Czar_Yoshi

Actually Yarne loves Virion and is OK with Lon'qu too. Basically: Severa: Virion/Vaike/Lon'qu Nah: Henry/Vaike Brady: Anyone but Kellam Yarne: Virion/Henry/Lon'qu

Have you even read Nowi's supports?

It's about maximizing the number of Agg support fights. If you have a female with GF and a male without, the female will want to lead both times to get two rounds of Agg support. If you have a male with it and a female without, the male needs to lead the first round to activate GF and the female takes the second to have it- it'll add more damage than replacing any skills the female needs to lead with other damage boosters.

For that anti-double Luna+ strat, whoud moving both of them yet another tile forward prevent a failed Soldier kill from stopping the Archer from attacking Vaike, or would that bring you in range of the Knight?

No, it's not a typo. She needs its +1 Skl to achieve 100% DS in the lead. Since Inigo gets Sniper's +3 bonus and she only gets +2, she needs it to compensate. It's still probably the most niche skill in the game, I just found a place where it actually is necessary. It may be easier for you to do your math that way, but it's also a lot harder for others to check it. I've been meaning to make a proper stat calculator sometime but haven't gotten around to it.

Speed bump: do you care more about ingame or postgame? You probably know this if you've already started Lunatic, but unlike Normal and Hard it will not wait for you to train the rest of your units. It's DLC now or tiny team all the way 'til postgame. The only thing that stands out to me at this hour in the morning is Kjelle: you're moving Gaius around quite a bit, try giving him to her. She really likes him. I'll probably have more comments later depending on what you're going for and exactly how good you want it to be.

FE6 had no goal variation and wasn't localized. FE7 had plenty and was. Where are you even getting that from? As someone who places value on characterization in addition to worldbuilding, I think FE7 was a fine prequel. However, even if I cared only about worldbuilding, I'd still think it does a good job thanks to Lycia, Dragon lore, and so on. If it only expounded on stuff you already knew from FE6, there would be no variation and the story would become fairly predictable- and proper worlds are broader than the scope of one conflict anyway, so having unrelated bits actually helps FE7's worldbuilding.

*Insert insult to slugs joke here*

It's actually pretty bad for maximizing exp (for Robin, at least) due to kills going to Sully, Fred and Miriel. I think Int once referred to doing that on vanilla as "bringing a nuclear missile to a knife fight." OK so apparently Robin needs at least 10 Str for Fred to get his OHKO on the Soldier in Cht.3 wave 1.

A lot of these strats are complete overkill for vanilla and will wind up having you take unnecessary risks to compensate for threats that don't exist yet. You should just go for regular EP tanking with a +Def asset, the top wave can't touch you if you're on a Fort with Fred and don't have Luna+ to worry about.

Getting an event tile Kneader in Lunatic is actually very useful if you're playing without DLC/spotpass but also want to stuff as much exp into healers as possible. I've done a run before where I was actually resetting to get one. I'm not sure if getting one merits its own topic but it's certainly a pleasant surprise.

I was specifically talking about leads, and Berserkers make poor leads due to bad Luna rates and no room for +Hit skills due to being male exclusive. Indefinitely with 100% AT. Four spawn per turn, so all you'd need is enough killing power to get rid of the first wave and then keep 4-8 down per turn (spread out over the whole map- so likely a good deal more than that), while staying healthy. Galeforce + Lifetaker should be more than enough for that. This is assuming Lunatic+, of course. On anything less you could just park a Manakete somewhere and be totally invincible- the strongest physical threat has 74 Atk, and the strongest magical is 63 (Morgan/Nah hit those easily, Nowi would too but she gets no AT). There are also 64 Atk GKs who have a paltry 29% Luna chance, but they're really rare so you'll never fight more than one at once, so you can keep perfectly healthy with Renewal (or Lifetaker if you can get a guaranteed KO). There are also Vengeance Sorcs with 26 Spd and 22 Def- you'll want at least 62 Atk to ORKO them so it can't become a problem.

Yeah, with speedrun routing there's no substitute for trial and error. Be sure to track your times well (real time with splits for each chapter, if possible) and repeat for consistency so you can see what's actually better.

Just keep in mind that Grima has 110 modified Avo. Damage from DSes isn't a concern- even base Chrom can do damage when DSing. But if reliability is a concern, his RNG is legitimately threatening.

I prefer BK to Assassin for Bows+Swords because it's got extra Mov/Def (and isn't bound to Robin!Lucina), but it's an idea that might be worth trying. P.Falchion access is primarily useful against Grima and as a free Concoction- 20 HP recovery is pretty weak lategame but there are still times when it can save you. One possible idea though is to pack Hit+20 on a Bow/Swd class and try to hit the Swordbreaker Wyverns in Cht.24 with it while leading. With +15 from WTA, +15 from S rank and +20 from Hit+20, you actually break even against SB. The Hit (and probably damage too) would still pale against Bows but you'd be able to hit Pavise instead of Aegis and fight on EP if Counter isn't present.

