The Lunatic Club

[Ike of Paris]

Take a break.

I take long ones. Which is why I'm only on Chapter 7 on my English copy and Chapter 5/Paralogue 1 on my Japanese copy.

Obviously, I started grinding a bit as soon as I got access to the DLC.

Playing it legit is to masochist... even for me.

Chapter 1 is down. Everyone, but Lissa, have C support with Fred. It should help.

[Emblemier]

Playing Lunatic+ I'm stuck trying to recruit Tiki. The enemies have Pass, so my defense line is useless because they can pass it and even though I surround her they can attack with spears from a range. About to say screw it and give up on her. Also I got this far because I maxed my renown to get the Emblem for the gold and then bought and used 6 SpotPass Sorcerers with Counter, Renewal, Armsthrift, Sol, Pavise. I forged Nosferatu to have max MT and the rest dumped into Hit. I grabbed King Marth and grinded him some good skills, will pair him up with my lvl 20 Chrom for the Grima fight.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Emblemier

[Interceptor]

^ Do you have enough characters to use the AI abuse trick for Tiki's recruitment? I know that the enemies have Pass, but if you Rescue her one square up from her starting position, you only need to fill 8 holes with units, just six of which are in any danger of being attacked (the ones on the Tiki axis).

[Emblemier]

I didn't think of that Interceptor...I have 10 maxed out SpotPass characters so I'm all good there. I'll use my War Cleric to rescue her and then build my defense line from there. Haven't been taking any damage from the enemy because of Rally Spectrum and Fortify.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Emblemier

[Mondoflow]

^ Do you have enough characters to use the AI abuse trick for Tiki's recruitment? I know that the enemies have Pass, but if you Rescue her one square up from her starting position, you only need to fill 8 holes with units, just six of which are in any danger of being attacked (the ones on the Tiki axis).

How does that work? I completely skipped Tiki's paralogue because it was hard enough to do on hard mode. I didn't think I'd have anywhere near enough units to actually protect her on Lunatic. Are you just sacrificing the 8 units?

[Interceptor]

See below. Only three units actually get attacked if you do this.

Guys, I saw some stuff about Tiki's paralogue and I don't think it's been posted yet but there's an incredibly stupid way to completely trivialise that chapter.

The enemies only attack people in Tiki's axis, so if you have a formation like

WWWWW

1 o T o 2

3 o o o 4

o 5 6 7 o

Only 1, 2, and 6 are actually in any danger of being targeted. Also, mages won't use their tomes at 2-range iirc unless it means hitting Tiki. Basically, the brain-dead ai makes this chapter a fucking breeze as long as you have at least 3 OP people.

The modified Lunatic+ version would involve doing this:

WWWWW

1 2 T 3 4

o 7 5 8 o

o o 6 o o

Theoretically, only units 1-6 would be in danger of being attacked, since they are on the Tiki Axis™.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Interceptor

[Legault!]

Just to be clear, I'm using the word "exploit" to refer to something that trivializes the game's difficulty with little to no effort. Veteran is in this way perhaps even worse than Nosferatu, as Veteran!Avatar can solo Lunatic on his own in a wide range of classes. If you're using other units for shits and giggles that's fine, but other units are completely unnecessary.

If someone can manage to pull through Lunatic without Veteran, purchased Nosferatu tomes, Aether, grinding / SpotPass, or dance abuse (which I would consider to be the game's "exploits"; Aether!Chrom can end Lunatic on his own as well, although it's a trifle more difficult than the other exploits), I'll be very impressed. With any of those exploits "turned on," so to speak, Lunatic goes from outrageously hard to trivially easy. [i know that Paperblade has championed Sol as another broken skill, but I haven't used it enough in my runs to comment.]

[Missile]

Actually, I want to do a Lunatic run without grinding, veteran, nosferatu, etc. (maybe without reclassing also)

But the game will be released next month in Europe, so it can wait...

[Redwall]

Just to be clear, I'm using the word "exploit" to refer to something that trivializes the game's difficulty with little to no effort. Veteran is in this way perhaps even worse than Nosferatu, as Veteran!Avatar can solo Lunatic on his own in a wide range of classes. If you're using other units for shits and giggles that's fine, but other units are completely unnecessary.

If someone can manage to pull through Lunatic without Veteran, purchased Nosferatu tomes, Aether, grinding / SpotPass, or dance abuse (which I would consider to be the game's "exploits"; Aether!Chrom can end Lunatic on his own as well, although it's a trifle more difficult than the other exploits), I'll be very impressed. With any of those exploits "turned on," so to speak, Lunatic goes from outrageously hard to trivially easy. [i know that Paperblade has championed Sol as another broken skill, but I haven't used it enough in my runs to comment.]

