The Lunatic Club

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

plus a level 28 Entombed (...wat?).

I remember encountering my first Entombered in a skirmish like this. At the end of Lunatic. Its stats could barely compare to all of the other enemies on the field. Made me really question why IS even bothered putting in weaponry that are effective against them.

[Bryan]

I just wanted to pop in and say I finished Lunatic. I wish I would have tried some skirmishes, but I didn't... Once I unlock the supreme emblem, I'mma start Lunatic+.

Did you guys just fredsolo the first couple of chapters? I had a hard time feeding kills to anyone else besides Chrom/MU.

[1% critted]

On vanilla Lunatic, to feed others kills on chapter 1/2/3, you just need to use Fred to lure most of the enemies and leave one of your allies on the range of only one weakened enemy. Weee free kill.

[Mighty Kamina]

I just wanted to pop in and say I finished Lunatic. I wish I would have tried some skirmishes, but I didn't... Once I unlock the supreme emblem, I'mma start Lunatic+.

Did you guys just fredsolo the first couple of chapters? I had a hard time feeding kills to anyone else besides Chrom/MU.

After chapter 3 usually the only compotent characters I have aside from Frederick are my Avatar and Virion. I mostly Frederick solo up until paralogue 1 after chapter 4 (because I find Lon'qu a godsend on Lunatic) where I give my other units levels and Frederick usually becomes filler after chapter 6.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Zelos

[Junkhead]

I am attempting to do an LTC of this, but I don't think it's too possible without relying on some luck reguarding Frederick's Spd. I am currently on Ch.2, and I need him to proc Spd on each chapter to keep doubling with a Chrom support. There's also the issue of him needing the Silver Lance to 2HKO enemies, and I don't want to burn it so quickly because I may need it later on.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Juliet

[darkkfan]

I am attempting to do an LTC of this, but I don't think it's too possible without relying on some luck reguarding Frederick's Spd. I am currently on Ch.2, and I need him to proc Spd on each chapter to keep doubling with a Chrom support. There's also the issue of him needing the Silver Lance to 2HKO enemies, and I don't want to burn it so quickly because I may need it later on.

The silver lance actually becomes a lot less important once you gain access to things like supports, more pair up partners, and mostly forges and tonics. You might want to save a few uses, though.

[Redwall]

Getting the absolute lowest turncounts won't require too much Spd from Fred since he can Pair with Sumia, and since Avatar and Lon'qu are capable of shouldering some of the offense early on; however, getting Str blessed with Fred is useful. The Silver Lance isn't necessary past Ch 4, though it may be helpful depending on how you approach Ch 5.

[Anouleth]

thing is that unlike certain other FEs, or most of them, enemies grow at a fast enough rate in Lunatic that growths make a significant difference. In that sense, FE13 Lunatic is like FE12 Lunatic in that you can't "really" low turn count it without rigging growths throughout the entire game.

[Redwall]

The growths are not that problematic due to Rallies. I didn't rig growths at all the last time I completed an LTC attempt (128 turns, which is way slower than what I believe the minimum to be assuming P1-4 and 17 are "mandatory").

The only really sketchy things I did were a) the Tiki AI abuse trick and b) a 15%-reliable one-turn clear of C20. I strongly suspect a) can be avoided pretty easily by getting Galeforce on both Morgan and Avatar for a two-turn clear. I have an ongoing playthrough (which I haven't actually touched in a while) at Ch 16. I'm planning to deal with b) using Nosferatu and Galeforce; if it costs me a turn, I'm not going to be too disappointed as long as the reliability is decent.

If by "'really' low turn count it" you mean getting the absolute minimum, then you might be right. But I don't think the absolute minimum turn count is qualitatively different from what I believe a standard, sorta-reliable LTC would achieve (~100 turns with P1-4 and 17 "required", and optional children Paralogues that count for turns).

Edited May 8, 2013 by Redwall

[Tables]

Just got the newly released spotpass content (yay, Luna Lance?), so decided to summon Mist and give her a fight, since her team's basically a joke on easy. What's the worst that could happen on Lunatic?

Turns out 'insane stat boosts' wasn't the answer. Oh no. 1 EXP from every kill was the answer. It's like it's gone from trying to kill me to just quietly mocking me.

