The Lunatic Club

[Czar_Yoshi]

So, uh, you're playing Lunatic, right? Just checking.

Try Lunatic+ when you're done. There's plenty of stuff in there aimed at stopping solos, though the problem of the earlier chapters being harder than the later ones still persists.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

IS has a tendency to severely underestimate the power of multipliers. For great examples, see how ludicrous the mastery skills were in Radiant Dawn (non-mages and non-Thief line typically picked up a x3 of some sort, if not as high as x5) or Paragon (x2 EXP gain is utterly broken), especially with its easy availability.

Veteran is basically a toned-down version of Paragon. A restriction (though absurdly beneficial) and only x1.5 gain sounds like a decent nerf on paper. But thanks to its early availability the traditional tendency of Fire Emblem to let snowballing units get completely out of control, it's still the most overpowered skill in the game (Paragon is technically better, but requires paying money and then beating a map for every scroll, which, depending on the crowd, can be a bigger barrier than it sounds). Even on Lunatic+ a +Def FeMU with Chrom as a dedicated support can just duo the rest of the game after the early chapters (actually, MaMU could probably do it too, although he'd have a rougher time without Galeforce or being able to S support).

[Tribute]

Yawn.

Had jaffar/seliph/camus(plus a couple blank enihars i needed to kill off) clean up CoY3 to spam dance on.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, is it worth going past 10 before going peg knight

E:

Yes it is, I can class right into dark flier

Edited December 31, 2013 by Tribute

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

All right, so I completed the campaign part of my latest Lunatic+ run (still planning to do Bonus Box Paralogues, though) and there really wasn’t a whole ton different about it from my other runs. I actually had a go at Paralogue 17 this time, though and that’s probably the highlight. But before I get into that, I want to say this: I have a new respect for Warriors. Galeforce!Warrior!Morgan is an utter monster. I also recruited Yarne and babied him during his Paralogue to get him into a promoted class. First instinct was to go Berserker. Decided to run Warrior instead and while Yarne/Nah doesn’t do as well as Morgan/Lucina, he’s still crushingly powerful.

Anyway, I decided to use a bit of an off-the-wall strategy in order to do this without abusing the AI into breaking down and doing nothing (see http://sta.sh/0yfhfv2qkg7 ; apologies for the blurriness, as it’s an old screenshot from pre-Miiverse and was the best I could get, though I think it gets the point across).

More below:

Long story short, my strategy didn't quite work as smoothly as I thought it should (granted, what plan ever does?). I still managed to get it on my dry run (where I went light on Tonics and forgot to temporarily swap a few skills, namely Veteran, out). I was overprepared, but that's because I was anticipating have to brute-force through Aegis+ more often than a couple times. One annoying thing I completely forgot about was the Falcon Knights spawning with Rally Speed, which messed up my ability to double a lot. Even Avatar couldn't double a 36 Spd Falcon Knight (unfortunately for them, I brought Celica's Gale). I waited until after Chapter 24 so that I'd have buyable Rexcaliburs, but they weren't even necessary. I considered Chapter 23 the bare minimum so that I'd have Basilio for another heavy-hitting Silver Bow user, but I didn't even end up using him either. I had considered waiting until after Chapter 25 for buyable Braves too, but decided give it a try anyway because my bow squad was looking pretty scary, despite only Morgan having A Bows.

The overall strategy was this: ignore the south spawns and focus on keeping the east and west sides completely clear. When I theorycrafted things, there were a couple safe spots along the back cliff near the side tree barriers. In theory, I could keep the south forces from getting too close to Tiki by Rescuing her from safe spot to safe spot to hot potato kite. Unfortunately, their movement patterns weren't as I predicted. That is, they seem to waypoint a bit instead of beelining her if they're not in immediate attack range, so I wasn't able to make them waste movement going laterally like I'd hoped. Anyway, before I go any further with events, here's a quick rundown of the team I used (note that this is a non-grind run, but I did put special effort into having Panne help her kid get kills in his Paralogue so he could go Fighter 10 -> Warrior and pick up kills on his own in Nah's Paralogue and Chapters 21-24):

Staff bots

-Valkyrie Lissa - Wind, Fortify (unnecessary), Physic (hardly used), Rescue x 2 (just one was enough...)

-Sage Libra - Thunder (just grabbed him an E tome with uses left), Fortify, Physic, Rescue x2

East Team

-Warrior Morgan - Galeforce, capped at 49 Str and 42 Spd. Hand Axe (anti-Aegis), Steel Bow (killed most stuff), Silver Bow (overkill), Brave Bow (lucky merchant spawn, but never used, as he didn't have to brute-force Aegis+). Fought unpaired.

-Hero Lucina - Parallel, Tomahawk, Hand Axe. Fought unpaired. Contribution was a bit low thanks to lots of Pavise+.

