The Lunatic Club

[Interceptor]

That's all moot of course if I'm wrong and the enemies do get pass. At the very least they won't get Hawkeye, Luna+, Counter, or Vantage+.

Enemies in vanilla Lunatic generally stick with their class skills, although there are some exceptions. Lategame they start getting +10/20 HIT skills, and you'll see Thieves with Underdog as well.

It all still comes down to whether or not the difficultly lets up at some point and lets me use my other units and play the game relatively normally/how I'm used to playing. Right now I get frustrated because if I don't move just so then I get screwed. Will my units ever become competitive with the enemy units if I don't just focus on Chrom/Avatar? (Obviously I'm used to designating a few key units and feeding them all the experience, but generally that spreads amongst 8-12 units by endgame, rather than 2) I'm worried that's not the case, since according to interceptor's guide he only uses 6 units apparently. I suppose I'll slug it out through Lunatic for a while longer, see if things let up somewhat at any point. Hopefully things will pick up.

This isn't Candyland, this is SPARTA Lunatic. Part of the point of it is that you need to make movements "just so", because there is less room for error than in the other modes. You also need to be willing to be patient, and train up growth units properly.

You don't need to use quite as few units as I did, but you can also safely assume that 12 units isn't going to happen. But keep in mind that I was playing Lunatic+, which is like walking across a minefield with a stick of dynamite in your teeth. Your quest isn't nearly as difficult.

For example, in Chapter 3, Avatar + Frederick has so much DEF as to be basically unkillable, since you don't have to deal with mages or Luna+. So you just unequip that pair, stuff them in a hallway to make a choke point, and then have Miriel or Sumia or Sully fire over their heads for free kills and EXP. You could get someone to level 6 or 7 in one chapter if you did this. It's a little time-consuming, but BAM, suddenly you have a legit non-Chrom/Avatar unit to use in Chapter 4. You can't really train anyone hardcore in Ch4 because of enemy movements, but Lon'qu will urinate all over Paralogue 1 with his sword (another great training chapter).

Etc. It's about planning ahead, and skillful distribution of your resources. You could probably get away with an 8-man team if you built it slowly, but I'd suggest staying closer to a half-dozen, honestly. And this is primary combatants, not support partners. If you run NowixGregor (excellent Lunatic combination) and Gregor never leaves the Support slot, that's really only one unit.

In my Lunatic+ run (which, once again, does not resemble vanilla Lunatic) I have five primary combatants at the end (Avatar, Morgan, Lucina, Laurent, Miriel) plus two more units that fell off or were just on the cusp (Gregor, Lissa). And Chrom was being actively trained until I left him behind: theoretically I could have kept him going as an Archer, but chose not to.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Interceptor

[MonoMountains]

Enemies in vanilla Lunatic generally stick with their class skills, although there are some exceptions. Lategame they start getting +10/20 HIT skills, and you'll see Thieves with Underdog as well.

This isn't Candyland, this is SPARTA Lunatic. Part of the point of it is that you need to make movements "just so", because there is less room for error than in the other modes. You also need to be willing to be patient, and train up growth units properly.

You don't need to use quite as few units as I did, but you can also safely assume that 12 units isn't going to happen. But keep in mind that I was playing Lunatic+, which is like walking across a minefield with a stick of dynamite in your teeth. Your quest isn't nearly as difficult.

For example, in Chapter 3, Avatar + Frederick has so much DEF as to be basically unkillable, since you don't have to deal with mages or Luna+. So you just unequip that pair, stuff them in a hallway to make a choke point, and then have Miriel or Sumia or Sully fire over their heads for free kills and EXP. You could get someone to level 6 or 7 in one chapter if you did this. It's a little time-consuming, but BAM, suddenly you have a legit non-Chrom/Avatar unit to use in Chapter 4. You can't really train anyone hardcore in Ch4 because of enemy movements, but Lon'qu will urinate all over Paralogue 1 with his sword (another great training chapter).