[Interceptor]

And you also get no WEXP.

[Anouleth]

Just got the newly released spotpass content (yay, Luna Lance?), so decided to summon Mist and give her a fight, since her team's basically a joke on easy. What's the worst that could happen on Lunatic?

Turns out 'insane stat boosts' wasn't the answer. Oh no. 1 EXP from every kill was the answer. It's like it's gone from trying to kill me to just quietly mocking me.

It depends on the team, really. Some of the axe-heavy teams (like Titania or Karel) can be trivialised with a good sword user. Getting a good map with lots of abusable terrain or forts helps.

And you can still build supports in spotpass chapters.

[euklyd]

I reloaded my save, and this time visited a skirmish that spawned on top of the Anna merchant in Border Wastes (Ch11): it has the same level distribution as the one I just fought in Ferox (the boss is a Berzerker with 50 capped STR, though).

Then I reloaded one more time, and went into a stale Skirmish that was already sitting on Valm Harbor (Ch15). This one has a level 6-11 promoted level distribution, plus a level 28 Entombed (...wat?).

Finally, visited Midmire (Ch10), another stale skirmish, enemies range promoted 8-13, with most being level 10. No capped stats.

This file has never fought any Spotpass, DLC, or Skirmish battles: story and Paralogues only.

This meshes with my experience on Hard mode, in which the Skirmish Risen levels scale with the Chapter (later chapter = stronger enemies). I think that was thrown out the window for vanilla Lunatic, but maybe it is brought back for Lunatic+.

[1% critted]

I don't think it's back for Luna+. I had a dark flier skirmish on the prologue chapter.

[euklyd]

It could simply be scaled with a different constant, but I don't actually have experience with Luna+ (yet), so for now I'm just guessing.

[Merric]

So i know im really really late to the party here but i finally got around to starting my Lunatic Classic run.

God damn.

I feel like an epic noob cause I'm stuck on Chapter 2 :( All my characters feel so weak and inept :(

Edited May 9, 2013 by Merric

[Green Poet]

I've finally decided to do a Lunatic + run... not yet.

I have a few questions :

- I want to get 50 000 renown before playing this mode, which character should get stats boosters, Naga's tears or Boots ?

- This time I will used MU with Veteran and second seals, on which class should I reclass her ?

- Besides Nowi, Lon'qu, Panne and Cordelia, are they any another really good units ? (I heard about Virion, but his bases sucks, maybe he will love naga's tears ? )

- I must avoid counter at every cost, right ?

1. I would give Naga's Tears to Morgan or Avatar just so that you make use of the boosts to both strength and magic, which could also work with a Levin Sword Trickster now that I think about it. I can't really give a good recommendation on who to give the Boots to. I gave my first pair to Avatar as a safe bet, as a lot of people probably do, but I've heard interesting theories about giving it them to Libra and Fred in L+ runs.

2. It's probably a safe bet to go for Galeforce, and Dark Flier makes use of Avatar's strength and magic anyway.

3. Tharja for Nosferatank, if you're allowing that in your run? I think you have everyone else. Giving Virion the tears is possibly a good idea too.

4. Yep. You'll want to consider resetting before each battle until you get a map with as few enemies with Counter as you can. The RNG isn't very forgiving with it, unfortunately.

[Othin]

Virion is one of the top units on Lunatic+ even without any special treatment just because bows are the best thing ever on that mode.

If you're resetting to avoid Counter, you're not using enough ranged attackers.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Othin

[Redwall]

I don't understand the Virion hype. Yeah, bows are great in earlygame Lunatic+, but he's only got a Def growth rate of 35%...it seems like training Lon'qu (who is also fragile, but at least dodges things, and can be trained easily due to the abundance of axes earlygame) and/or Avatar to be your bow-user might yield more benefit.

[Interceptor]

Yeah, I'm off the Virion train before it even left the station. I like bows a lot in Lunatic+ (lategame, too), but Lon'qu as an Assassin already has unacceptable concrete defenses, and he's mostly used for Pass utility at this point. Avatar and Morgan as Sniper and Warrior respectively are RES-light, but untouchable physically; they are the primary beefcakes for me.

