Czar_Yoshi

...Well, Robin potentially can get one more level from the Barb kill. But yeah, if you only have 11 Spd then I guess you can't go for it (so it's a thing you'd decide on the fly if you're Spd blessed rather than a stock tactic).

*You triggered the Single-Issue Wonk!* Ricken is kind of one of the two most mentioned units in the thread, so I'm not sure where you're looking if you're not seeing him... I'm not following the rest of your argument, though. Ricken is bad ingame as a long-term unit because he has bad bases and his personal growths don't match his class growths. He's not bad due to lacking self-healing as a DF in Apo, and even if that was a factor Donnel still wouldn't get any jump on him there from Aptitude because everything should be capped by the time you challenge Apo (eg growths don't matter) and I'm really not sure where you're going with this. Why are you making the DFs? Donnel's skillset and mods don't fit a DF, Ricken fits marginally better but still is better as a Sage for postgame. For that matter, DF isn't even that good of a class in Apo- its Spd, Skl, Str and Mag are all fairly lackluster and it doesn't even have 8 Mov or some incredible support bonus to make up for it. And the difference of 2 in their Def caps isn't going to make a difference in Apo performance, considering as the Def threshold to not be OHKOed by anything is around 30 and the Def threshold for not being 2HKOed by anything is well over 110 (not attainable by any means). There's no way any defensive modifiers will have even the slightest significance against such a huge gap. But neither of them should even be deployed in Apo in the first place since there's a very low deployment cap of 20 and no room for anyone without a really good reason to be there, so it doesn't matter. But even if you did send both of them in, here's a quick comparison on how they'd fare... [spoiler=huge Apo tangent]Assuming your given skillset for Donnel of AT/Sol/Counter/Agg/LB and my LB/Agg/TF/All+2/Mag+2 on Ricken@Sage, both of them unpaired (in a vacuum since we're obviously not considering teambuilding/deployment right now) and against Invincisorc, holding a 5/15 Celica's Gale and with all Tonics and Rallies applied. Invincisorc's stats (Sorc@Nos++, Dragonskin/Vantage/Miracle/Luna+/Pavise+): HP: 80 Atk: 91 Skl: 68 Spd: 60 Lck: 99 Res: 64 Hit: 151(base) +90(Nos++) =241 Avo: 139 Ricken's stats: HP: 85 Atk: 46(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +5(TF) +2(All+2) +2(Mag+2) +2(tonic) +11(Celica's) =100 Skl: 43(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =67 Spd: 42(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =66. Doubles. Lck: 45(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) +14(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =74 Res: 40(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =64 Hit: 137(base) +100(Celica's) =237 -139 =98 listed =99.94% true Avo: 136 =100 listed Donnel's stats: HP: 85 Atk: 38(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +2(tonic) +11(Celica's) =80 Skl: 40(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(tonic) =61 Spd: 41(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(tonic) =62. Fails to double, and adding All+2 won't fix that. Lck: 45(base) +3(mods) +10(LB) +14(Rally) +2(tonic) =74 Res: 43(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(tonic) =64 Hit: 128(base) +100(Celica's) =228 -139 =89 listed =97.69% true Avo: 130 =100 listed So, against Invincisorc Donnel is taking 59 damage per round, and dealing 8+8. But since Invincisorc is healing 29 HP per round, Donnel isn't actually scratching him even if he fights on EP only and heals up each turn with an Elixir. Since he has AT, he could theoretically just wait until both of Invincisorc's Nos Tomes break, but... That's a lot of Elixirs, and it would still take forever to kill him even once they're gone. Basically he has a 0% chance of winning, or even contributing damage. Now it's Ricken's turn. Ricken is going to engage turn 1 on enemy phase, so Invincisorc attacks first and Agg isn't active. Ricken will take 59 damage, putting him at 26 HP, but Invincisorc's HP is full so it won't change. Ricken counterattacks, and his shots will do 13 each, for a total of 52 damage. Invincisorc has 28 HP remaining, and is in Vantage range. Turn 2, Ricken heals to full with an Elixir. Invincisorc attacks again on EP and hits for 59 damage again, restoring 29 HP and putting him at 57. Ricken then counterattacks