Czar_Yoshi

I really hope that's not a late April Fools' joke. You've literally got a copy/paste Gfaqs team from two years ago right there. Olivia!Lucina? Fred!Gerome? Stahl!Severa? Luna on hard supports? No Virion? All old staples that are pretty much completely outclassed. Your team will be useable, but very linear with no special tricks and a lot of wasted potential. And a Severa with ugly hair. Anyway... Lucina, Owain and Brady are all fine (though Sumia!Lucina would indeed be much more powerful). That Kjelle is going to be really slow, so you should probably just give her a 0 Spd support and forget about fighting bosses with her alltogether. Unless Cynthia is paired with a Dread Fighter, All+2 won't make a difference in Spd thresholds, so consider either getting one for her or removing it (not many other options, though... Maybe Mov+1 or a healing skill). Stahl!Severa is OK, just make sure to give her a +3 Spd support. Fred!Gerome will never use Luna due to always being in the back, so take it off (he's got nothing to put in its place, unfortunately). Lck will hurt Morgan's Mag as a flaw so I don't recommend it, but otherwise she's fine (Inigo's probably her best pair). Kellam doesn't give Yarne anything he cares about and could go for pretty much anyone else (he'll never use Luna so bring something else instead). Gregor!Laurent is good but please no Luna. Noire is OK. Nah will want to add Deliverer and a filler skill- AT, All+2, even Mov+1 or something.

Myrmidon isn't Lon'qu!Severa's selling point (Wyvern is), but she does get Assassin for 100% DS builds, Avo+10 for dodgetanking and Swordfaire for Hero out of it. Vaike may give her Axefaire for her Hero, but he won't make her as fast: Lon'qu!Severa@Hero with All+2 can hit 75 Spd with any support, which is notable for being able to take Warrior Gerome at no Spd penalty and Sniper Yarne for the freest non-DSt+ 100% DS build in the game.

Barracks +Mag/Skl Lon'qu!Laurent@Sage@3/15 Wilderwind (V/V/Wrath/Gamble/Focus) with a perfect Vengeance boost hits 100% hit, 100% crit and enough Atk to OHKO any 55 Lck non-Aegis+ enemy in S.Apo in a no DLC/Rally context. If you only need 145 instead of 155, scale down from there- start by dropping Barracks and switching to Sorc for Ruin.

Yep.

Just sayin' but you might want to give your Staffbots a weapon so Lancefaire does something.

So question for Vincent: the OP says you need a 3ds with firmware 9.0... Does that mean one with a lower version than that won't work?

Procstacks usually outdamage Faires (and sometimes Aggressor) up front... But they don't do anything in the back, whereas Agg's effect doubles there due to Braves hitting twice. I generally don't recommend going without it. Remember, that's just a general summary- spreading GF and Luna everywhere will get you somewhere, but there are some places where doing that will passively or actively hurt your team and others where not doing it won't matter at all, so don't get overzealous about it.

Indeed. I like Wrath on my critstacking Gregor!Laurents and Henry!Nahs for Apo. Nowhere else.