EDIT: "unacceptable" in this case means that his DEF is capped at 29. He gets a little more from Nowi, but against 60+ mt he takes some serious hurtin'.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Interceptor

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Virion shines most in the early game and if you're using Renown. With a support who gives any kind of speed boost at all and a couple levels should let him face tank one hit as necessary. Plus the Longbow allows him to pick on anything he wants without fear of being counterattacked. Unfortunately, his terrible base speed means he's unlikely to double and his poor durability combined with a lack of an enemy phase means he can't really delay indefinitely like Avatar can. Even in my run that allowed grinding, he required constant grinding to keep up with the 1-2 rangers.

Virion is one of the top units on Lunatic+ even without any special treatment just because bows are the best thing ever on that mode.

If you're resetting to avoid Counter, you're not using enough ranged attackers.

Not necessarily. Because there's no checks or balances on the system, it's entirely possible to have a map drop big clumps of 3-4 Counter enemies together or even just spam 80%+ of the map with it. I've seen the latter case enough times to know the frustration. And this is with my typical strategy where I place priority on having combat pairs (usually five, although it became four in my no grind run because Lon'qu was RNG screwed so hard) with lead units that tote 2 range. Sometimes there just isn't enough firepower to deal with the sheer amount of Counter spam.

[Interceptor]

Well, it depends on how you are playing. I've never had to reset for Counter past Ch5 or so, and in fact the more Counters that spawn on the map the easier that it gets (since those enemies can only have one skill that I care about). Avatar (and later, Morgan) are just too good at face-tanking.

EDIT: as an example, in Ch21, my +DEF/-SKL Avatar has capped 43 DEF as a Sniper. The biggest, baddest enemy on the map is a Berserker with 72mt (Axefaire, illegal 23mt Silver Axe, 43 STR). That's a 3HKO, and with +3 DEF from another source (+1 from Chrom support, +2 from DEF tonic) now it's a 4HKO. Completely workable, with healing.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Interceptor

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Fair enough. Are you relying on items for healing? I just imagine staff users being a bit of a liability when certain maps' reinforcements get involved.

[Interceptor]

Healing is a "by committee" thing. There's:

• Lissa, my main staffer (Cleric -> Troubadour -> Valkyrie). On most maps she can usually stay waaay out of range (32 unmodified MAG at this point) with Physic. In an emergency, with a parnter she can usually take one good hit.
• Blessed Bow, which is unbreakable on my two high-LCK Armsthrifters (Avatar and Morgan), and good for both kiling and +10 HP per Turn.
• Elixirs, which are buyable after Morgan's chapter and pretty cost-effective.

So when Lissa out of action, yeah, it's mostly items. Although usually I can get something to work. In Ch20 for example, I carved out a corner of the map where Lissa was only targetable by Longbow users, which was acceptable (she can take a stray hit from one, and my Snipers can pick them off easily anyway). Although something like Ch19, totally impossible.

But another nice thing is that Avatar in this scenario has 99 avoid, too (maxed 40/47 SPD/LCK, +8/7 from Chrom). That's before support bonuses (usually able to get at least +15), before Charm, not counting Patience, and she also has 24% Dual Guard from Chrom vs. physical attacks. Mr. Badass with 72 mt, only has 134 HIT, even with the +10 from the bonus skill. Those swings don't connect very often.

I tend to prioritize killing Hawkeye enemies, as you can imagine.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Ah, yes, makes sense. Chapters 16 and 19 were at the forefront when I was talking about chapters giving staff users issues.

But another nice thing is that Avatar in this scenario has 99 avoid, too (maxed 40/47 SPD/LCK, +8/7 from Chrom). That's before support bonuses (usually able to get at least +15), before Charm, not counting Patience, and she also has 24% Dual Guard from Chrom vs. physical attacks. Mr. Badass with 72 mt, only has 134 HIT, even with the +10 from the bonus skill. Those swings don't connect very often.

Zerkers tend to have hit at the lower end of the spectrum, though. I do know how awesome a high avoid can be (I've run a +Spd/-Luk FeMU every run), but I seem to remember enemies pushing closer to 170 toward the end of the game (and it only goes up in the Spotpass Paralogues where I think I was facing ~80 displayed hit from Priam's lackies), which forced me to rely on Sol, Rescue spam and Galeforce kiting a lot more.