four times for 52 more damage, putting Invincisorc at 5 HP. Turn 3, Ricken heals to full one more time. When Invincisorc attacks next, his HP goes up to 34. Hit 3 of Celica's triggers Miracle, and Hit 4 KOes him. As you can see, Ricken is capable of beating Invincisorc in single combat with only two heals and constant Rallies with >99% accuracy, whereas Donnel fails to even scratch him. There's even plenty more room on Ricken's set; I was originally planning for him to get Invincisorc down to 40-43 HP and then KOing him on PP with an Agg while near full health, but that turned out to be unnecessary so Ricken actually even has a free skillslot here. If he took Res+10 there he might even be able to do it with just one Elixir use (though I doubt it). Basically Ricken is actually capable of not only pulling his weight in Apo, but can beat one of the hardest bosses reliably in single combat, while Donnel fails to even do chip damage to said boss using that set. Finally, Donnel is a terrible father. I'd rate him just above Kellam as second worst- his class selection stinks for postgame purposes and his mods stink too, and GF alone is not enough to make up for that. Gonna pull a 180 and start arguing in the other direction real quick. Mostly because I'm not fond of demeaning the other side in arguments. Never call someone irrational if you want to help them (and if you're not here to help people, consider finding a better use of your time). AT brings nothing to the table when the sole task at hand is taking down whatever enemy you happen to be fighting right then and there. It doesn't boost stats or give a higher chance of winning (some people will say it prevents missed KOes due to weapons breaking, I personally think they're barking up the wrong tree), and for the duration of the battle itself AT is pretty much an empty skillslot, just like other skills such as Veteran and- wait for it- Galeforce. Both of those have absolutely no effect within the confines of a single battle you happen to be fighting, yet are generally considered unstoppable and anyone who you try to convince otherwise will usually look at you weird. And for good reason: it turns out that out-of battle effects can be really potent. Hopefully we've now established that having skills with no effect in battle isn't actually an absurd premise. So winning fights is fine and dandy, but it turns out that there's generally a lot of overkill present in most strategies. In Apo, you see people optimizing for 6HKOes- assuming nobody will ever double, or at least that you want to KO whatever you're fighting before it can hit you back, but you also see emphasis on being able to double everything. Do you really need that extra little bit of Atk to get your careful 6HKO on a Boss that can't KO you back, let alone a mook that probably gets 3HKOed anyway? Making space for field skills is not only done commonly, but pretty easy to boot. So how does AT stack up against the other field skills? In Apo, pretty much all of them fall into the category of saving time: Lifetaker/Renewal save Staffbot time (if you use them- few do, though they're pretty good), Galeforce/Deliverer/Mov+1 increase your Mov and allow your team as a whole to get at a larger and more varied amount of targets per turn, thus clearing waves in fewer turns, and AT cuts prep time. That prep time cut is very significant, too: time spent grinding GG for forges is tedious and boring (a lot more so than taking extra turns to beat Apo, I might add), and time spent grinding IR even more so. Depending on how driven the player is, if it makes the difference between finishing a run of Apo with enough weapons to do it again and having to go grind some more, and if this in turn makes the difference between playing Apo again with this team and going to do something else, congratulations, using AT just doubled the gameplay value of your team. You can give as many rational counterarguments to that as you like, but they'll all be on paper and all with a scope limited to the battle (or sometimes map) you're playing at the moment. The game as a whole is much bigger than that map/battle, and by either ignoring the rest of it or placing that map (and a fairly easy one with no restrictions and a bit of knowledge going in, I might add) above the rest will wind up leaving you with a pile of boring grinding, which will in turn lower your opinion of the rest of the game all because you're too stubborn to play it. And that's just a shame.