That's probably because they actually are boring and redundant. Anyway, real quick overview: ingame, you want to pair for the parent stat boosts early on, and then marry for giving children strong starting skillsets (and classes, where applicable). So for example, you might pair Fred and Sumia early on while she's getting started and he's still fighting, and then you could switch Sumia to Chrom and Fred to Lissa, so Cynthia can inherit Aether and good Spd/Str from Chrom, while Lissa can become a decent combat unit with Fred's Def boosts and Owain can inherit Luna from Fred. There's not a major science to it, and if you're playing below Lunatic there's no real penalty for doing things wrong (or much of a wrong way to do things, for that matter). Examples of pairings that pretty much everyone agrees are fantastic on Hard/Lunatic (not Lunatic+ though) are Chrom x Avatar, Chrom x Sumia, Avatar x Cordelia, Avatar x Nowi, and Gregor x Miriel. Other units, such as Fred, Libra, Lissa and Olivia can be easy to build support with off the front lines and are good for getting children, and still others like Stahl, Panne and Cherche can turn out to be great combat units with a little investment and will be fine going with whoever gives them their stats all the way. Non-Apo postgame: I covered it in my previous post, check there. Apo: what most people optimize for. In general, a pair with 75 Spd and 220 Hit can do just about anything you could ask of a pair (double anything in the game, have 100% hit on all non-bosses), and that Spd threshold can be brought down significantly (69, 66 and 60 are the next tiers down) if you're doing a challenge run or for whatever reason are short on Spd. But it's not a hugely difficult threshold to hit, anyway. 160 combined Skl will also give you a 100% DS rate, this is very useful but also takes up most of a unit's resources and isn't automatically something you should go for (I have it on everyone in my team and while it's a very solid team that was a lot of fun to make, I don't recommend it to others). Some typical builds used in Apo: DF x Sage: only boring if your entire team consists of them- they're powerful and you should still keep one or two at all times. Sniper x Sage: 3-range magical Dual Strikes are probably the best way to kill bosses. This is particularly potent if the Sniper is Lucina so you have 100% DS, but anyone can do it. Sniper x Berserker: same principle as above, but more emphasis is placed on the Sniper's output and ability to double bosses. Sniper x Assassin: a high Skl combo for 100% DS builds. Also enjoys high proc rates. Can be made up of any combination of Snipers, Assassins and Heroes, but this way is the most common. Wyvern Lord x Berserker: Severa's flagship set. A Wyvern with a +5 Spd mod or better, All+2 and a Berserker support reaches 75 Spd while maintaining 8 flying Mov and 46 base Str. They sometimes have Skl/Hit issues but are so strong that they might as well be unsurvivable anyway. Paladin x Berserker: Similar to the above but trades in flight and some Str for better Hit and lower Spd requirements. You can mix and match classes and come up with your own sets, but those ones are the most common and generally very good. Occasionally you'll find uses for replacement classes: for example, Henry!Nah's Valkyrie is a good substitute for Dark Flier, and Heroes give the same Spd boost as Berserkers while completely alleviating any present Hit issues. Skill wise, males typically want to run either LB/Agg/GF/Faire/Proc (Luna/Vengeance) or LB/Agg/All+2/Faire/Hit+20, and females run LB/GF/Faire, one of Luna/Vengeance, and Aether/Astra/Ignis if Luna or All+2 if Vengeance. Lucina replaces her Faire with DSt+. There are a few other more character-specific builds out there that don't fit under a general analysis. Let me know what (if anything) you'd like elaboration on. Oh, sorry. Def will actually be a manageable flaw ingame if you're high enough ahead of the curve- you might have some trouble with Cht.2 if you don't get good growths in Pro, but it's fairly easy to muscle through with some resets. Once you make it to Cht.4, you can use Renown to patch your stats up and get far enough ahead that you'll only be a few points off normal when the difficulty catches up. Just make sure you know how to funnel everything into Avatar and you'll be fine. Mag is probably your best bet if marrying Lissa. Be really aggressive with her Heal and try to level her up as fast as possible to get GF in time for Owain- you'll likely want to go through Sage instead of Pegasus Knight.

...This isn't GameFAQs. Sorry Chrom, my vote goes to Roy. You're going to need a bit of a better pitch to get me to change my mind on this.

Virion has major issues with soaking up enemy phase exp that cause him to have a lot more trouble training up than other units in a low deployment context. On Hard/full deployment, your units are consistently either weak enough that his chip is greatly appreciated (he's got a complete monopoly on Bows for a large part of the game, and if you reclass Robin and don't train Miriel could realistically be your only ranged unit for a few chapters), or strong enough that you can keep your team safe through player phase offense, in which case his ability to get kills from range is very useful. Bows and decent bulk also make him one of the better units for holding chokes midgame. Regardless of whether or not you find him useful (I do), he also makes up for any ingame shortcomings by being one of the best fathers in the game. Inigo has a hard paralogue and typically low bases, but in return has a good base class, and is one of only two non-Morgan male children in the game who doesn't have a problem with initial weapon ranks (a big deal when both Avatar-M and Chrom have daughters, and most of Avatar's best wives do too- there's a shortage of good 2nd gen males). Since he still has the standard fast 2nd gen growths, he can wear off his low stats in fairly good time (definitely better time than it takes the likes of Brady and Yarne to make up for having no weapon ranks and no decent base skills). No Second Seal required, either (though his Paralogue does sell those, which is actually another point in his favor). Postgame he's a galeboy who can go either magical or physical. What more do you want?

I hate to be that guy but if you had all that stuff and still needed luck to get through, there must have been something extremely non-optimal you were doing. That's a massive amount of overkill for Apo, let alone Lunatic+. Still, uh, congrats on completion!

Anything that increases damage. If you're running Vantage you must have as high of Atk as possible; nothing else matters.