OK, I finished my challenge run this morning. These were the restrictions: no purchasable Nosferatu (I didn't preclude the possibility of the one freebie tome, but I never wound up using it), no Sol skill (again, I didn't preclude the possibility of the dropped sword, but in practice I needed neither the skill nor the sword), no Veteran, no Renown/Wi-Fi anything, no skirmishes, no event tile items or weapons, no Rally Spectrum. Also, full deployment was required in every level in an attempt to prevent tiny teams from trivializing the game (though I can't say this worked all too well; a Second Seal ban would have done more to prevent this), and also to make stages like Ch 21 more interesting. There may have been more restrictions, but those are the ones I remember. Avatar was not allowed to engage in combat if she was Paired during Prologue through Ch 2, inclusive; as soon as Ch 3 began, I removed Veteran and allowed her to fight while Paired. My restrictions did not preclude children Paralogues, but I wound up not having to go to any of them. Chrom finished the campaign at 20 Lord/11? Great Lord, which ought to establish that there was no real Aether abuse.

The game still felt really imbalanced, though, largely because of Panne, whose Wind/bow weakness can be played around really easily due to her high HP, high Def, and respectable Res, along with Physic staves and her high Avoid (aided by an S support from Lon'qu as well as Quick Burn, Tantivy, and Even Rhythm). There is a good case for her being even stronger than non-Nosferatu, Veteran-using Avatar in a leisurely playthrough, as she trades bow/Wind weaknesses in exchange for being much more durable against everything else; Avatar won't have the Avoid-stacking options that Panne does if Avatar remains in magic-using classes.

The main reason I didn't ban Panne at the start was that I didn't want the run to be too challenging; I wanted it to be hard enough to be engaging, but not so hard as to make me pull out my hair (unfortunately, it was not much more challenging than a typical run, which just goes to show how unbalanced Lunatic is). From what Interceptor has shown, however, I feel like banning Panne could be worked around pretty easily by investing in Nowi. Banning Second Seals entirely can prevent both Panne and Nowi from trivializing the game, but there are probably other tricks that you could use, such as pumping all statboosters on a single unit to approach stat caps, or by getting children with good skillsets (such as Severa with Rally Def from Kellam and Rally Spd from Cordelia). rsteube on GameFAQs claims to have done the game without Second Seals and with "only one Master Seal [on each character]," and I believe him; things like Rally Spectrum and Naga's Tear, neither of which he seems to have banned in his run from what I've read, can really trivialize the game in addition to having good Rallybots like the aforementioned Severa.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Redwall

[Legault!]

OK, I finished my challenge run this morning. These were the restrictions: no purchasable Nosferatu (I didn't preclude the possibility of the one freebie tome, but I never wound up using it), no Sol skill (again, I didn't preclude the possibility of the dropped sword, but in practice I needed neither the skill nor the sword), no Veteran, no Renown/Wi-Fi anything, no skirmishes, no event tile items or weapons, no Rally Spectrum. Also, full deployment was required in every level in an attempt to prevent tiny teams from trivializing the game (though I can't say this worked all too well; a Second Seal ban would have done more to prevent this), and also to make stages like Ch 21 more interesting. There may have been more restrictions, but those are the ones I remember. Avatar was not allowed to engage in combat if she was Paired during Prologue through Ch 2, inclusive; as soon as Ch 3 began, I removed Veteran and allowed her to fight while Paired. My restrictions did not preclude children Paralogues, but I wound up not having to go to any of them. Chrom finished the campaign at 20 Lord/11? Great Lord, which ought to establish that there was no real Aether abuse.

The game still felt really imbalanced, though, largely because of Panne, whose Wind/bow weakness can be played around really easily due to her high HP, high Def, and respectable Res, along with Physic staves and her high Avoid (aided by an S support from Lon'qu as well as Quick Burn, Tantivy, and Even Rhythm). There is a good case for her being even stronger than non-Nosferatu, Veteran-using Avatar in a leisurely playthrough, as she trades bow/Wind weaknesses in exchange for being much more durable against everything else; Avatar won't have the Avoid-stacking options that Panne does if Avatar remains in magic-using classes.

The main reason I didn't ban Panne at the start was that I didn't want the run to be too challenging; I wanted it to be hard enough to be engaging, but not so hard as to make me pull out my hair (unfortunately, it was not much more challenging than a typical run, which just goes to show how unbalanced Lunatic is). From what Interceptor has shown, however, I feel like banning Panne could be worked around pretty easily by investing in Nowi. Banning Second Seals entirely can prevent both Panne and Nowi from trivializing the game, but there are probably other tricks that you could use, such as pumping all statboosters on a single unit to approach stat caps, or by getting children with good skillsets (such as Severa with Rally Def from Kellam and Rally Spd from Cordelia). rsteube on GameFAQs claims to have done the game without Second Seals and with "only one Master Seal [on each character]," and I believe him; things like Rally Spectrum and Naga's Tear, neither of which he seems to have banned in his run from what I've read, can really trivialize the game in addition to having good Rallybots like the aforementioned Severa.

Major, major props.

Could you share your strategies for some of the mid- and late-game maps? There's a sharp difficulty spike at 12, what with the lack of terrain and hordes of strong enemies (many promoted) with forged effective weapons. I'd be curious to hear how you go through this map, Ch.16 (with the Falcon Knight reinforcements), Ch.17 (Valkyrie bumrush, reinforcement hell if you wait too long), Ch.20, and Ch.23 (So. Many. Enemies).

[Florete]

How does that work? I completely skipped Tiki's paralogue because it was hard enough to do on hard mode. I didn't think I'd have anywhere near enough units to actually protect her on Lunatic. Are you just sacrificing the 8 units?