Gaius will want to pass down Sol, Panne one of Wyvern's skills, Cherche and Miriel DSp+, and Donnel Underdog. Everything else doesn't matter. Getting Virion!Severa in is definitely one of the highlights of that team. Her flagship set (which she shares with Lon'qu!Severa, any Morgan-F with 5+ Spd and a modified version with Gaius!Kjelle) is Wyvern Lord (LB/GF/LF/All+2/Vengeance), which with a +Hit Berserker support (Laurent does this) can double anything in Apo and hits so hard DSes don't even matter outside of a few bosses. She's also super versatile and has everything needed to lead in a Sage x DF set (Laurent supports this too), and her Sniper has excellent 100% DS potential, which she can reach with Laurent (the point of this team, actually). She's also got a good compliment of non-Apo postgame classes, so yeah she's incredible. Her hair looks good too.

Does Robin not double the Soldier? Fred should be doing 16-5 =11 damage to the Soldier, putting it at 21 HP. It has 1 Res, and Robin should have well over the 12 Atk needed for that to be a KO. Even if the Soldier is on a forest it would only take 13 Atk on Robin, which I think is what the stats call for.

Well, I won't deny that I've seen that work many times before. Carry on, then.

Ephraim's Bravelance got localized to plain old Ephraim's Lance (as did all the character-themed semi-legendaries). I prefer it the JP way (sounds way cooler), but since Brave Lances are a very different weapon in the localized versions it might be a point of confusion for anyone who doesn't know that. It's up to you whether or not you want to fix that. While there was indeed a strong medieval precedent for women marrying far younger than they do today... It was far less extreme for dudebros, so Ricken really is the odd one out there.

Ingame, she comes late with a really hard Paralogue. Postgame, her mods are pretty lackluster and her class set for leading Avatar is atrocious. I'd go as far as to say she's Avatar's worst wife postgame. Kellam and Donnel aren't worth investment ingame. There's no One Team that's better than the rest, and if there were it would have been found and settled long ago. That said, my current team: Chrom x Sumia Sumia!Lucina x Libra!Owain Henry!Inigo x Fred!Noire-B Gaius!Kjelle-B x Vaike!Yarne Chrom!Cynthia x +Skl/-Def Avatar-M Lon'qu!Brady x Stahl!Nah Virion!Severa x Gregor!Laurent Cynthia!Morgan x Ricken!Gerome DLC Katarina, Palla, Katria, Est It's still a work in progress and I haven't made it yet. There are a few things I'd really love to still fit in that just aren't happening, but I've spent so long tweaking stats already that I don't think I can beat its current levels of power, versatility and aesthetics by anything more than finding new boss kill setups- the pairings themselves are pretty much set in stone at this point.

Spd and Def are only strong points for Robin if you take assets in them, otherwise they're just average, and one of them really needs to be a strength. There's a big difference between improving the RNG odds of something you're already capable of doing (like KOing that Barb on the mountain) and allowing yourself to be able to do completely new things: no amount of extra Skl will push you over any solid KO/survival thresholds. What I've been doing is engaging the Merc with Robin from two spaces down (so no counterattack) and moving into position to fight the Boss just to the left of the bridge as soon as it won't cause the whole gang to break off. I can then kite the Boss left along the river since I've got room to go backward, and because there's room for the squishies to move there they can help out with taking down the mooks. There's usually a spot to Robin's left where Lissa will be safe to stay on staff duty, and if the Boss lacks Hawkeye (or Luna+, or both) then sometimes it's possible for Robin to KO a mook at range while still keeping the Boss's attention. Alternately, if Robin needs to get out of his range for a turn to kill something dangerous/have an extra turn of healing and the Boss lacks Luna+, Sully with a Stahl support (and an optional Bronze Sword) can take a round from him to keep him from wandering off instead (if he does have Luna+, Sully needs either an HP or Def level above base). It's pretty hard to get a perfect turn-by-turn strat for the top because there's so much randomness in the enemy movement, but since the biggest actual threat there (besides Gamble) is having squishies be gunned down, I've generally been able to get by with kiting as long as nobody sneaks up on me (if the squishies aren't behind Robin to the left, leaving them about 1-2 turns northeast of the bottom corner unpaired and in rescue chain position gives me a lot of time to react to anything coming their way).

