The Lunatic Club

[Chiki]

One turns are beautiful

[skoonburg]

So I'm doing my first Lunatic run and I'm mysteriously stuck on ch. 6; I'm totally mystified.

I've got a team of:

Chrom lv.12

MU lv.20

Lissa lv.11

Lon'qu lv.8

Donnel lv.3 (ugh I have been bad at feeding him kills)

Maribelle lv.3

Fred, Kellam, Stahl, Sumia as support

Like, other than Donnel, it feels like a solid team, but I just don't have enough people to defend everything. MU is untouchable but I don't want her getting too many kills b/c level 20, Lon'qu can't quite hold the middle entrance with his horrible defence gains, and Chrom just gets his lunch eaten out in the west. I'm not sure if I'm just too bad at strategizing it out or if I screwed up levels and I should grind a bit (really don't wanna) or restart. Any advice?

[Interceptor]

If Avatar is untouchable, one easy move you can make is to have her fight unequipped somewhere. That will attract enemies and release some the pressure on the rest of your army. You can either send her somewhere far-flung, or just button up in the Emm room, with Avatar standing next to "Marth" outside in order to keep the thieves from opening the door. Gives you a natural choke on the west side that you can train freely.

[skoonburg]

Well, I can survive for about two more turns with that strategy, but even chrom and lon'qu together can't hold the west side. I think I'll bash my head against the 3ds for a day or two more before I finally try a little DLC.

[Interceptor]

Where's the strategy breaking down, exactly? Are you trying to man-mode the entire west side with Chrom and Lon'qu?

If that doesn't work, put everyone (except Avatar) inside the room with Emm. As long as Avatar is outside the door to the south, the thieves won't open it (they will prefer to attack her instead). That gives you a one space wide choke point that you can defend. Frederick or Kellam can support Chrom or Lon'qu (for +DEF purposes), you can put a healer (Lissa most likely) behind them, and then a healer for your healer (Maribelle) behind her.

As long as you aren't killing multiple people on Enemy Phase, you should be able to survive. If you're worried about killing too much, take a Player Phase kill with Chrom/Lon'qu, and then use Lissa to trade their weapon away before you heal. That will guarantee that they don't kill anything on EP. Next Player Phase, just take the weapon back and kill something. Repeat as necessary.

You can also fire over the walls if you have a 2-range unit that can take a hit or two.

[skoonburg]

That went incredibly well. I got a little lucky on numbers (I'm making up for that luck by never getting a single Anna yet) and I survived the tough part--taking out the dark mages to the west without losing to the cavaliers. Fred got his first level, too, and now I have a level 11 Lon'qu ready to take some pressure off Chrom in the future (he's a little DEF screwed).

[Interceptor]

I'm glad that it worked out for you. Keep the general idea in mind if you get stuck further on: turtle for the win. Channel your inner Gandalf.

I'd suggest getting on with Donnel's training more or less immediately, otherwise you're going to reach a point where you have to really baby him in order to get EXP. At the very least, try to get him to D-rank Lances, so that he can whip a 2-range weapon over someone's head. You'll have an opportunity in the next chapter, because once the mages are dead, it's not too hard to manipulate enemy movements in the desert.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Interceptor

[Yuglyoshi]

For a lunatic runthrough in which I don't care about postgame, should I go with male or female MU?

[Redwall]

For a lunatic runthrough in which I don't care about postgame, should I go with male or female MU?

Pick the one you like more. Vanilla Lunatic permits a fair amount of latitude in terms of character choices.

[superluccix]

Just joined today, and since this thread still seems to be active, I was hoping to ask a question and get it resolved.

So Im trying Lunatic now. Definitely a jump from hard. And so far I've gotten to chapter 2, the one with the needing of Virion trading his elixir and w/e. So far I have only needed to use Frederick to kill 1 myrm in the prologue, and then had MU and chrom kill everything else up until this point.

Anyways my question is this. How many units should I bother training for this run? Got a bunch of characters now. And I figured I cant try to make everybody I come across get kills, due to limited enemies. Anybody have a rough estimate of how many units I should be leveling?

And if its not too much to ask, which units are these?

Im also trying to not use Spotpass, DLC. Though I have no problem during an in game grind. (Did the water trick in prologue, made me feel cheap, but I justified it since I wasnt using Spotpass or DLC :P)

Edit: Not sure if it matters, but Ill list MU, Chrom and Lissa levels.

7, 4, 6

Edited December 1, 2013 by superluccix

[tuvarkz]

Working on Lunatic over here as well. Got past chpt 5 after resetting a couple times to figure how to deal with the enemy units in the lower level without overusing MU (He's already went 20 tact>5 merc as of chpt4 complete, and chrom/sumia/lon'qu need some exp)

[Interceptor]

Anyways my question is this. How many units should I bother training for this run? Got a bunch of characters now. And I figured I cant try to make everybody I come across get kills, due to limited enemies. Anybody have a rough estimate of how many units I should be leveling?