It can be cleared in two turns on Hard with the correct preparation.

See below. Only three units actually get attacked if you do this.

From my experience, this is actually not entirely true. They will target those three units first, but if they're not able to, they'll attack the next closest unit.

[1234567890]

Does anyone have any general advice for not dying every 2 seconds? I can't get past chapter 2.

[shadowofchaos]

Does anyone have any general advice for not dying every 2 seconds? I can't get past chapter 2.

Give Fred the bronze sword and tank with him.

That's really the only way I see being able to survive that chapter because of all the aggressive AI mooks swarming you right at the start.

[1234567890]

Give Fred the bronze sword and tank with him.

That's really the only way I see being able to survive that chapter because of all the aggressive AI mooks swarming you right at the start.

Do I hide the rest of my characters at the left side or the right side?

Also, what asset/flaw should I use?

[Interceptor]

Alright, add me to the club. Just finished off Endgame in Lunatic.

tl;dr version: Manaketes handled the trash, Morgan used Rally, Swordmaster Avatar with a forged Brave Sword and Great Knight Chrom with all of my Energy Drops took out Grima. They had something silly like a 94-96% Dual Strike chance with Chrom hitting for 20+ a shot. GGWP.

Just to be clear, I'm using the word "exploit" to refer to something that trivializes the game's difficulty with little to no effort.

That's special.

OK, I finished my challenge run this morning.

Excellent work. Panne never really worked out for me, her tipping point never came defensively, but I think it was because I put too many resources into the Manaketes. All the way up until the end, she was one failed dodge away from being in a bad place against the hax bows and magic that they throw at you, even with all of my Talismans and such.

From my experience, this is actually not entirely true. They will target those three units first, but if they're not able to, they'll attack the next closest unit.

This may be technically true, but if you are on Lunatic Paralogue 17, and your three best units can't clear space fast enough to always have enemies able to target them, you are seriously behind the curve power-wise.

[Legault!]

That's special.

I try to explain something to you in earnest and you respond in dime-a-dozen passive aggression. Lovely. Does this site have an Ignore User function?

[Redwall]

Major, major props.

Could you share your strategies for some of the mid- and late-game maps? There's a sharp difficulty spike at 12, what with the lack of terrain and hordes of strong enemies (many promoted) with forged effective weapons. I'd be curious to hear how you go through this map, Ch.16 (with the Falcon Knight reinforcements), Ch.17 (Valkyrie bumrush, reinforcement hell if you wait too long), Ch.20, and Ch.23 (So. Many. Enemies).

OK, I'm spoilering this since it's a really large bit of text.

My main combat units after the earlygame were Cordelia (pocket Fred), Panne (pocket Lon'qu), Lucina (pocket Avatar, who was also her mother), and, as soon as I got her, Tiki (pocket Say'ri). Panne was the MVP, and, going by your definition of exploit, possibly even more exploitative than Avatar due to her Avoid-stacking options; however, as imbalanced as Panne was, Tiki was also needed for reliable clears of Ch 20 due to the high number of bow/Wind users combined with the awkward starting position of the player units. Chrom chipped in on occasion and ended the game at about 20/11. Avatar's average growths combined with the low Mt afforded by many magic tomes meant she turned out to be mediocre as a combat unit towards the midgame (she ended at 20 Tactician/11 GM/1 Dark Knight; the Dark Knight reclass was to take care of Validar 1 on turn 1 enemy phase, saving myself an action for turn 2 player phase), but she did play a part in giving Lucina good bases. I didn't use any Dance abuse (Olivia ended the campaign somewhere between Lv 15 and 20 without ever having received a Second Seal, IIRC; she definitely learned Special Dance, but it occurred in a late chapter), nor did I commit what I consider to be staff abuse; Cordelia ended the campaign at 20 Peg Knight/~19 Falcon Knight with D-ranked staves (for reference, it takes 15 uses to go from E to D rank, and I don't think she made too much progress towards the C rank), but I did have her use Rescue in some of the later chapters when she had nothing better (namely, killing enemies) to do.

Ch 12: The short-term plan was to hold off the mounts in the lower-left corner without actually moving too far left since I wanted to be aggressive and contest the center of the map. I started by baiting two of the Cavaliers from that group while killing the two Knights who start near the player (one died from Levin Sword Anna, and I want to say the other died from Panne) and otherwise standing my ground. My memory is quite fuzzy, but one of the units who baited the Cavs was Frederick, and I think the other was Avatar. During turn two player phase, I cleaned up the lower left mounted enemies, as well as most, if not all of the mounts who start near the center-right of the map. Beyond that, I can't say I remember very many details. My general plan from that point on was to stay near the center while picking off key offensive threats like the Bow Knight in order to make it easier for units like Panne to clean up. If I had to guess, I'd say I used Hand Axe Panne to KO the Cavalier who wielded a Beast Killer. Avatar was still pretty serviceable in this map, and she was important in taking out some of the tougher enemies. I held off on approaching the boat until having dealt with all the non-boat enemies (needless to say, my turncounts throughout the campaign were terrible).