When focusing on early Robin supports, do keep in mind that s/he gains them at different rates depending on whether Robin is male or female (particularly, same gender C supports can be done in one map, while opposite genders need two or a Seed/Tile). At the moment I think we're all focusing on female (who's better all around; Chrom and Fred take two chapters either way but Sully and Sumia can be done in one) but it could be useful to keep this in mind since build options greatly increase after earlygame. Tonight I'll do some number crunching to see exactly what the new strat's odds of success for turn 1 are. I'm pretty sure I know all the numbers off the top of my head but if someone with a Cht.2 save could post them to make sure... (Assuming -Skl Robin with ~70 listed on the Barb after Lissa bonus and base everyone else)

Missed this, sorry. You can't get a male Manakete (assume you meant her mother), but Morgan will ultimately fare the best with Nah. The improvement to Nah from having Avatar as a father generally outweighs the extra mods on a 3rd gen Manakete Morgan though, so Nowi is usually better all told (and also a great ingame pairing). Both of them make undesirable pairings for Avatar though. Tiki is pretty bad all around. Gregor!Inigo has +2 Str/Skl/Def on Ricken. Skill wise he's bad, but it's not a complete eclipse of Gregor.

There's a Seraph Robe in Renown, and it's quite cheap. On Vanilla Lunatic Nowi has dibs on it, but Sumia barely even cares because there's no Luna+ to OHKO her. On Lunatic+ though, it's all hers (Miriel could want it as well but she's never expected to take a hit, unlike Sumia ultimately will have to). Another often overlooked point about Sumia is that it's very possible to get her to S with Chrom before Cht.6. ~80% DS that early is a complete gamebreaker along with their inherent +Avo/Crit boosts, and as soon as Sumia Beastkillers through Cht.6 and Chrom tanks through Cht.7 it's deserts and squishy mages as far as the eye can see.

If you can start the chapter with Robin's Bronze Sword on Fred and have him use it for the DS attempt, it could increase his hitrate significantly. Someone should check if it's strong enough to provide a guaranteed 2HKO from Robin (she'll have to be without it against the Barb on turn 2, but I don't think this is a dealbreaker- she can get it back on turn 3 if Vaike takes it from Fred and she takes it from him).

Lunatic is not for efficiency. There's some leeway to be squeezed out of careful unit positioning, but it all goes toward lowering the amount of RNG present. Trying to put it toward saving turns instead just increases the amount of RNG, so whoever can do the most "efficient" run by conventional standards is actually just the one with the highest tolerance for resets, which doesn't seem very efficient at all.

There's generally never any options in Awakening that are strictly superior, as everything has at least some merits, but Chrom x Sumia generally has a lot better selling points than Chrom x Olivia.

Yes.

Avatar-F usually runs LB/GF/Ignis/Luna/Faire in any common lead class (DF, Sniper etc). Being a hard support isn't bad at all, they're way more potent supports than Galeboys and Avatar-M is among the best. I'd take an exceptional hard support over an average Galeboy. You can make parents staffbots but there's really no point outside of aesthetics. Then again, it's not like a few points off their range will cost you the game, so pretty much any female can be one. Males are bad at staff duty however due to not having any 8 Mov staff classes, so don't bother with them.

Children always get a +1 boost to all stats, that's not unique to Donnel. He's actually got the most negative stat mods in the game (4 out of 7) and is extremely bad if you care about caps.

All right, figured it out. The chart on the site is using total support points, while Tables's guide breaks it into per-level. Since you get one point for reading the support (how the game knows whether or not to treat it as an extra level), it takes 3 points to be able to view the support, then reading it gives you a fourth, putting you at the four on the chart. Fred and Virion should fit in the 3/5/7 category, which means they can indeed reach C from one map's worth of fighting.