-Manakete Nowi/Hero Gregor - Nowi as the lead. Nowi ran a Dragonstone+ and Gregor a Wyrmslayer. They were strictly Wyvern-killers. Unless they had Aegis+, Nowi's Wyrmsbane ate them alive. Gregor's support was necessary to double the Wyverns.

-Warrior Yarne/Manakete Nah - Yarne as the lead. Between Spd Tonic and Nah support, he was just 1 point off of doubling Spd+2 Falcon Knights. Yarne ran a Hand Axe, Wolt's Bow and Steel Bow and Nah a regular Dragonstone (Dragonstone+s are stupid expensive, plus her hit was a bit low). Yarne mostly destroyed non-Aegis+ enemies while Nah chipped a bit to pick up some experience.

West Team

-Dark Knight Avatar - All stats capped, Boots, Galeforce. Rexcalibur (unnecessary), Celica's Gale (used once), Arcwind (started with 11 uses, ended with 3), Elfire (for Wyvs and Grifs, used this pretty much right up), Silver Sword (never used). Where Morgan obliterated things in the east, Avatar obliterated in the west.

-Great Lord Chrom - Since he was strictly support for most of the game, needed a few stat boosters and a Str Tonic to get him going. [[spoiler: Exalted]] Falchion (used once to, hilariously, one-shot a Wyv), Silver Lance (not used), Beast Killer (not used), Noble Rapier (used a lot, especially since he was picking on Griffons).

-Griffon Rider Panne/Assassin Gaius - Could have fought unpaired, although Panne would likely have needed a Spd Tonic and Gaius wouldn't be able to double much due to being underleveled. Ran Volant Axe (used a few times, probably unnecessary), Hand Axe, Silver Axe with Panne and a Killer Bow on Gaius.

-Olivia - Dance bot. Let Avatar open up by crushing 2 of the 3 Falcos on the west side. Helped Lissa Rescue kite a bit too. Otherwise, generally allowed Avatar or Panne to pick up extra kills.

And back to the event summary: I ended up not really kiting much in the early stages. I moved Tiki to the eastern safe spot on turn 1 and sent each team to their respective sides. Turns 2-4 were basically everyone trying to pick up a kill if they could while I didn't even have to move Tiki. This was because I adapted to the south half doing its little waypoint movement by sending Chrom, then spending one of Morgan's turns to get rid of the east half of the force every turn. On early turns, I was also able to have Avatar snipe off a southwestern unit before running back to her west post.

On turn 4, I ran into a bit of positioning issues where Tiki was safe from the south units, but I couldn't quite block the 2-range on a diagonal to her, so a Tomahawk Wyv got a hit in on her. No double, though so she survived. The east side was starting to look a little busy, but with a few kills on the southern force, I was able to make a safe spot to Rescue Tiki to near her starting position.

Turn 5 was more killing of the guys immediately around Tiki and the last turn I'd face reinforcements. On turn 6, all I had to do was clear out the 5(!) new west spawns, plus two of the south guys who were a bit too close to the west for comfort. With no more reinforcements coming, I moved Libra as far west as I could and Rescued Tiki. This was when a strange, notable thing happened.

I had formed a bit of a line trying to get everyone on the east side to kill as many of the enemies in the centre as they could. This resulted in a vertical set of 5 for me, with Olivia on the same horizontal axis as Tiki. For those who don't know the AI abuse, preference is given to attacking player units on the same vertical or horizontal axis as Tiki when said units are blocking the tiles within melee range of her. Well, I have an addendum to that: if the AI decides that it's too much trouble to go around the player units, they'll try to go right through, even if Tiki is 15+ tiles away. This meant that suddenly, a jerk with a Luna+ and a lance was coming straight at Olivia. With 89 displayed hit (97.69% true chance to turn her into paste), I thought it was over. Then the unthinkable happened: It wasn't ''me'' missing an 89, but the enemy! The hilarious thing here, though, is that Olivia lived ''because she was unarmed''. Had she actually been wielding a sword, the [=WTA=] would have given the Wyv 100 hit against her.

Anyway, from there, the enemy force was so brutalized with no more help coming that they didn't stand a chance. I unequip-trapped one Wyv to delay a couple turns so Lissa/Libra paired could poke it to maybe build support ranks and for my other units to pick up the gold sparklies. So while I finished this in 11 turns, I probably could've done it in 8.

[FionordeQuester]

Well, just beat the game on Lunatic. That really did get crazy, though at least the game designers had the decency to make a Chrom/My Unit solo tough stuff. And, actually, Grima, I thought, was an extremely well designed fight, easily one of the best designed final fights in the entire series. It managed to be supremely hard, but in a way that raw numbers and weapons couldn't pound though. Basically, the only way I was able to kill that monster was to clear a way on Turn 1 with Thoron and the like, then use the power of Pairing and high Mov units to...