CG with a 5/15 forge and WRB has 11 mt and 100 Hit, which isn't that bad.Sages also have more Mag than pretty much any physical lead class's Str by a fairly long shot (only Wyvern competes).

Specifically, it's meaningless to people who don't agree with your definition. Which raises the question: who you do those LTC/challenge runs for? Are they for your own personal enjoyment? Then you shouldn't need to convince anyone of their legitimacy (or even have rules for them to be legitimate by sticking to). You could slow down for a run as much as is needed to make things reliable enough for your tastes, and if you're not playing as fast as possible, there's nobody to "disqualify" your run for not holding up to a standard of rules. If they're a performance for an audience, then all you really need to do is make it be entertaining. Nobody cares about what specific rules you're following so long as it looks cool (which even a loosely defined efficiency run in the hands of a skilled player who doesn't make too many obvious mistakes can). In the case of you vs Int, you're both playing with personally defined rules and thus will have separate rankings for character usefulness, and nothing can be done to change that unless one of you plays by the other's rules. If they're a competition against someone else to see who can do something better, though, then yeah, you both need to be playing by the same rules. And that's also a problem: if you want to say you're better than someone else and be able to prove it, you need to beat them on level ground. I've seen your stuff and don't doubt your ability, but since you don't have a common metric to compare performance by, you're going to get nowhere using personal skill as a factor in arguments. In Nowi's case, it's less of Int not being capable of playing as fast as you and more of Int just not playing as fast as you, regardless of talent. Nowi performs good in one setting and bad in another. It's that simple.

Welcome to the present! So there are several things you'll want to watch for when building a team: most of a team's purposes fall into ingame, postgame, and Apo. Going primarily for Apo is fine, but it never hurts to make sure your team isn't only good there, or to avoid pairings you know you don't like (most of us here avoid Stahl!Severa because her hair is hideous even though she's got a good skillset and a nice kit of ending classes, for example). I'll cover what's needed to perform at optimal capacity in Apo: -A good spouse who matches them well. This is the most important of all, given the potency of pairup- and S supports are especially emphasized given that they provide an extra 10% DS, taking a typical DS rate from 85% to 95%. In general when picking spouses, make sure that together the team has at least one GF unit, one 8 Mov unit (they can be the same, though 8 mov is better on the female), and they can form good class combinations. That brings us to... -A good ending class. This is still very important, as some classes have huge differences in performance, but you can get away with running more "interesting" B tier classes just fine if you're willing to sacrifice a lot of overkill. In general, Sage, Sniper and Berserker are the top of the top, with Assassins and Dark Fliers right behind. Heroes and Paladins are nice too, and in certain combinations Wyvern Lords can be devastating. Below them are the likes of Dark Knight, Bow Knight, Valkyrie, Warrior, General, Dread Fighter and Bride which have less emphasized perks but can still contribute handily if you play them to their strengths. Then there are the scrubs which you really should never be using, such as War Monk, Sorcerer and Griffon Rider, who are directly outclassed by a good deal of stuff. A unit only needs one good ending class to contribute well, but the more they have the more sets they can run and the funner they will be to use on repeat runs. Typically good combinations include Wyvern Lord x Berserker, Sniper x Sage/Hero/Assassin/Berserker, Sage x Dark Flier, and so on. -Good skills for their role. Typically, there are four roles children play in Apo: female lead, female support, male lead and male hard support. Female lead is the most common role, and will generally fit the pattern of either LB/GF/Faire/proc/proc (procs being Luna/Ignis and Astra/Ignis/Aether, replacing Faire with DSt+ if Lucina) or LB/GF/Faire/All+2/Vengeance (mostly seen on Severa). Female supports, typically Nah and some Noires, lack GF and can run whatever they want instead- LB and a Faire are given, a proc (Luna/Vengeance) usually helps and some utility skills on top of that- Auras like Anathema are good, as is Deliverer. Male leads (Owain/Brady/Inigo/Morgan-M) always run a set of LB/GF/Agg/Faire/proc, and can expect to get one kill leading and one or two supporting. Male hard supports (Yarne/Gerome/Laurent) never lead, and use LB/Agg/Faire as a base, with some combination of All+2, Atk+2, Hit+20, etc in the last two spaces). -Good mods for their classes. All classes like high Skl/Spd/Atk, while nobody cares too much about alternate Atk, Lck, Def and Res. Having generally good stats is good, but more important is... -Hitting thresholds. There are a good few of these in Apo that are very useful to hit: 220 Hit gives you 100% listed on all non-Boss enemies, and 75 Spd allows you to double everything, which is usually massive overkill but comes in handy if you want to kill bosses in lower-tier classes or need to compensate for low Hit/DS rates. 160 combined Skl also gives 100% DS rate, which when combined with perfect Hit and either no procs or Vengeance gives you battles with completely reliable outcomes. These aren't necessary but can be very useful for getting rid of scary bosses safely and efficiently if you're not confident in doing so otherwise. Those are the general goals of an Apo team: high Mov/Atk with good class synergy and decent reliability. Anyway, here are a few especially notable sets that several of the better units can pull off: Lon'qu/Virion!Severa@Wyvern with All+2 and a Berserker support hit 75 Spd. Lon'qu!Severa@Hero with All+2 hits 75 Spd with anything, usually a Sniper or Warrior. Stahl/Virion!Yarne@Berserker has a good Hit potential and can support Lucina, Severa or Kjelle well in any physical set. The same Yarnes also have a very potent support Sniper, reaching 100% DS without too much dedicated investment. Very good with Severa@Hero. Any Lucina (but especially Sumia)@Sniper can get guaranteed DSes from anything on a Longbow. Coming from a Sage or Berserker, this is unstoppable. Gaius!Kjelle@Paladin without All+2 or Wyvern with All+2 and a Berserker support in both cases hits 75 Spd.