30 pages near the start of the topic or near the end? The start is really old and irrelevant. Going for Chrom x Avatar over Chrom x Sumia is basically a trade between making Chrom and Lucina a little better and making Cynthia and Morgan a lot better. on the one hand, you can give Lucina a sizable boost to her otherwise quite low Str/Mag stats and upgrade Chrom's wife from merely very good to best in class... On the other, you can make Cynthia exceptional and prevent Henry from being locked to her (which in turn greatly restricts the rest of your team, since he's such an important father), while also giving Morgan a bigger stat boost than Lucina would be getting anyway. Lucina loses a bit of offense but doesn't care anyway because she's already so good, and Chrom's wife goes down one tier. Lunatic ingame. Apo isn't affected by difficulty, and even then pairing up isn't mandatory- people have beaten it with no RNG without pairup and a ton of other restrictions on top of that many times before. But I said Lunatic is easier using fewer pairs, not by not pairing up, so I'm not sure where you even got that. Ingame, utterly useless thanks to coming with no useful weapon ranks or base class skills, and since Morgan gets the same treatment she's ruined by proxy as well. Postgame they're OK, but... DSp+ is a thing for drop-in hard supports who want to make someone good immediately and then be permanently put on the backburner like Owain, not future powerhouses with Veteran. Particularly, passing it over GF will hurt Brady's long-term prospects, specifically for postgame. Don't confuse DSp+ with Lucina's DSt+, which really is the best thing ever. Walhart is pretty good for +Str/Skl, Priam is OK for +Spd. However Walhart has a significant lack of faires and good supporting classes to back Avatar up with, so while Morgan may turn out fine his parents won't do so well.

Well then, it looks like your answer is pretty clear. Might as well buy that DLC.

I really like Stahl!Owains x Virion!Severa- there are just so many different good postgame strats they can pull off, and they have big, useful class selections ingame too. Notably, they can do: -Wyvern Lord x Berserker: Severa's flagship Apo set. Owain has Hit+20 and enough Str to pull this off well. -Dark Flier x Sage: an old standby that they've got everything needed to pull off. However, as Severa is pretty far from any notable Spd thresholds with this set, you could step her down to Dark Knight for more bulk, +Mov on Owain and access to Leif's Blade, which is really fun. -Bride x Dread Fighter: DLC only, but they've got a complete set of Faires for the combo and thus can run whatever skillsets you want with them. The pairup boosts also complement eachother very well. -Sniper/Hero x Sniper/Assassin: high DS build. DS isn't Owain's strong suit but Severa is good enough that they can still do well together. For additional ingame setups, they have a lot of options for combining 8-Mov classes with high defensive synergy and playing hit and run- Owain's Paladin and Severa's Falco/DK go well together. Owain also has BK, which fits well with Severa's Wyvern and trades a bit of bulk for higher guerrilla offense. Another good one is Avatar x Cordelia. They're mostly ingame centered- if you want to play late postgame with them, make sure Avatar has a Spd asset and doesn't have a Mag/Res flaw. Cordelia is Avatar's only first gen AT option (besides Flavia, who doesn't count), comes with good bases for ingame play, and has a huge compliment of 8-mov classes that fit well with Avatar. Wyvern x Falco is their best combo, but DK x DK, DK x DF, Paladin x Falco, and several others also perform well on them. Their children will want to marry units with decent Str and Berserker/Hit+20 to keep the postgame Wyvern x Berserker combo (and they can do it better than anyone thanks to being fast enough to not need All+2)- Stahl!Owain, Stahl!Inigo and Chrom!Inigo are good options with Galeforce, and Stahl/Virion!Yarne and Gregor!Laurent (no Hit+20, but Hex is close enough) and good non-GF options. Notably, Stahl!Yarne and Gregor!Laurent are also excellent everywhere.

Sounds good. It would be really nice if we had multiple different strats to choose between depending on skills and stats.