Ch 16: I finished this one on the player phase immediately preceding the Falcon Knight reinforcements. By this point, Panne had acquired Quick Burn, Tantivy, and Even Rhythm as well as serviceable Def. While I could have played the level safely by sending everyone up the left, I chose to send Panne slowly up the right and have everyone else go up the left/center-left in order to get as much EXP as possible. Lucina was reclassed to a 10 Lord/1 Myrmidon after I recruited her post-Ch 13 and had become one of my better combat units by this point, not needing Veteran to gain quick EXP (she inherited Ignis from Avatar). I avoided putting Panne in range of more than two bow-users at a time, and preferred to put her in range of just one bow-user. She was durable enough to survive one bow hit combined with one or two non-bow hits (though perhaps a bow hit plus an axe hit from a Warrior might have KOed her; can't say I recall many specifics. Then again, Warriors had absolutely terrible accuracy on her.), and dodgy enough to reliably avoid one of two attempted bow hits during any given enemy phase. With Physic support, I was able to keep Panne on her feet whenever she got hit by a bow.

Ch 17: I did get the Boots, but I never used them since I was unsure how luck-dependent my Boots-specific part of the plan was. However, clearing the level without the Boots was doable at a reliable clip. Lucina (pocket Avatar) and Panne (pocket Lon'qu) started near the right. Lucina KOed a War Cleric and Panne KOed the Sniper during turn 1 player phase. Cordelia (pocket Frederick) was Rescued and used a forged Beast Killer to KO the Valkryie near the center door, and then was Rescued back to avoid the Longbow Sniper. Chrom baited the Hero near the door. The units who started at the LHS were all staff users, with the exception of Olivia. During turn 2, I killed off the Hero as well as the War Cleric and Sniper who started near the center-left of the map in the same corridor as the door; although I remember having to rely on a Killing Edge crit from Chrom (who was fast enough to double both the War Cleric and the Sniper), I don't remember actually having to reset more than once at this point in my several attempts at this level (pretty much all my resets came from not getting the Boots in time, but again, I wound up not using them at all since I wasn't satisfied with that part of my plan). On the RHS, Lucina, who was strong enough to ORKO everyone who started on the RHS, killed the one Tomahawk-wielding War Cleric who survived turn 1 enemy phase. Panne, who was durable enough to survive a single hit from any given unit on the map, slowly pulled in the opposing enemy units, including the Valkyrie and Longbow Sniper, though I'm pretty sure I handled those guys on separate turns. During turn 3 player phase, I finished off the pack of enemies who started at the far LHS. Subsequently, I opened the door and planted units on the four stair panels at the RHS of the map to block the reinforements. I'll spare you the Boots-grabbing details since, again, I was not satisfied with the reliability of the Boots-grabbing part of the plan and hence never used the Boots. I guess reinforcement-blocking is probably not necessary unless you're going for the Boots. From this point, staff users are free to Rescue-chain Panne to the boss for a ORKO.

Ch 20: A Manakete was pretty much necessary for me to clear this map reliably given my otherwise-frail team, and since I didn't use Nowi, I had to do Paralogue 17, which had to be quick-cleared with my team due to its overall squishiness; Cordelia and Frederick each used the same forged Beast Killer (+5 Mt, +10 Hit because I like reliability) to handle the LHS (one Falcon Knight died during turn 1 player phase thanks to Maribelle using Rescue on Cordelia, while two died during turn 2 enemy phase), Avatar (with a forged Elwind) and Lucina separately handled the Wyverns and were assisted with Rescue support from Lissa, while Panne killed four of the Griffons (two during turn 1 player phase thanks to Olivia, two during turn 2 player phase) and left the last one for Chrom with his Noble Rapier.

My plan for Ch 20 was to rush up the right while holding off Cervantes' squad. Of the four Generals in the lower-right corner, I could only reliably take out two during turn 1 player phase by using Panne, Olivia, and units like Anna who would step in if Pavise activated too many times. I chose to KO the two who had 1-2 range so as to avoid having Chrom (who blocked off the top part of the two-square-wide corridor) getting hit with two attacks (one from 1-range, and another from 2-range). Swordmaster Lucina KOed one of the starting enemies (probably a Hero) and was Rescued to safety; if one of the Warriors near Cervantes had spawned with Counter, I would have needed to use the Amatsu to KO that Warrior, and if both had Counter, I don't think my plan would have worked (I suspect the odds of both having Counter are low, though). I might have had Cordelia kill an enemy, also (not too sure on this one). Tiki (pocket Say'ri), who was stuffed full of Tonics, positioned herself near the entrance to Cervantes' portion of the map, securing for my other units space that would otherwise have been in range of Cervantes' mooks. Tiki, who gained a level in Ch 19, was strong enough to survive a fair amount of punishment; IIRC there were four enemies who attacked her during turn 1 enemy phase, and I think the only way she would have died is if all four successfully landed their attacks (which is unlikely). I actually have a save at this chapter, so to save myself some time, I'll avoid writing too much about Ch 20 for now and see if you have any more specific questions about this chapter that can be answered by loading the save and retrying the level.