This is basically entirely up to you. A Robin/Chrom solo at one extreme is completely possible but boring, and at the other end full deployment is very difficult once you get to Valm and the promoted enemies. The specific sweet spot depends on where you are picking up units and how much you are leveling them. Basically you want to keep tabs on the stats of your units relative to enemies, making sure that they maintain good defensive statistics while being able to double/3HKO with their partners.

And if its not too much to ask, which units are these?

A good, balanced team for Lunatic would probably include something like this:

Robin/Chrom (if female) in the Tactician line.

Sumia/Frederick or Cordelia/Stahl for your flier/cavalier team.

Miriel and someone as your magic-user, or re-purpose Lissa for the job once she promotes to Sage.

Panne and whoever, with Panne as a Wyvern Rider.

N.O.W.I./Gregor (keep Gregor as a support bot, reclass N.O.W.I. back into Manakete whenever she hits level 30).

Throw in maybe one more pair depending on need or circumstance, and you've got something for everything. Morgan/Lucina make a good combo if you have a female Robin. The other children are hard to use (though possible, with some babying) without Veteran.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Hey folks. I just beat cht.18 (Lunatic Classic), haven't touched DLC yet (or recruited any outrealm characters, or used any Dark Mages), and my team's almost strong enough for Normal Apotheosis through exp gained from quashing Risen. Before starting Lunatic, I heard a lot about the "invincible" Risen, decided to fight them anyway, and eventually found a way to brute force myself through an early double team, save a merchant, and stamp out around 80 saucy shopblocking squads. Since this doesn't seem to be common knowledge, I figured I'd post my strats.

The only prerequisite is getting 50,000 renown for Boots. They're incredible for kiting early Risen.

I picked a +Def, -Skl male Avatar, mauled Validar, and played the prologue and the first two chapters somewhat normally (I picked up a Kneader in a prologue event tile, broke the bosses weapons on forts to build support with Chrom's Falchion, and pumped everything I could into my Avatar). I spammed Lissa's staves pretty hard and by the end of cht.2 the Kneader was broken and Heal had about 10 uses left. For cht.3, I trained Kellam, Sumia, and Chrom, and broke the boss's weapon (and one of the door Knight's weapons) to build support with Falchion and level up Lissa. Afterwards, I claimed my Renown/Bonus Box loot, bought a Second Seal from Anna, reclassed my Avatar to Mercenary and gave the other one to Lissa to go Troubadour as soon as she could.

For the Paralogue, I stopped the thief, broke about 10 enemy weapons and 3 heal staves, and got Donnel to Lv.7 by poking stuff with a Log for extra chip exp. Cht.4 was pretty normal, except I cornered Marth and used that infinite-use Falchion to break some more heals and build Lissa/Donnel support. Risen started appearing, I killed them with Fred and Avatar, kiting them with the Boots. For cht.5, I trained Chrom, promoted Avatar to Bow Knight (I need the mov, and Bowbreaker is useful), and Rescued Maribelle/Ricken. More Risen spawned.

General Risen strategy is based off the map they spawn in at this point:

Prologue: Hide against the west wall on turn 1, kill stuff on EP with Levin and dual strikes. Turn 2-3, run to the right and kite stuff up toward the top until dead.

Cht.1: Stay low on the the first turn, fight as much stuff as you can without getting surrounded. Turn 2, run to the lower fort and stay there.

Cht.2: Use Sumia pair up if possible. Wait on forts until stuff approaches, then use Sumia to fly across the river and attack with Bows/Levin for a turn, repeat.

Cht.3: Use Fred's +mov to make it to the gate, sit there and kill stuff. If the team has a lot of 1-range dudes and you want to train a weaker unit, equip a bow and sit there until the three foes facing you break their weapons and you've sniped everyone who can ORKO your trainee or has a ranged weapon. Bring out Trainee (Sumia for me), kill one of the disarmed goons, make sure you won't die on EP. Switch back to Avatar, break new guy's weapon, switch back to trainee, heal to full, repeat. Slow, but it lets you train someone other than Avatar which is awesome. The AI doesn't know that its units have no weapons and won't normally switch them out so others can come in and attack the Trainee, but if it would switch them anyway (WT stuff) then it can and will, so watch out.

Cht.4: Depends on enemy layout. Kite as long as possible, then hole up in a corner.

Cht.5: The top fort is a good place to make a stand. Archer AI derps really badly when you do this and it's very easy to rack up Bullion with Leif's Blade here.