OK, I'm working on Cht.1 now and think I'm getting somewhere. I'm not ready for a full write-up, screenshots and all yet but it's got a ~50% success rate right now, counting resets for skills. It's not completely skill resistant, but it's movement patter proof and has acceptable thresholds (12 Spd and 10 Str- +4 over base in both assuming a Spd asset, which you should hit around 50% of the time if you can get to Lv.8 in Pro) for a +Spd build, and also gives no kills to Fred and 1-2 to Chrom, which is nice. No Elixir uses period, and Vulneraries are only used in response to bad RNG as well. Also it works without Thunder, so high usage Prologue strats are OK. Basically with those numbers Robin can 1RKO Fighters that lack HP+5 with a Fred support and the Bronze Sword. The only skills you really don't want to see are Luna+ on the bottom Merc and Hawkeye on Hammertime- the Boss missing Hawkeye isn't critical but it helps a lot. It's still doable even if both of those skills are present, but a lot more random. On turn 1, Robin x Fred head to the bottom fort and take down the Fighter with Fred unequipped (more wexp for Robin and he dies anyway). They usually won't take significant damage unless he has both Luna+ and Hawkeye, but even then it doesn't matter. Chrom and Lissa get in the position KTT's kiting strat uses (Lissa one right and all the way down, Chrom to her left) to pick up Virion and Sully (other positions change how the top Merc and one Fighter move, which is something to look into). EP, nothing happens assuming the Fighter died. Turn 2, the Fort heals pretty much everything Robin took unless she ate a Luna+. If her health is near full, have her do nothing, otherwise use the turn to take a Vulnerary. Sully pairs up with Chrom and Virion with Lissa (Chrom has the Rapier equipped). Sully then moves into range of the top Merc to pull him with Lissa standing adjacent (separate Virion from Lissa) for a little Avo. EP, Robin fights some Fighters and one Merc. The Fighters all die, and the Merc takes over half its HP. Robin usually lives unless both the Merc had Luna+ and Hammertime had Hawkeye- she can take a few hits otherwise. Sully fights the top Merc, it's nice if she gets a DS but not required. Turn 3, depending on the state of the Merc either kite it upwards, healing with Lissa, or blast it with Virion and then KO with Chrom. It's useful if it lacks Vantage+ for this because Chrom will then be at full HP afterward, but not required. Robin should move to the top Fort- sometimes there's a Fighter in Bronze range, who should be KOed. The Boss is never in range of this Fort. EP, everything but the Boss and the Archer should die (they'll be at full HP). Sully should heal up with Lissa and distract the Archer- between her and Chrom they can take a few hits, even if it has Luna+. From here, Sully will take its initial hit, then next turn the pair will switch to Chrom (if neither the Merc nor the Archer have Luna+, he can take both hits without healing) and fight the Archer. The turn after that, Virion should come alongside Chrom, take Sully for the +Spd and attack the Archer, then Chrom finishes it (if Virion will KO the Archer for some reason, finish it with Chrom instead) and heal up. From here it's just the Boss. Boss: if it lacks Hawkeye, Robin can stand on the Fort and generally Dodgetank it for several turns with Bronze equipped. There are several ways to take him down, but what I've been doing is leaving the Fort once the Archer is dead and making sure Avatar can take a hit with the Vulnerary, and moving Chrom x Sully as close as possible (have Lissa heal Chrom beforehand, and use a Vulnerary if needbe- he needs to be able to take a hit from the Boss). On EP the Boss will prioritize Chrom over Fred and attack him at range. Next turn, move Fred so he's between the Boss and Chrom, transfer Robin for Sully, and hit with the Bronze Sword. Robin then unequips Chrom attacks with Thunder (if she can take two hits in a row) or either does nothing or heals with a Vulnerary otherwise. It takes her three hits when paired with Chrom to kill him, so they'll get enough support for a C. I'm going to go on and work on Cht.5 for a while, but I'll definitely come back to this soon. Edit: if the first Fighter lacks both HP+5 and Hawkeye, you can position Chrom to the right of the fort before having Avatar kill him for 10 more Avo, dropping him below 40 listed which is useful if he's packing Luna+. It can also help reach C, as it turns out two fights with the Boss isn't enough (but that will put them over the threshold). Chrom just hops onto Sully afterword so there's no downsides to doing it if skills permit.

Oops, wait no that's normal. In Lunatic you only get wexp for the first five attacks on an enemy (I don't think the exact number is recorded elsewhere, but I just tested it and it's five).

Since there's a giant road of normal terrain that goes right from the starting area to the Boss, his desert utility is mostly being an errand boy to clear out villages for me.