In that case, you should focus on minimizing class overlap, spreading around high Mov options, and optionally trying to pair Armsthrift units together. Dark Knight, Paladin, Wyvern Lord, Dark Flier and Valkyrie are all good classes to spread around, as is access to Deliverer. Procs are fun but not terribly important, and everyone should have access to at least one reliable method of healing (Sol/Renewal/Lifetaker). Try to stay away from weaponlocked classes, especially Swordmaster and Trickster. Severa has pretty much everything she needs, but Stahl, Virion and to a lesser extent Lon'qu can make her even better. Kjelle and Noire will want to split up Gaius and Donnel, who gets who doesn't matter too much but Donnel!Kjelle and Gaius!Noire will give a slightly better class distribution. Owain mainly wants Ricken, Stahl or Fred. Brady is similar to Severa and pretty much good to go, Henry/Gregor/Kellam/Lon'qu might be nice on him. Laurent likes Gregor; Fred and Virion are also options. Gerome would really appreciate Stahl, Ricken, Virion or Henry. Yarne likes Fred, Virion, and Stahl, Libra and Gregor are also options. Inigo really likes Fred, Stahl, Virion and Libra. Nah really likes Vaike and Henry, Fred and Kellam could be fun too (you could also give her Donnel/Gaius if Noire can do without one). Finally, Cynthia likes Fred and Henry (and only has three options, so don't be lazy about giving her one!). You're going to have to leave one 2nd gen male unpaired, and I'd advise it being Yarne. He's very powerful in Apo, but extremely limited at the other things he can do, and I rarely enjoy using him in non-Apo postgame.

Male will generally use LB/Agg/Axefaire/All+2/Hit+20 as a +Str/-Def Berserker. Female will generally use LB/GF/Tomefaire/Ignis/Luna as a +Mag/-Def Dark Flier. There are a ton of variances depending on specifically what you're doing, who you marry etc, but most general sets should be somehow based off those. Throwing together a ton of skills that have some high numbers listed in their effects won't work- you need your skills, class, spouse, Asset/Flaw and role to all have synergy with eachother to get the most out of your units. Especially good pairs will be able to use the same Asset/Flaw and spouse, while changing classes and skills, to be able to switch between running multiple different sets at maximum performance.

The only way you can ever miss a skill is by not passing it down if it's gender-exclusive. Otherwise a given character will always be able to get all their skills eventually (though do note that depending on their parents, some children may have much larger skill selections available to them than others). Barb skills?

A far more powerful version of this is to trap Marth in a corner on Cht.4 and use her for damage since P.Falchion doesn't break. With enough Heal Staves you'll be able to easily get Lissa to Lv.20. In Cht.3 you only have two of them, and will likely have only 15-20 uses left on the last one anyway by the time you beat the boss.

Gaius is pretty massively superior to Donnel if you're trying to get out as much performance as possible, but often leaves you with few/no good options for Noire. If you're not going for perfection, you won't notice a difference between the two and could do either.

Also, never waste money or exp. Know right from the beginning who you plan on using and for how long, and don't give exp to anyone else- try to avoid more than one level on anyone you don't plan on a) taking to Endgame, b) getting kids from, or c) is Fred. If you want someone as a parent but not for endgame, drop them once you get their kid (unless you need them as a support for a few maps for the kid). Fred is going to be taking some early exp, but try not to overdo it- two kills in the Prologue is ideal, and he shouldn't need any more (have him constantly supporting Avatar). Staves are also really good. You can never have too many staffbots (though if you have a bunch, prioritize giving staff exp to the ones who will get more useful skills).

I consider good writing to be anything other than this. Any amount of badness present in ordinary writing still pales in the face of infinity. That said, a major trait I look for in good writing is to have plot twists that are unpredictable, but also make perfect sense within the context of the world. Foreshadowing done around this isn't done in a "drop hints and see who figures out what they mean first" way, but by building the world in such a way that the plot twists make more sense. A deus ex machina happened and something came out of nowhere to save the heroes? Not actually such a big deal (and sometimes even a good thing) if your world is conditioned to accept it. A healthy dose of self-awareness is also required, of course. Self-respect is optional depending on whether the work is a full comedy or something else, but the author should at least be aware of whether it's important or not.

LB3 really is your best bet once you can take it. Even if the main unit you want to grind can't, you can at least give them Paragon for easier training elsewhere.

*Eagerly waits to see how it will turn out*

9 crit won't do you any good, your foes are running around with 45 Lck minimum (50+ with Rally/pairup, even though most units have negative Lck mods). Keep in mind that leaving weapons unforged will result in Hard automatically giving them a forge (+4/10) and Lunatic(+) giving them a hackforge (+8/20). On units with only one weapon, I make it customary to start them off with both a 3/25 and unforged version, they'll switch to the stronger one if they get one and keep your forge if not.

Same here, G4 was the only time where I ever really did anything with them.

*Checks* It's because you copy/pasted directly from the bbcode page- that text uses a different font size and color than normal. If you just type it normally it'll work fine. OK. Are you looking for advice or...? Also I just realized I never got around to this, so here you go... No summary this time because there are too many choices for that.