Etc. It's about planning ahead, and skillful distribution of your resources. You could probably get away with an 8-man team if you built it slowly, but I'd suggest staying closer to a half-dozen, honestly. And this is primary combatants, not support partners. If you run NowixGregor (excellent Lunatic combination) and Gregor never leaves the Support slot, that's really only one unit.

In my Lunatic+ run (which, once again, does not resemble vanilla Lunatic) I have five primary combatants at the end (Avatar, Morgan, Lucina, Laurent, Miriel) plus two more units that fell off or were just on the cusp (Gregor, Lissa). And Chrom was being actively trained until I left him behind: theoretically I could have kept him going as an Archer, but chose not to.

I figured there would still be SOME margin for error though. I mean, there should really be a difficulty setting between 'Chrom+Fredrick is tinked and does half an enemy's health' and 'Chrom+Fredrick deals 1/3 of an enemy's health and loses 2/3 of his own health' It seems like kind of a big jump.

Anyway, one final question, then I'm going to try and avoid this thread until I win (so that I stop derailing it with my own whiney incompetence.) People say that once you get access to DLC Lunatic(+) gets easier. Is this because of grinding Spotpass teams (I thought they only give 1xp per kill on Lunatic?) access to tonics (I figure I can use some defense/strength tonics as a crutch until I get my main force up to par.) Skirmishes, or Golden Pack DLC. I don't want to use Golden Pack, but I'm heavily considering going mostly Fredrick Emblem until DLC opens up and then finding a way to train up some units from there (the only difficulty is knowing where to draw the line on how much to let Fred do; I've never used Jeigans before)

[euklyd]

If you're gonna start grinding, good luck training units against something that's not Golden Pack. I mean, you could do CoY, I guess.

BTW, if you grind against SpotPass teams you'll run out of money before you make appreciable progress.

[Redwall]

Vanilla Lunatic has plenty of margin for error; if you're consistently relying on gambles, then you've made mistakes somewhere. It's important to position Frederick carefully in Ch. 2 and moderate his EP exposure if you're leaning on a Fred-heavy approach, but you can beat it a bit more easily with an overleveled Avatar.

[MonoMountains]

I'm assuming EP is experience points? Never seen it acronymed that way...

Anyway, I'm having a lot of difficulty seeing where such a position is. The best I can think of is put him on a forest tile in the middle/side of the map and pull everyone else out of range, but then Fred just eats all the experience and nobody can get close enough to feed off the nearly dead mooks because if they do then next turn they just get slaughtered by the remaining enemies. Every position I try Fred is either too isolated from the team and hogs all the experience or the second turn comes along and I can't get everyone out of the way of the horde of enemies. Or Fred just gets crit, because RNG doesn't like me. It also feels a bit irrelevant if I can't reliably grind up my units outside of Golden Pack, since this is supposed to be my min/max postgame file and If I can't grind people up, there's no way I'm going to manage to get all the Galeforces int he right places.

[1% critted]

EP is enemy phase.

[Dying Blaze]

I'm assuming EP is experience points? Never seen it acronymed that way...

Anyway, I'm having a lot of difficulty seeing where such a position is. The best I can think of is put him on a forest tile in the middle/side of the map and pull everyone else out of range, but then Fred just eats all the experience and nobody can get close enough to feed off the nearly dead mooks because if they do then next turn they just get slaughtered by the remaining enemies. Every position I try Fred is either too isolated from the team and hogs all the experience or the second turn comes along and I can't get everyone out of the way of the horde of enemies. Or Fred just gets crit, because RNG doesn't like me. It also feels a bit irrelevant if I can't reliably grind up my units outside of Golden Pack, since this is supposed to be my min/max postgame file and If I can't grind people up, there's no way I'm going to manage to get all the Galeforces int he right places.

I'm pretty sure EP means "Enemy Phase."

[MonoMountains]

oh...that would make more sense.

[XeKr]

The worst it actually gets in early Lunatic is like 5% Gamble crits. Hit rates on those can be greatly diminished by equipping swords as well. Getting Avatar Def/Spd screwed just means Frederick needs to be used a bit more. Admittedly, for many first-time Lunatic players, I'd still recommend resetting in that circumstance.

