The Lunatic Club

[astrophys]

I myself ultimately went Tactician 20 -> Mercenary 10 -> Dark Mage 10 -> Sorcerer -> reset level in Sorcerer as needed with Second Seals for the rest of the game.

By around mid-way through the Valm Arc I basically reduced my team to a (Male) Avatar and Chrom solo. As such, I ended up capping a lot of the Avatar's stats.

(I did fight exactly three random battles throughout the course of the game just to get a feel for what Lunatic random battles were like, so it wasn't strictly "no grind", but as I rammed against the stat caps on the Avatar later in the game and stopped getting the benefit of stat growth it really didn't have much of an impact on my Endgame stats against Grima; the Avatar would have capped either way.)

My battle against Grima was one of patience… my Chrom wasn't terribly well leveled, although he had gotten some by being the only one performing dual strikes for the latter part of the game, but the effective bonus that the Exalted Falchion had made a huge difference.

That said, I had to reduce Grima's HP many times, only to have the Physics staves heal him. But interestingly, they didn't really seem to heal Grima until his health dropped under a certain threshold.

At that point it was basically surviving until I got a window of opportunity when they hadn't healed him yet and something like two consecutive dual strikes as well as a proc from the Avatar could result in a kill.

Fortunately, I had a forged Aversa's Night (I had gotten one from an event tile very early in the game) and I had Armsthrift. And with Chrom's pair up bonus, over 50 luck.

I had to use tonics to push my speed high enough to double Grima, but it was totally worth it. It made all the difference there.

I basically could survive indefinitely against Grima and his minions thanks to forged Aversa-tanking, but actually ending the battle was still drawn out until I got my window of opportunity and got lucky with Dual Strike procs.

[Ownagepuffs]

Like Irysa, I never reclassed Robin. He was more or less a rally bot after he got rally spectrum.

I had the advantage of having 2 Falchion pairs with leads that could double Grima (Sumia/Chrom, Cynthia/Lucina) so I could take him out on turn 1 player phase. Brave weapons are really important here, which is why they let you buy them one chapter before!

[XeKr]

Even the Lucina + Chrom of this playthrough can do it, if they have A support (increases reliability mostly) and if you do have Rally Spectrum. Both have effectively 80+ atk with Rally+Tonics+Falchions and Lucina can double, so you can reset until Dual Strikes goes off enough (seems doable even with C support. If you have Aether that could help a bit). Reclass Olivia back though; sell everything, you don't need anything but Falchions and maybe Rescue, or you could also sacrifice Olivia (;_;)

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

But interestingly, they didn't really seem to heal Grima until his health dropped under a certain threshold.

As a general rule for any AI with any kind of healing, this is half of max HP. Then, once a unit is healed, it seems to be tagged for extra healing, where other healers (or itself, if it has a healing item) will continue healing it until it gets back to full.

[eclipse]

I've had several runs, with varying success. My favorite one was making Robin a rallybot. Morgan/Cynthia/Lucina had enough oomph in them to pick up the slack.

[Cat1803]

So in most of my Lunatic(+) runs where I use FeMU I typically manage to get Galeforce and Armsthrift. The thing is... I don't know if I've been doing it very efficiently. My typical path is

Tactician (20) -> Merc (10-20) -> Bow Knight (15) -> Dark Flier (15) -> Sniper (sometimes ending here, sometimes moving to Assassin)

The problem is that I never get Galeforce before Chapter 13. Is there a more efficient way to do this? Like

Tactician -> Merc -> Hero (10) -> Dark Flier -> Sniper

Tactician -> Merc (10) -> Peg Knight -> Dark Flier -> Sniper

Feedback? I normally get to Lv 5-10 Dark Flier by the end of Chapter 13. Part of the problem is that by that chapter, Robin's internal level is so high that I find it better to feed the experience to other units (Miriel/Gregor, my other go-to pairing). I must be missing something obvious.

[eclipse]

Is Armsthrift that vital? Personally, I'd skip it.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

The route I normally take is Tact 20 -> DM 10-20 -> Sorc 10-15 -> Dark Flier 15 -> Hero 15 -> Dark Knight

In normal full deploy runs (3-4 additional combat pairs), if I can snag an early MS, I'm usually Second Sealing to Dark Flier around 1/3 of the way into C10. If I throw all my resources into Robin, she can hit Dark Flier by the start of C10, even if she has to use the C8 MS.

Since we're looking at approximately the same amount of levels needed between our two routes, I think the issue may be that you're not giving Robin enough kills.

[Cat1803]

That makes sense. I think I'll try going Hero next time since I'm usually hanging out in BK forever for Bowbreaker, inevitably turning all Robin's kills into 12 whopping experience. I've only completed Lunatic+ nogrind three times and I'm still learning how to properly distribute experience.

@eclipse Since my main combat units are Robin/Lucina/Morgan having AT on Robin is really important for me.

My next run is in its planning phases... I might do a test run in casual first though.

@KTT: How manageable is Dark Flier without Bowbreaker? I would guess Robin's Avo would normally be high enough to live without it

[Czar_Yoshi]

Part of the problem is that by that chapter, Robin's internal level is so high that I find it better to feed the experience to other units (Miriel/Gregor, my other go-to pairing).

That's likely the whole problem, actually. High IL or no, Robin's exp gain bottoms out at 12 exp per kill, which adds up fast due to Lunatic's high enemy density. If you want to train other pairs without slowing Robin down, just be extremely aggressive with chip exp (and wary of crits/DSes). Miriel and Gregor are good, but they both get the skills Laurent wants very early on and don't need power leveling as long as they stay off the ground.