There are probably dozens of these topics right now on the If boards. On topic, I like Casual. Having the ability to choose whether or not I lose dead units doesn't hurt me in the slightest, and if it opens the game up to new players that's grand. There are also quite a lot of people who play Casual and just reset if someone dies- there are quite a lot of reasons to do so (being unsure of the difficulty/your skill on a first playthrough, Lunatic(+) earlygame, etc). I don't play it all that often, but it is an important part of the game.

You're getting in on this too? Awesome. At the moment this is mostly trial and error- with Pro going so well with the new bottom strat (check KTT's topic if you haven't seen it), reaching Cht.1-2 for testing is very quick, so it'll be better at this point just to rush in before much more theorycrafting and see what happens. When I've used +HP in the past, though, the place it shone the most was in Cht.3 while holding chokepoints, since it usually gives Robin another turn even with Luna+ to take out the Archer so Lissa can safely stand behind him. I don't remember what happened in Cht.1.

All is forgiven. No hard feelings. Agreed. I came here to talk about who the worst unit in a general context is, but it seems the topic has shifted to whether or not Sumia is useful on "efficiency" Lunatic, a category I have little care for and often doubt even exists.

Just to make sure, is your resetless condition specifically trying to make any given playthrough have a decent chance of success, or just to get a recorded resetless run? Because if it's the latter, early resets and stat manipulation should be on the table- I'd consider anything through Cht.3 to be roughly fair game, especially the Prologue. Thoron OHKOes: If we're going for a 1000 Renown context then forged Thoron likely won't even be on the map (you'll have to use Mjolnir instead, which will prevent Miriel from training). But keep in mind that OHKOing things is merely very useful and not a catch-all, since Aegis+ can still ruin your day- when I did Cht.5 Rescueless I was only getting them on Wyverns thanks to Rexcalibur. Either way, you won't want to get by just standing on the Fort, Ricken and Maribelle are both capable of chipping in and Fred likely won't need backup on the bottom after Cht.2 so Robin can get reinforcements for PPO (including possibly Chrom, who with a Sumia B support is a pretty big help).

I probably should note that I did rig that example to be biased toward Ricken (I specifically chose a fight where his +1 Spd over Donnel would result in an otherwise unreachable threshold- if both of them are DFs with All+2 then Ricken hits it and Donnel doesn't; if Donnel had hit it then he could still have (very slowly) killed Invincisorc). At the end of the day the difference between him and Donnel in a perfect reliability setting is +1 Spd/Skl/Res and +10 Mag (+8 more on top of that if going Sage over DF), but over the course of so many hits that really adds up and I wanted to show that. If you were actually using him not in a vacuum (no children/Logbook/S supports/Robin, a great challenge run for demonstration purposes), he'd wind up being a hard support sage (given, he's also the best at it). I also should clarify that when I say that grinding is monotonus... It's partly due to the Apo centric mindset that it seems that way in the first place. True, if you're playing for Apo alone using a standard full team, you'll be able to get there much faster, but if you're playing the normal DLC maps for the sake of playing them (trying to see as many convos as you can and whatnot), you;ll still wind up with enough stuff in the end (with maybe just a little extra effort) to tackle Apo and stand a good chance at winning, just 1-200 hours later. Grinding is pretty insignificant all told unless you try to do things out of their intended order.

Everything that needs it gets pants. General gets lots of extra Res- if it can't look intimidating, it might as well be intimidating. Monk gets more Skl and/or Tomes. Being axelocked with poor Skl is lame, and it doesn't have any of Berserker's perks to compensate. SM gets innate critical bonuses back. Berserker doesn't, though. Troubadour promotes to Falco instead of Cleric. The way it is now just makes no sense. Sorcs can stay the way they are now, but Nos hits off of Str and hits Def instead, and doesn't stack with Sol. Griffons get Swords and have slightly higher Skl/Spd caps. Wyrmsbane is automatically a property of Dragonstone+, and Manaketes get useful skills (and optionally start with D weapons upon changing class). Taguels leave and never come back. Dancer has negative bases, but the actual unit has high personal bases- so if they have a child his/her bases won't reek.

Necroing your own project thread isn't against the rules, FYI.