Ch 23: I'll say this upfront: I made two or three bad mistakes that gave me a nontrivial chance of getting someone killed, but nonetheless got lucky on this map, so feel free to give me crap. However, my errors were unforced and I am almost certain that I would have had a reliable (> 50% success rate without character deaths) winning sequence had I been paying more attention to the map. I got the victory on my first and only attempt with this team, suggesting that it wasn't unreasonable luck and that a more careful/competent player would have easily secured a reliable victory. I'll give you a short account of the attempt and allow you to assess whether it's doable reliably.

Avatar was reclassed to Dark Knight to enable me to Pair Up and drop her two squares from Validar on turn 1 player phase. With Valflame, she could ORKO during turn 1 enemy phase. Panne KOed the upper-left Assassin and either Cordelia or Lucina (I think it was Cordelia) KOed the upper-left Sorceror. Everyone else stayed out of enemy range, though I might have had Lucina draw in an extra Hero.

After Validar killed himself on turn 1 enemy phase, I moved Chrom, Avatar, Basilio and Flavia back towards the main group. My other units had enough firepower to reasonably fend off the enemies in the meantime. The only units who had more than 40% displayed hit on Panne were the Assassins, whom I killed whenever I could with Lucina or Panne; meanwhile, the Berserkers were no threat to Panne with something like 9% displayed hit on an even-numbered turn, and Swordbreaker meant that a decent number of Heroes were not dangerous. I proceeded to block the top two stair panels at the LHS in time for the turn 5 reinforcements (this was not so wise, as I will explain), allowing me to only deal with one new unit at the bottom-left and three new units from the right during each of turns 5 and 6.

I'll describe the lucky breaks I got. One of them occurred when Chrom managed to dodge two attacks which would have combined to KO him (the odds that both would have hit were about 40% using displayed hit). This could have been avoided by using someone else to kill whatever it was he killed during the preceding player phase; alternatively, I could have let that enemy live during the player phase and had it die during the enemy phase. The second one was when Panne was occupying the center-left stair tile; I had failed to notice an Assassin at the other side of the map who had Move+1 and just enough range to attempt a bow shot at her. She dodged it during the enemy phase (at about ~50% displayed hit).

There might have been one other lucky break I got that turn; I'm inclined to say there was another Assassin I didn't notice, or something. In any case, all of the mistakes I made could have been avoided by pulling back my units into the upper-left of the map. I would have had to deal with two more reinforcement enemies during each of turns five and six, but they would have died quickly. It was largely my impatience and dislike of the chapter that led me to try and clear it quickly.

I think it was Paperblade who said this in another thread: Chs 23-25 are so poorly designed that you're going to wind up doing some amount of cheesing to clear them. I'm kind of inclined to agree; if you're not using supertanks like Panne, Nowi, or Avatar, and if Second Seal isn't allowed, you're probably just going to sit there, hit "Rally" and slowly pick off enemies with your best combat units. I feel like better map design alone would go a long way towards balancing the game and preventing juggernauts (whether innate juggernauts or temporary, Rallied-up ones) from ruling the game.

Excellent work. Panne never really worked out for me, her tipping point never came defensively, but I think it was because I put too many resources into the Manaketes. All the way up until the end, she was one failed dodge away from being in a bad place against the hax bows and magic that they throw at you, even with all of my Talismans and such.

Thanks, and nice job yourself on your own completed run. Yeah, I guess the extra kills that Panne received in my run (due to Veteran Avatar not existing) may have pushed her over the top.

[Legault!]

OK, I'm spoilering this since it's a really large bit of text.

My main combat units after the earlygame were Cordelia (pocket Fred), Panne (pocket Lon'qu), Lucina (pocket Avatar, who was also her mother), and, as soon as I got her, Tiki (pocket Say'ri). Panne was the MVP, and, going by your definition of exploit, possibly even more exploitative than Avatar due to her Avoid-stacking options; however, as imbalanced as Panne was, Tiki was also needed for reliable clears of Ch 20 due to the high number of bow/Wind users combined with the awkward starting position of the player units. Chrom chipped in on occasion and ended the game at about 20/11. Avatar's average growths combined with the low Mt afforded by many magic tomes meant she turned out to be mediocre as a combat unit towards the midgame (she ended at 20 Tactician/11 GM/1 Dark Knight; the Dark Knight reclass was to take care of Validar 1 on turn 1 enemy phase, saving myself an action for turn 2 player phase), but she did play a part in giving Lucina good bases. I didn't use any Dance abuse (Olivia ended the campaign somewhere between Lv 15 and 20 without ever having received a Second Seal, IIRC; she definitely learned Special Dance, but it occurred in a late chapter), nor did I commit what I consider to be staff abuse; Cordelia ended the campaign at 20 Peg Knight/~19 Falcon Knight with D-ranked staves (for reference, it takes 15 uses to go from E to D rank, and I don't think she made too much progress towards the C rank), but I did have her use Rescue in some of the later chapters when she had nothing better (namely, killing enemies) to do.