All Lunatic chapters can be done reliably with the appropriate strategy (and it doesn’t necessarily have to be lolAvatarsolo). Chapter 1 is one where you “could” kite and use the forest terrain to retreat (in the case of Avatar stat screwed and don’t want to risk a Hammer hit), but it’s often easier to reset and just tank on a fort (as it’s probably >90% reliable). Chapter 2 is one where you could do some minor kiting with Stahl/Sully and microing who’s equipped or not (for Dual Strikes, counterattacks etc) but again it’s often easier to just reset until successful (as again it’s probably >90% success rate if tanking on the mountain/fort).

Chapter 5 is definitely also a harder one as the combination of saving Maribelle/Ricken and holding off the reinforcements (especially the Wyverns) can be quite challenging until figured out. (Hint: tank more on forts)

I wouldn't worry about getting others exp in Chapter 2. You can kite all the top enemies in Chapter 3 around in a circle. Paralogue 1 is one with many stationary enemies. Those 2 chapters can get some other units competent (Lon'qu, Sully, etc), and there's an easier stretch later from C7 to C11, including some more Paralogues.

[anartya]

So I've been trying to recreate a more classic fire emblem experience in Lunatic. I was wondering if anyone has done this or has ever attempted to do this. I'm currently doing this. I have done this in Hard mode and was wondering if you can do this in Lunatic? I currently have a MU at level 8 after finishing Ch. 1

Lunatic Classic Mode

~No Nosferatu

~No Dark Fliers

~No Heros

~No Donnel

~No DLC

~No Wireless

~No Skirmishes

~No Reclassing

Edited August 28, 2013 by anartya

[Interceptor]

The only real difficulty I see there is "no reclassing". That's going to hurt towards the end of the game, because unlike old school Fire Emblems, you don't get any powerful pre-promotes to bail you out. I mean, don't get me wrong, Grandmaster Avatar is still going to be pretty good, but you're going to have to be creative with Rallies and stuff as you start running into enemies with better stats than you.

[anartya]

The only real difficulty I see there is "no reclassing". That's going to hurt towards the end of the game, because unlike old school Fire Emblems, you don't get any powerful pre-promotes to bail you out. I mean, don't get me wrong, Grandmaster Avatar is still going to be pretty good, but you're going to have to be creative with Rallies and stuff as you start running into enemies with better stats than you.

What about reclassing allowed but only to the same class (ie Great Lord Chrom Lv 20 to Great Lord Chrom Lv 1)

Edited August 28, 2013 by anartya

[Interceptor]

What about reclassing allowed but only to the same class (ie Great Lord Chrom Lv 20 to Great Lord Chrom Lv 1)?

That'd be totally do-able. All of the promoted classes have sufficient caps to deal with Lunatic enemies, so you could close the gap by continuing to level-up. although it's worth noting that under these conditions, units like Tiki and N.O.W.I. are going to be super-awesome.

[anartya]

That'd be totally do-able. All of the promoted classes have sufficient caps to deal with Lunatic enemies, so you could close the gap by continuing to level-up. although it's worth noting that under these conditions, units like Tiki and N.O.W.I. are going to be super-awesome.

Thanks for your comments. When I tried this in Hard, I opted not to use MU, so I did have to get creative with rallies other than rally spectrum, but I really enjoyed the experience as I got to use every unit equally will very little tanking strategies, and skills abuse. But in Lunatic I feel that without MU, it would be too hard or I have to resort to using one paired up tank character, while everyone else stays by the side lines. Is it possible to finish Lunatic mode without having to use a paired up tank MU. I want to use every character equally but I feel the level curve might be too much late game?

Edited August 28, 2013 by anartya

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Without MU you can use CV Sully or GK Sully, and, as Interceptor mentioned, Nowi + Tiki.