Par.2: Hope Anna dies early so she doesn't steal too much of your exp. Get Avatar/Fred up to the village and block it unequipped (don't visit it). Get everyone else (Chrom, Sumia, Lissa, Maribelle, Donnel) to the island by the mountains in the southeast. From there, Chrom and Donnel can facetank archers all day while Maribelle and Lissa pile up exp with heal. When their weapons break, kill them with Sumia and then rescue her back to safety. When you're done, both Lissa and Maribelle should be Valkyries with high stats. Visit the village to unleash the boss, who is softened up by a Levin sword on the enemy phase and killed with an Eirika's blade next turn. This is a long chapter, it took me well over 200 turns.

Risen will start promoting soon, but they're now possible: Risen level scales with the number of battles you've competed, not with your team level, and I've poured so much extra staff exp into my units that I have two beefy Valkyries to support my Avatar with and summon for chip damage. It will still take a lot of resetting, but is now possible.

From Bow Knight, my Avatar's class route was Bow Knight -> Assassin -> War Monk -> Paladin (ending class). Lethality is how you go from doing 5x2 damage to GKs and 20x1 to SMs to an OHKO. I'm lacking Vantage, but with luck manipulation it can take anything down. Pass works well with my mov and is great for kiting/escaping dangerous threats. I used all my Secret Books and Goddess Icons to boost my Lethality and Armsthrift rates as fast as possible. Once I hit 47 Luck, I can get 100% AT with any pair-up, which means it's time to start forging, and break out the Bonus Box weapons. Mystletainn is cool, it boosts your DS chances. War Monk is a massive pain and requires some staff spam to get through, but it's worth it: the healing lets me survive on fortless maps and makes Morgan invincible. Paladin is chosen for its decent res, high move and Lance access (Gradivus ho! And I can pull out Luna or Gae Bolg if I need their boosts).

Chrom promoted to Great Lord, and is strong enough to help out on the main chapters. His Charm boost is nice.

Sumia promoted to Dark Flier, passed Galeforce to Lucina/Cynthia, and switched to Falcoknight to be a rally/staffbot and offensive backup.

Lissa and Maribelle both reclassed to Falcoknights as well, to help with staffing. Owain got DS+ and Aptitude (I managed to drag Donnel along far enough for a Lissa S rank), and is now a Hero. Maribelle isn't paired yet, but was one of my options for Avatar. I might give her Kellam just to get Brady.

Kellam reached Lv.10 and promoted to GK so he could help out with +mov boosts for my Falcos.

I danced up Olivia for high stats and had her marry my Avatar to give Morgan and Inigo epic bases.

Lucina went Lord -> Cav -> GK -> Falco. As a GK she was an excellent support for my Avatar, now she's helping with rushes and staffing. I'll probably take her back to GK later, or maybe Assassin.

Cynthia went straight to Falco and is helping staff stuff. When she gets Lancefaire I'll take her through GK.

Morgan inherited Renewal and went Tactician -> Merc -> Hero -> Dark Flier -> Sage, and is completely invincible. She has enough luck to hit 100% AT with just a tonic, Sol+Renewal, can staff if need be, and has a variety of excellent utility tomes (Celica's, Superior Jolt, Mjolnir, Forseti, Book of Naga), all of which come in handy a lot.

Inigo's paralogue was a troll, but I switched him to Tactician, got him to Grandmaster, and probably fed him at least 20 enemies. He gets Renewal too.

This took a while to type up, I hope it helps someone. It's not a perfect strategy and requires a lot of resetting before Avatar's finished, but is worth it IMO to have the strongest part of Lunatic firmly under your boot without paid DLC or outrealm characters.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Czar_Yoshi

[LordFrigid]

Finally cleared up my first Lunatic/Classic Mode (both in Awakening and any FE title in general) run over the weekend! Chapter 5 was evil, since I probably dealt with it in the worst way possible...but oh well. I had originally wanted to run with a small team of fairly evenly trained units with limited DLC...and that worked out ok until about Chapter 12 (my "small team" wasn't small enough )...I Nosferatank-ed that (with my +Mag/-Def Avatar) and it was pretty much a slippery slope from there. Might try it again sometime to see if I can improve on my strategies and NOT Nosferatank Ch. 12-19 (I got bored with Nosferatank-ing and started DLC-enhanced "postgame" at that point)...but I'd like to go after Apotheosis first, just to see if I can...

Don't plan to get anywhere near Lunatic+...but that's what I said about Lunatic when I was on my Hard/Classic run so I guess we'll see...

If there's one thing I could say that I learned from doing Lunatic...it would probably be that Vantage is your really good friend. I had sort of overlooked it in my previous playthroughs, but it was a very welcome addition to this run.