Ch 12: The short-term plan was to hold off the mounts in the lower-left corner without actually moving too far left since I wanted to be aggressive and contest the center of the map. I started by baiting two of the Cavaliers from that group while killing the two Knights who start near the player (one died from Levin Sword Anna, and I want to say the other died from Panne) and otherwise standing my ground. My memory is quite fuzzy, but one of the units who baited the Cavs was Frederick, and I think the other was Avatar. During turn two player phase, I cleaned up the lower left mounted enemies, as well as most, if not all of the mounts who start near the center-right of the map. Beyond that, I can't say I remember very many details. My general plan from that point on was to stay near the center while picking off key offensive threats like the Bow Knight in order to make it easier for units like Panne to clean up. If I had to guess, I'd say I used Hand Axe Panne to KO the Cavalier who wielded a Beast Killer. Avatar was still pretty serviceable in this map, and she was important in taking out some of the tougher enemies. I held off on approaching the boat until having dealt with all the non-boat enemies (needless to say, my turncounts throughout the campaign were terrible).

Ch 16: I finished this one on the player phase immediately preceding the Falcon Knight reinforcements. By this point, Panne had acquired Quick Burn, Tantivy, and Even Rhythm as well as serviceable Def. While I could have played the level safely by sending everyone up the left, I chose to send Panne slowly up the right and have everyone else go up the left/center-left in order to get as much EXP as possible. Lucina was reclassed to a 10 Lord/1 Myrmidon after I recruited her post-Ch 13 and had become one of my better combat units by this point, not needing Veteran to gain quick EXP (she inherited Ignis from Avatar). I avoided putting Panne in range of more than two bow-users at a time, and preferred to put her in range of just one bow-user. She was durable enough to survive one bow hit combined with one or two non-bow hits (though perhaps a bow hit plus an axe hit from a Warrior might have KOed her; can't say I recall many specifics. Then again, Warriors had absolutely terrible accuracy on her.), and dodgy enough to reliably avoid one of two attempted bow hits during any given enemy phase. With Physic support, I was able to keep Panne on her feet whenever she got hit by a bow.

Ch 17: I did get the Boots, but I never used them since I was unsure how luck-dependent my Boots-specific part of the plan was. However, clearing the level without the Boots was doable at a reliable clip. Lucina (pocket Avatar) and Panne (pocket Lon'qu) started near the right. Lucina KOed a War Cleric and Panne KOed the Sniper during turn 1 player phase. Cordelia (pocket Frederick) was Rescued and used a forged Beast Killer to KO the Valkryie near the center door, and then was Rescued back to avoid the Longbow Sniper. Chrom baited the Hero near the door. The units who started at the LHS were all staff users, with the exception of Olivia. During turn 2, I killed off the Hero as well as the War Cleric and Sniper who started near the center-left of the map in the same corridor as the door; although I remember having to rely on a Killing Edge crit from Chrom (who was fast enough to double both the War Cleric and the Sniper), I don't remember actually having to reset more than once at this point in my several attempts at this level (pretty much all my resets came from not getting the Boots in time, but again, I wound up not using them at all since I wasn't satisfied with that part of my plan). On the RHS, Lucina, who was strong enough to ORKO everyone who started on the RHS, killed the one Tomahawk-wielding War Cleric who survived turn 1 enemy phase. Panne, who was durable enough to survive a single hit from any given unit on the map, slowly pulled in the opposing enemy units, including the Valkyrie and Longbow Sniper, though I'm pretty sure I handled those guys on separate turns. During turn 3 player phase, I finished off the pack of enemies who started at the far LHS. Subsequently, I opened the door and planted units on the four stair panels at the RHS of the map to block the reinforements. I'll spare you the Boots-grabbing details since, again, I was not satisfied with the reliability of the Boots-grabbing part of the plan and hence never used the Boots. I guess reinforcement-blocking is probably not necessary unless you're going for the Boots. From this point, staff users are free to Rescue-chain Panne to the boss for a ORKO.

Ch 20: A Manakete was pretty much necessary for me to clear this map reliably given my otherwise-frail team, and since I didn't use Nowi, I had to do Paralogue 17, which had to be quick-cleared with my team due to its overall squishiness; Cordelia and Frederick each used the same forged Beast Killer (+5 Mt, +10 Hit because I like reliability) to handle the LHS (one Falcon Knight died during turn 1 player phase thanks to Maribelle using Rescue on Cordelia, while two died during turn 2 enemy phase), Avatar (with a forged Elwind) and Lucina separately handled the Wyverns and were assisted with Rescue support from Lissa, while Panne killed four of the Griffons (two during turn 1 player phase thanks to Olivia, two during turn 2 player phase) and left the last one for Chrom with his Noble Rapier.

My plan for Ch 20 was to rush up the right while holding off Cervantes' squad. Of the four Generals in the lower-right corner, I could only reliably take out two during turn 1 player phase by using Panne, Olivia, and units like Anna who would step in if Pavise activated too many times. I chose to KO the two who had 1-2 range so as to avoid having Chrom (who blocked off the top part of the two-square-wide corridor) getting hit with two attacks (one from 1-range, and another from 2-range). Swordmaster Lucina KOed one of the starting enemies (probably a Hero) and was Rescued to safety; if one of the Warriors near Cervantes had spawned with Counter, I would have needed to use the Amatsu to KO that Warrior, and if both had Counter, I don't think my plan would have worked (I suspect the odds of both having Counter are low, though). I might have had Cordelia kill an enemy, also (not too sure on this one). Tiki (pocket Say'ri), who was stuffed full of Tonics, positioned herself near the entrance to Cervantes' portion of the map, securing for my other units space that would otherwise have been in range of Cervantes' mooks. Tiki, who gained a level in Ch 19, was strong enough to survive a fair amount of punishment; IIRC there were four enemies who attacked her during turn 1 enemy phase, and I think the only way she would have died is if all four successfully landed their attacks (which is unlikely). I actually have a save at this chapter, so to save myself some time, I'll avoid writing too much about Ch 20 for now and see if you have any more specific questions about this chapter that can be answered by loading the save and retrying the level.

