is fine you could switch to All+2, and if it's not, Prescience is a good option. He'll rarely get to be up front to use it, but can also take a Deliverer inheritance and act as Lucina's ferry in a lull. Inigo: Berserker isn't his best class, to be honest (he'd want to go Libra to be the best Berserker he can be). The lack of +Hit skills and reliable procs hurts him too much- he'd rather be in a higher-Skl class like Hero. If you do want to use him as a Berserker, he'll want a proc (Luna) to use when up front. Deliverer is the best thing to put this over, since double Galepairs always end their turn with the girl up front so he won't get to use it to ferry her into combat ever. Laurent: see Yarne, Luna won't have any effect on him. Anathema also won't do too much unless you just like crits, but all he'd be running over it anyway is a few minor +Atk skills. Owain: he needs Atk, not Hit. Trade Hit+20 for Luna. Gerome and Kjelle: they're in an unfortunate spot as leftovers and can't compliment eachother well at all. Gerome is probably going to be a Berserker (Hero is a higher-Hit option), which leaves Kjelle able to take any class she has (except General, Falco and Assassin) and remain in the same Spd bracket. You might as well go as a Wyvern Lord or Paladin (Luna/Astra/LF/GF as skills). I think the Falco set will have much higher damage output than the Assassin set. Trading Astra for All+2 is already not made up for by the +2 Str and +3 Skl from Assassin, and then Gerome is losing 4 Atk on each of his DSes...

It's definitely possible, Lucina could probably solo Grima with P.Falchion. Normal doesn't put up much resistance. Granted, you'd have to rely on Lucina a good deal due to her being much better than everyone else. Hard mode would be a little trickier, but still possible. Assuming everyone has never left their base classes... Lucina will have 38 Spd with an Avatar A support and a Spd tonic. That's just enough to double Grima. With P.Falchion, Avatar A and a Str tonic, she has 74 Atk. Grima has 41+3 Def, so Lucina will do 15 damage for a normal attack and 15+25 for an Aether (18% chance). Lucina also has a decent crit chance- 18(base) +10(Solidarity) +10(A support) +5(P.Falchion) -33(Grima's Lck) =10. Avatar can do a bit of DS damage as well, with 52 damage Valflames that do 5 damage per hit to Grima. Since Grima only has 88 HP, you can ORKO it with either two Aethers and two DSes, a crit and an Aether, or two crits. Aether can also crit as well- if the Sol half crits, you need one DS to finish the job, and if the Luna half crits it's an OHKO. Of course, Grima also has a 38% Pavise chance and you need those not to happen. If Donnel absolutely must land the finishing blow, you need a combination that can get Grima as low as possible (two Aethers and one DS will give 3 HP remaining). Donnel needs 50 Atk to finish that off, which he can attain with the Gungnir, a Str tonic, and a Robin support (you'll have to transfer Robin from Lucina to Morgan, and then from Morgan to Donnel to do this in one turn). Breaking through the wall of enemies that's present on Hard could also be a problem, but Robin with a forged Celica's Gale and a Lucina support can probably sweep them with enough lucky dodges. Villager caps are all 20 except for Lck/HP and most of Donnel's mods are negative so his are even lower. Compare to the likes of Maiden!Lucina's 27/30 Str/Spd and 25/25 defenses, and it's at least 20% worse. Since Avatar is +Lck/-Str Morgan is going to turn out just as bad as Donnel (+1 Spd, all other relevant mods the same), so Avatar and Lucina are really the only competent units in play (and competent is stretching it since they're still tier 1).

Yeah it's impossible to make a Spotpass team that can even have a 1% chance of winning against someone who's prepared, no matter what it is. The best you can do is beat people who aren't prepared even more brutally.

If Nah is meant to be alone and space permits (more Staffbots are good, especially in challenge runs), she might find some use as a TF/Mag+2 Mire poker with Libra as her father. Against a handful of targets the extra damage could give you a much higher (or 100%) chance of an OHKO. GKs are usually bad, but you might be able to consider one on Cynthia- with a +3 support she'll hit 60 Spd and have a lot of Str to show for it. No LB means plenty of room for Hit+20 as well to alleviate GK's Hit problems. I also don't advise using quite so many Assassins. 60 Spd is your big threshold- there are really only four enemies you want more for (Anna for Aether survival, three Berserkers possibly for doubling- but not required). You're in a much bigger shortage of Atk (and potentially Mov), so consider swapping some of them to something else. Keeping some is a good idea, just not that many (for example, I see Paladin Kjelle hitting 60 comfortably with a Berserker support, even with Donnel as her father- she'll be gaining 2 Str and 2 Mov over Assassin with that). Speaking of Kjelle... Donnel!Kjelle would need both Spd+2 and Defender to hit 69 with a Berserker. I don't think that's a good use of skillslots unless it achieves a 100% ORKO.