[Naui]

Whew. Finally completed Lunatic/Classic. That was extremely difficult, especially given my terrible Asset/Flaw standard (Luck+,HP-). Pro-5 was hell, must've died at least a hundred times. At least thanks to my asset though I managed to rake in gold thanks to a forged Leif's blade and Armsthrift so money and equipment was never an issue once I managed to grind a lot. Glad I unlocked Lunatic+, but I think I've struggled enough thanks to Lunatic.

Welp, back to support collecting.

[superluccix]

Another question. Should I be promoting my units or reclassing them throughout this run? If I should be doing either, at what level should I be doing them at?

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Anyways my question is this. How many units should I bother training for this run? Got a bunch of characters now. And I figured I cant try to make everybody I come across get kills, due to limited enemies. Anybody have a rough estimate of how many units I should be leveling?

And if its not too much to ask, which units are these?

I've found that 3-5 combat pairs work with the remaining slots filled by staffbots (Lissa, Anna and Libra are all in very good positions to be this) works. Generally you'll want to include Avatar, but aside from that, I'd say it just depends on having a balanced team of fighters.

Another question. Should I be promoting my units or reclassing them throughout this run? If I should be doing either, at what level should I be doing them at?

You'll want to get someone as close to 20 cumulative unpromoted levels (common practice is to pick up 10 levels in two classes, but Second Seals also tend to be quite limited during this time) as possible before promoting them, otherwise they'll have a hard time getting EXP and by extension, stats, the farther you go. Staffbots can generally get away with less as long as they stay out of combat.

[PKL]

I've been asking myself If I could theoretically recruit everyone in the game without any grinding. Would require a lot of planning. Might make a Lunatic Playlog trying to recruit every single character (including Gen 2) without any DLC, spotpass or whatever. All in one run.

[Interceptor]

Well, since you can delay the Paralogues until whenever, you'd just need to make sure to spend enough time in chapters to max out support points for the parents. Then just swing in and pick up the children whenever you are strong enough.

[PKL]

Biggest problem is potentially having to deploy scrub mothers in later chapters though D:

[Interceptor]

Not a huge logistics problem, though. Four attacks with a Pair are going to max out your points for a chapter, and you can hide scrubs behind actual combatants. Olivia should make this pretty academic. As long as you make sure to build supports on chapters where you have the ability to waste time, you can avoid the nightmare-mode ones like Ch21.

[PKL]

True. As long as, say, I don't wait til lategame to build Sullyxvirion or something like that, I should be fine...I think.

Should probably start considering what pairs to do. I get a bunch of the females early on, so I should probably focus some of earlygame into building their supports.

Noting that I don't neccesarily care if the pairings make optimal 2nd Gens, I just want to recruit them,

should probably do something like:

LissaxVirion (both arrive early and I want to bench them as early as I can)

OliviaxChrom (oh god whyyy) unless I can pair up olivia, which ive never managed in a run. I will really miss having a good Lucina >_>

MirielxI have no idea probably Dicken?

MaribellexVaike?

Gaius or Lon'quxCherche

Lon'quxPanne or FredxPanne

Sumia Fred or Sumia Henry depending.

Stahl Cordelia or Kellam Cordelia

Nowi Gregor should be easy to build

Hmm...I wonder who I should pair the Avatar with?

Tharja with someone that isn't Avatar. Probably Libra or whoever isn't paired yet.

[Elieson]

PKL, it's possible....just extremely irritating

If you do it, pair Avatar with Anna. If you wait until Say'ri, it just takes too darn long, and if you do it with Tiki, well lol

Edited December 2, 2013 by The Protown SK

[Czar_Yoshi]

Why pair Avatar with someone who doesn't have a kid? Marry someone who can give you two Morgans and skip hauling along another father. Assuming this is vanilla Lunatic, a +mag support is good, so maybe Lissa/Miriel/Maribelle.

When you hit enemies enough on Lunatic, they stop giving exp, but they still give support points. You could just find a chapter where it's easy to hide units in the back, trash someone's weapon with Avatar while they're on a fort, clean everyone else up, and whack the disarmed guy over and over for support. There's a limit to how much support two units can build in a level, but you'd still be able to pair characters up without ruining your exp supply for your important units.

[superluccix]

Ok question. RIght now Im currently stuck on chapter 17 because I dont have any dragonstones for Nowi to use, therefore my number 1 tank is out of action until I get another, there is a shop that sells them, but a Risen has spawned on top of it.

How long do I need to wait for the RIsen to dissapear from that location? Can the time pass while my game is off? Is there a way I can change the 3ds clock setting to make this go faster?

Also, I cant use a second seal to reclass Nowi, because I already used 1 to make her a manakete again, but now shes only lvl 7, so I cant change her to anything

Edited December 7, 2013 by superluccix