Ch 23: I'll say this upfront: I made two or three bad mistakes that gave me a nontrivial chance of getting someone killed, but nonetheless got lucky on this map, so feel free to give me crap. However, my errors were unforced and I am almost certain that I would have had a reliable (> 50% success rate without character deaths) winning sequence had I been paying more attention to the map. I got the victory on my first and only attempt with this team, suggesting that it wasn't unreasonable luck and that a more careful/competent player would have easily secured a reliable victory. I'll give you a short account of the attempt and allow you to assess whether it's doable reliably.

Avatar was reclassed to Dark Knight to enable me to Pair Up and drop her two squares from Validar on turn 1 player phase. With Valflame, she could ORKO during turn 1 enemy phase. Panne KOed the upper-left Assassin and either Cordelia or Lucina (I think it was Cordelia) KOed the upper-left Sorceror. Everyone else stayed out of enemy range, though I might have had Lucina draw in an extra Hero.

After Validar killed himself on turn 1 enemy phase, I moved Chrom, Avatar, Basilio and Flavia back towards the main group. My other units had enough firepower to reasonably fend off the enemies in the meantime. The only units who had more than 40% displayed hit on Panne were the Assassins, whom I killed whenever I could with Lucina or Panne; meanwhile, the Berserkers were no threat to Panne with something like 9% displayed hit on an even-numbered turn, and Swordbreaker meant that a decent number of Heroes were not dangerous. I proceeded to block the top two stair panels at the LHS in time for the turn 5 reinforcements (this was not so wise, as I will explain), allowing me to only deal with one new unit at the bottom-left and three new units from the right during each of turns 5 and 6.

I'll describe the lucky breaks I got. One of them occurred when Chrom managed to dodge two attacks which would have combined to KO him (the odds that both would have hit were about 40% using displayed hit). This could have been avoided by using someone else to kill whatever it was he killed during the preceding player phase; alternatively, I could have let that enemy live during the player phase and had it die during the enemy phase. The second one was when Panne was occupying the center-left stair tile; I had failed to notice an Assassin at the other side of the map who had Move+1 and just enough range to attempt a bow shot at her. She dodged it during the enemy phase (at about ~50% displayed hit).

There might have been one other lucky break I got that turn; I'm inclined to say there was another Assassin I didn't notice, or something. In any case, all of the mistakes I made could have been avoided by pulling back my units into the upper-left of the map. I would have had to deal with two more reinforcement enemies during each of turns five and six, but they would have died quickly. It was largely my impatience and dislike of the chapter that led me to try and clear it quickly.

I think it was Paperblade who said this in another thread: Chs 23-25 are so poorly designed that you're going to wind up doing some amount of cheesing to clear them. I'm kind of inclined to agree; if you're not using supertanks like Panne, Nowi, or Avatar, and if Second Seal isn't allowed, you're probably just going to sit there, hit "Rally" and slowly pick off enemies with your best combat units. I feel like better map design alone would go a long way towards balancing the game and preventing juggernauts (whether innate juggernauts or temporary, Rallied-up ones) from ruling the game.

Thanks for the detailed descriptions.

Been a while since I played Paralogue 17 on Lunatic, but it's, what, twelve enemies you need to kill in two player phases? Seems doable, although I'd worry about gold -- the game gives you plenty, but forged weapons can become very expensive very quickly. Did you ever run low on gold? I'd also be curious to see how the lategame plays out with no reclass. No Wyvern!Panne sounds like many of these chapters (such as 16 and 23) would be nigh-impossible to complete. She unofficially served the role of your token Demigod unit (which all Lunatic challenge runs seem to need), and without her, I'm not sure if those maps would have any kind of reliable completion.

I'll probably have some follow-up questions later on, but for now, I just want to observe that all players seem to agree at how lousy the game's design is down the stretch. Several dozen promoted enemies with forged weapons in an empty field sacrifices strategy in favor of tanking with a token Demigod unit (usually MU, Tharja, or Panne; I can see a Nowi or Chrom fitting this role too) and crossing fingers.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Legault!

[Interceptor]

I think it was Paperblade who said this in another thread: Chs 23-25 are so poorly designed that you're going to wind up doing some amount of cheesing to clear them. I'm kind of inclined to agree; if you're not using supertanks like Panne, Nowi, or Avatar, and if Second Seal isn't allowed, you're probably just going to sit there, hit "Rally" and slowly pick off enemies with your best combat units. I feel like better map design alone would go a long way towards balancing the game and preventing juggernauts (whether innate juggernauts or temporary, Rallied-up ones) from ruling the game.

I'd agree with this as well. It feels like they got lazy in those chapters, and just spam a bunch of units at you. I had to start actually playing attention, and couldn't train borderline units as easily. At least Ch25 was a kill boss; the Routs were just maddening at points. I would have much rather dealt with individually stronger units that were more sparsely distributed.