How well they'll do sort of depends on what you want them for, but... Henry x Maribelle: strong in postgame/DLC. Brady will be on the slow end, but that's all right. Virion x Cherche: Gerome will make a good Warrior on higher difficulties and DLC. It's good. Ricken x Cordelia: magical Severa isn't very common because physical Severa is so good, but Ricken!Severa can still do it well. This will also work. Donnel!Nah!Morgan: partially depends on your Asset/Flaw. Postgame/DLC, Donnel!Nah has a really limited skill pool and won't work out well as a wife for your Avatar. Her mods are also pretty bad so Morgan won't get the best inheritance. Ingame, she'll be very strong once you get her going, but since Nah's paralogue is one of the hardest child paralogues (so you're likely to do it last), you won't get Morgan for a very long time. Donnel is also a net drag on your team on difficulties high enough for Morgan's stompiness to be fully appreciated. She'll still be fun once you get her, though. Chrom!Inigo!Morgan: again, Asset/Flaw dependant. Postgame Chrom!Inigo's mods are good enough for him to do his thing, but they're not good enough to make the most of Morgan's potential. Inigo himself will be a very capable husband for Avatar, though, with a strong set of classes and skills and lots of options. Ingame, how good he is depends entirely on how willing and capable you are to power level Olivia to pass him GF and good stats- if he starts off good, he'll stay good, if he starts off bad, he's not worth it. Anna!Morgan: Asset/Flaw. Anna doesn't have a lot to offer Avatar as a wife, both ingame and postgame. Her mods aren't particularly good either, and because her bases are very low for her level she won't grow much and Morgan will start weaker than normal. I don't advise this. Virion!Nah: only worth it if you have the Bride DLC (Smash Brethren 2) and are aiming for postgame. Virion!Nah's class set is tiny so she has very few options, and he doesn't give her anything that will be particularly helpful in Manakete during the main story. She does have a few minor uses for making teams for Apo, but I doubt you'd find them significant.

Wait, by left side you mean the four dudes immediately to your left, right? Since there's just four of them and you have everyone but Robin/Chrom on the table, there should be something that can be worked out there. Worst case it'll be a huge flowchart like Cht.3's opening. I recall I've had luck against those enemies before by not making any advances on turn 1 and instead set myself up to hurt them on EP, then kill them all next turn. Their ranges don't have quite as bad of overlap as Cht.3 so it's easier to do a bit of damage to more of them without a really strong tank. Looking at the Spd levels, getting a Fred x Sumia C will let him double the Barbs with just one Spd from levels instead of two. That could be useful for making prereqs more consistent. If that doesn't happen, Sumia with a Fred C support, +2 Spd over base, and either +2 HP/Def total over base or a Def tonic can survive and double a Barb that lacks Luna+/Counter. That would require at least two levels for doubling but since Fred's in the back, he could do some pass-around shenanigans like Int's Cht.3 strat with Robin. One other possible preparation that could help is getting Fred to C Swd so he can borrow the KE (assuming Chrom doesn't have dibs). It's no Silver Lance but would have a Hit advantage and make him take 1-2 less damage from the Barbs, while being a lot stronger than the Iron Sword (which should be his at this point). A non-Counter Raimi would be easy to pick up some Wexp on, and he'll be getting a bit out of Cht.1/2 as well.

Playing Lunatic+ and relying on luck to win is like going to a smash tournament, making it to the finals, and hoping Mew2King will self-destruct four times. It could technically work, but it's not how you're supposed to do it (and probably less rewarding, too). There are other ways. You haven't found them, I don't blame you for not finding them because the game doesn't make them obvious, but they're there. If you don't believe me, explain how this is possible. I suppose so. However, you can still handle them by knowing when they're coming, assuming they have the worst combination of skills possible (not necessarily all skills, because lacking PavGis could make you take more Counter damage), and adjusting your strategy once you see what they have. With the exception of Cht.5, reinforcements usually come after you've had enough time to beat the initial zerg rush and have enough map control/options to prepare adequately for them (and Cht.5's reinforcements spawn far away from your starting location anyway). Of course, you still have to know when and where they come from. And for the record I'm not terribly fond of same-turn reinforcements either.

If only skill at the game could produce a Robin with stats like that. The last run's was absolutely insane.

Do them either whenever your team can handle them, or after clearing all main chapters. You likely won't be training every single unit so you'll have a few weak units to use on the easier maps if you don't want to stomp them.

Kuroi: Every time I try to get that +10 Dge for this guy, the others tend to go all over the place and get out of control, so I think I'll hedge my bets and risk the 5% crit... Barbarian: HEH HEH. YOU CHOOSE POORLY.

I don't think Int's plan ever calls for Avatar standing on the mountain... But Kuroi is doing Cht.2 right now if you want to see it in action.

You might just want to go with it then since it's pretty funny and perfectly reliable, and you'll still have the other of Morgan/Severa for being a tanky DK.