[Cat1803]

That's likely the whole problem, actually. High IL or no, Robin's exp gain bottoms out at 12 exp per kill, which adds up fast due to Lunatic's high enemy density. If you want to train other pairs without slowing Robin down, just be extremely aggressive with chip exp (and wary of crits/DSes). Miriel and Gregor are good, but they both get the skills Laurent wants very early on and don't need power leveling as long as they stay off the ground.

In that case, I'm definitely doing a test run in casual so I can improve being aggressive with chip experience. I'll post later with the units I'm planning on training and the ideal time I'd like to class change them. I'd probably start of testing the run in vanilla Lunatic/Casual (for the experience requirements, keeping in mind I may be able to get more chip due to Pavise/Aegis), another test in L+/Casual, and the real deal (playlogs and all) in Classic.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

@KTT: How manageable is Dark Flier without Bowbreaker? I would guess Robin's Avo would normally be high enough to live without it

For that point in the game, quite well. C10 and C11 don't have any bows (and wind magic is kind of meh against Dark Flier Res). C12 has those 2 Bow Knights, but unless they have Hawkeye, they're gonna have a lot of trouble hitting. As long as you can avoid engaging both at once, you should be quite safe. C13's Archer's have really bad hit, so they're pretty much not hitting ever without Hawkeye. Snipers are a somewhat different story (their displayed hit gets a little closer to 40 without Hawkeye), but they're very isolated and an overleveled Robin can still survive a Luna+ hit from one. After that, bows don't show up against until C16, at which point Robin should already have reclassed out of Dark Flier.

[Cat1803]

For that point in the game, quite well. C10 and C11 don't have any bows (and wind magic is kind of meh against Dark Flier Res). C12 has those 2 Bow Knights, but unless they have Hawkeye, they're gonna have a lot of trouble hitting. As long as you can avoid engaging both at once, you should be quite safe. C13's Archer's have really bad hit, so they're pretty much not hitting ever without Hawkeye. Snipers are a somewhat different story (their displayed hit gets a little closer to 40 without Hawkeye), but they're very isolated and an overleveled Robin can still survive a Luna+ hit from one. After that, bows don't show up against until C16, at which point Robin should already have reclassed out of Dark Flier.

Looks like I've been mentally overblowing the threat of bows for those chapters.

[Yozuro]

I'm currently doing lunatic and I was wondering if I should just ditch Miriel. Is she even worth the time to grind? :O

[Czar_Yoshi]

Depends what chapter you're on and what level she is.

Laurent will almost always be worth it (depending on her husband), but if she's too far behind she might be unable to contribute much. Ideally she should be ready to reclass in time for Cht.6.

[Yozuro]

Ok thank you! Who do you recommend should be her husband? I currently just finished chapter 4 so I'm still in the early game.

Edit: she also currently is level 3

Edited March 31, 2015 by Yozuro

[Czar_Yoshi]

Gregor is pretty much always the best choice.

[ultmatelifeform]

This probably sounds stupid but how bad is it to try to play lunatic+ casual before classic. I can never get past chapter 3 and the RNG seems to hate me ( I suffered a critical hit with a 1% chance of the enemy having a critical hit, twice) so i am considering giving it a go on casual first. How bad is it to do that? I dont know if casual is considered a noob option or not so can somebody tell me.

Edited April 2, 2015 by ultmatelifeform

[Vascela]

The game is yours and yours alone--as is your experience. You have fun the way you want too; there are no standards you have to live up to. If you get more pleasure out of casual than classic you would be wrong to play classic.

[Czar_Yoshi]

You'll only get Lunatic+/Cas for clearing it and not Lunatic+/Cla, but other than that nothing. And I have a feeling you won't be touching that anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

[ultmatelifeform]

I cleared lunatic on classic. Im stuck on lunatic +. It is my goal to 100% the game. I already have the avatar logbook maxed out, all the double duels, every unit obtainable in the game ( including bonus box, not DLC ) so I will definitely do a classic run afterwards. I think i'll try not having a flaw in luck on classic first though. I just dawned on me why i'm getting all the critical hits. 3 luck in not good.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

While -Luk is usually not a big deal, especially since Veteran should make it irrelevant pretty quickly in a standard Lunatic+ run, -Skl is the commonly-chosen alternative. Note that it still won't protect you from seeing listed crit in the early maps. The Elthunder Mage and Gamble Barbs, in particular, will be outside the coverage of even the luckiest gains. Supports can provide extra Dodge, but circumstances won't always allow you to invest 3 units into making a 4th unit crit-immune.

Oh, and Casual is a perfectly viable way to learn the mode. I recommend making some battle saves here and there and trying to toy with the AI to see how they behave in certain situations. It helps reduce headaches in the future.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

[Irysa]

Even if -Skill doesn't actually give you enough luck to completely negate early Gamble/Elthunder crit, it certainly feels like -Luck increases the chances of being crit by a disproportionately large amount. Everytime I've picked -Luck I've repeatedly eaten crits at the most inopportune moments early on, wheras I've yet to be crit by any early enemy in Lunatic/+ with -Skill. Granted, my sample size is small, but confirmation bias is a powerful thing.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Irysa

[Vascela]

We could tinker with the idea of using +Skl or +Luk since hit rate is ass for chapter 2 lol.

[ultmatelifeform]

I used -lck and It is going a lot better. Thanks.

EDIT: Not better enough so im just going to go to casual or play Xenoblade until I forget how mad at this thing I am.

Edited April 5, 2015 by ultmatelifeform