Your idea of stacking a bunch of Avoid skill on Panne was a good one, too; another mistake I made with her was keeping her as a Taguel for too long. C'est la vie. I feel like I owe her another playthrough as an apology for messing up the first time.

I try to explain something to you in earnest and you respond in dime-a-dozen passive aggression. Lovely. Does this site have an Ignore User function?

So what you're saying, is that you wanted something more custom-designed?

You can manage your ignored users here.

[Redwall]

Yeah, gold ran low later on, but partly due to my own incompetence. Early on, I blew about 5000 G on a +5 Mt Javelin for Cordelia and saved the game, only to realize that she was still 1 Str short of her ORKOing my planned target. The forges I recall needing were two Beast Killer forges (one received between one and three extra Mt; the other received +5 Mt [for P17, at least +4 was necessary given my stats, though I didn't realize it at the time], and also +10 Hit since I hate missing), and a forged Elwind (about +1 Mt or so?) for Avatar to handle one Wyvern in P17. I also blew a lot of money on Rescue staves, which I didn't like.

Without Second Seals, I would imagine that Rallybots come into play a bit more, along with guerrilla tactics (kill one enemy in a swarm, Rescue back, rinse, repeat). Severa can start with both Rally Def and Rally Spd, and Rally Spectrum would also be great in such a run. As I pointed out, a guy from GameFAQs claims to have done it, and I believe him. At the cost of a Rescue use, Rallybots could partly make up for the loss of stats Second Seals would give you, letting you slowly tank out small groups of enemies. It's probably really tedious, though.

[Legault!]

I'm not actually going to ignore anyone.

Just to be clear about why what I mean by "exploit" is important: we can all agree by now that if the player knows what he or she is doing, Lunatic is a joke. A handful of characters, classes, and skills snap whatever difficulty the game might have in half. What's worse is that there are many such exploits: beating Lunatic without grinding isn't an accomplishment when Nosferatu exists; beating Lunatic without grinding or Nosferatu isn't an accomplishment when Veteran!Avatar exists; etc. Limiting broken options is necessary to preserve some semblance of strategy -- the remaining issue is figuring out what constitutes an exploit / broken option / [insert preferred term here].

I hesitate to limit too much, as the gap between amazing and horrible units is large. I've never heard of someone seriously using a Sully or a Ricken in a Lunatic challenge run, for example. Even if it turns out that Panne is just too good and either she or Second Seals ought to be banned, there's going to be a point where so much is banned that reliably completing the game will involve a very defined strategy that the player can't deviate too much from. That's not a lot of fun.

[Khan of Blades]

I hesitate to limit too much, as the gap between amazing and horrible units is large. I've never heard of someone seriously using a Sully or a Ricken in a Lunatic challenge run, for example. Even if it turns out that Panne is just too good and either she or Second Seals ought to be banned, there's going to be a point where so much is banned that reliably completing the game will involve a very defined strategy that the player can't deviate too much from. That's not a lot of fun.

Welp.

In my case, a lunatic mode without second seals may as well be a lunatic mode without usage of Frederick.

;_;

[dondon151]

Just to be clear about why what I mean by "exploit" is important: we can all agree by now that if the player knows what he or she is doing, Lunatic is a joke. A handful of characters, classes, and skills snap whatever difficulty the game might have in half. What's worse is that there are many such exploits: beating Lunatic without grinding isn't an accomplishment when Nosferatu exists; beating Lunatic without grinding or Nosferatu isn't an accomplishment when Veteran!Avatar exists; etc. Limiting broken options is necessary to preserve some semblance of strategy -- the remaining issue is figuring out what constitutes an exploit / broken option / [insert preferred term here].

true for every FE game, yet hardly any game's tier list arbitrarily bans "exploits" (the only ones in common use are warpless in most games and sethless in FE8). however, these "exploits" are very powerful relative to other options and are easily defined. what you're doing right now is basically just striking off every remotely powerful option in succession.

it's also not true that you have to remove broken options to preserve strategy. there is plenty of strategy in optimizing warpskipping or using the most powerful unit availability to the best of your ability. it's not interesting, perhaps, but does it have to be interesting?

[Legault!]

true for every FE game, yet hardly any game's tier list arbitrarily bans "exploits" (the only ones in common use are warpless in most games and sethless in FE8). however, these "exploits" are very powerful relative to other options and are easily defined. what you're doing right now is basically just striking off every remotely powerful option in succession.

it's also not true that you have to remove broken options to preserve strategy. there is plenty of strategy in optimizing warpskipping or using the most powerful unit availability to the best of your ability. it's not interesting, perhaps, but does it have to be interesting?

You don't see me making these suggestions in the tier list topic, do you? This is less about tiering and more about finding a way to make Awakening not a terrible game.

I'm also not super interested in absolute LTC and I imagine this is true of most people. I'd just like a game mode where I have flexibility in my strategy while still feeling fairly challenged. If you like LTC, then any SRPG, no matter how broken, has plenty of strategy to offer.

[dondon151]

then what does it matter

you could do the same thing by ranking ways to make lunatic easier and not assign them a pejorative term like "exploit"