Its actually possible to beat Lunatic without any MU usage past Prologue, but using every character as well in the process is basically a lost cause, unless you are h4x and manage to get Tiki

As a sidenote, if the challenge include "Use Donnel' that would jump from standard into "WTF IS THIS UFAIR SHIT"

Edited August 28, 2013 by JSND

[Interceptor]

Thanks for your comments. When I tried this in Hard, I opted not to use MU, so I did have to get creative with rallies other than rally spectrum, but I really enjoyed the experience as I got to use every unit equally will very little tanking strategies, and skills abuse. But in Lunatic I feel that without MU, it would be too hard or I have to resort to using one paired up tank character, while everyone else stays by the side lines. Is it possible to finish Lunatic mode without having to use a paired up tank MU. I want to use every character equally but I feel the level curve might be too much late game?

It's tough to say. I tend towards super-units myself, whenever I play Lunatic, just because the last few chapters are just murder in terms of enemy density. My first Lunatic run, I used Nowi and Tiki heavily, for their strong concrete defenses.

Just as an example, this is the kind of crap that you'll be looking at by the time Endgame arrives: guys with one or two stats maxed, illegal forges, and a free +20 HIT skill. That's a heavy lift if you're going to train up a big army.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Mind you that the only chapter that is legit annoying in late game was 23 and 24, where you need to face 45 - 47(?) speed Assassin and tons of Berserker(67-ish ATK)

25 - Final can be cheesed

Edited August 28, 2013 by JSND

[anartya]

Mind you that the only chapter that is legit annoying in late game was 23 and 24, where you need to face 45 - 47(?) speed Assassin and tons of Berserker(67-ish ATK)

25 - Final can be cheesed

I see..hmmm. I 'll have to think about this then. So super units do seem like the only good approach in later chapters.

[1% critted]

Just remember, rescue and galeforce are your friends for lategame cheesing.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Correction

Need more instant promoted!Flier

Not everyone want to do Galeforce shenanigans because its pretty hard to pull off, and the class is hard to use in late game >_>

[YayForYuffie]

As a matter of interest, how big of a difficulty spike is it going from Lunatic to Lunatic+? I'm in the midst of my first Lunatic run, and after the first few chapters, and two good Risen spawns, it seems to have eased up considerably.

[DodgeDusk]

As a matter of interest, how big of a difficulty spike is it going from Lunatic to Lunatic+? I'm in the midst of my first Lunatic run, and after the first few chapters, and two good Risen spawns, it seems to have eased up considerably.

As far as I'm aware, the stats of all the enemies are exactly the same as lunatic, the only difference being they get 2 random lunatic+ skills which is why many maps have to be constantly resetted in order to have a load of non-broken enemies. The stats of the enemies in the last few chapters might be increased but I'm not sure

Does anybody have any tips for chapter 9 (the chapter with Libra and Tharja)? I can't seem to recruit Libra in time and the wyvern reinforcements + the rush of the other enemies overwhelm me. I'm using a balanced team except Chrom, who's level 18 (everyone else is 10-13, with Avatar being 15)

[Mell]

Try to rescue him with Lissa or anyone who has rescue, let libra recruit himself right next Chrom. I put Lon'qu and another sword user right on the top, so the wyvern reinforces could stop on them and equiped they with Killing Edge, to get more chance of lucky crits. Recruit tharja only when all enemies are dead, since the boss don't move, so tharja will be safe

Edited August 29, 2013 by Mell

[DodgeDusk]

Cheers, I'll see if that works when I go on it next. Gonna be somewhat difficult to rescue Libra since Lissa was kinda gimped for magic. Do you know if magic tonics are purchasable this early in the game?

[General Banzai]

Does anybody have any tips for chapter 9 (the chapter with Libra and Tharja)? I can't seem to recruit Libra in time and the wyvern reinforcements + the rush of the other enemies overwhelm me. I'm using a balanced team except Chrom, who's level 18 (everyone else is 10-13, with Avatar being 15)

I sent Chrom on Cordelia down to Libra's place. She got there on turn 2 and killed the archer, and the other two enemies alone aren't enough to kill Libra so you can recruit him next turn easy peasy.

Then I just left some bulky unit back at the spawn to handle the wyvern reinforcements. Frederick should be able to get it done, although I myself used Sully.