1) Use Recover on Avatar.

2) Olivia helps Avatar/Chrom to have two rounds against Grima with their Falchion + Forged Brave Sword

3) Basilio Rally's Avatar/Chrom to give Avatar extra strength bonus.

4) If I can manage it, get Lucina/Support Partners/Other people with Charisma to help out the pair.

Further thoughts will come...later!

[Czar_Yoshi]

Grima has 90 Atk, you have 85HP and ~50 Def after pairup and tonic, more if Chrom is a GK. Why do you need Recover?

[FionordeQuester]

In case the other henchmen damage the Avatar enough.

[tuvarkz]

By the way, one thing: It's more than possible to 1-turn paralogue 17. two dual galeforce pairings for the side, a dual galeforce pairing involving a sniper, a single galeforce pairing to fininsh off the below guys, and then 4 rescue users+1 dancer/5 rescue users. Although maybe two of the rescuers could be swapped with a well positioned +mov+heart rallybot.

[StinDuh]

I started a Lunatic Run because I was getting bored of my Hard mode run and wanted a new challenge. But I can't even get past the first couple of chapters without getting extremely lucky (that hammer bitch in chapter one?). It just seems like everyone gets doubled and killed by one or two enemies, and there aren't any chokepoints to hole Freddy up in with Lissa healing behind him...

Anyway, I'm going into chapter 2, so what are some strategies I can use so that everyone isn't murdered on turn 2?

[tuvarkz]

Send everyone to the left, pair up Avatar and Freddie, freddie in the lead with Stahl's bronze sword. SoC's video explains it pretty clearly, even if made for lunatic+

[StinDuh]

Where is this magical video?

[tuvarkz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ci6sd4Spd0

Credits to SoC for uberest guide ever

[StinDuh]

True that... I fear I may have made my Avatar more OP than necessary though... Whoops.

[Tribute]

On lunatic/+? not possible

you kinda have to to get through the early stuff

[Thor Odinson]

Alright. I want to do a L+ run with my standard setup of +Str -Res female avatar. Yes, I know, defense or speed masterace etc, but I want the first run of each difficulty I do to use my standard setup, even though it does reduce speed by a little. Nogrind, of course.

What I want to know is, in a nogrind environment, is it feasible to get galeforce and sol before heading over into bow knight? Or should I just ditch galeforce and go straight for merc->hero->BK. I'd prefer Warrior, but sadly fematar doesn't get to use that. Maybe the +4 will almost make up for it, I dunno. On Lunatic I ran Hero->Great Knight and that worked really well, but counter is gonna hurt with that. Or is there some other good physical route I can take?

Also, I kind of want to do this for my streetpass team (because it'd be kinda nice to have a card that says L+ classic on it ngl), but doing MUxBasilio means I'd miss out on Morgan until postgame. Should I just save that for another run once I finish this, and do the standard convenient Chromatar?

[Czar_Yoshi]

It will be doable, just a lot harder. Remember Interceptor's guide is focused on reliability and with RNG abuse you can get by with a lot less (or do a lot more). As for Bow Knight, it's mostly good because it's a Merc promote and Interceptor wanted to get Avatar into a Bow class ASAP, if you're going to go Merc -> Hero then just skip it entirely and go directly to Sniper from there.

Now, your skills... With a BK route, you'd use Veteran, AT, Patience, Bowbreaker, and Bowfaire. You're skipping Bowfaire, and patience isn't too great lategame, so you have two extra slots to work with- Hero gives you Sol and Axebreaker, which fill those nicely. Since it's silly to go skillhunting once you have a set of five favorable skills, I'd just skip DF, especially since there are some Longbow trolls around that point in the game and your bad Res means Rexcalibur++ pain.

For making Streetpass teams, I usually completely dedicate the file to making the team and don't focus on the other aspects of it, which means I grind a lot to get pairings unfeasible for maingame L+. You can still do it, but no Morgan will hurt.

[Thor Odinson]

I thought about Sniper, and Bowfaire does sound great, but will getting surrounded be a issue? It'd probably end up as a mostly MU solo most likely (though I guess with Lucina and Morgan added later since Chromatar does sound more favorable) since I don't think my usual team is even much trainable here. If it's not going to be too much issue I could do that, though.

Chrom and Lucina should go BK for Bow and Falchion access, right? Or should I just make one of them a Sniper and only keep the Grimaslayer in BK?

[Czar_Yoshi]

Have Bow users stay side by side to limit enemy facings and ensure that they can work out of a corner. But usually in Lunatic+ you -want- to be cornered, it's called turtling and it lets you fight ~4-6 units per turn instead of 20.

[Thor Odinson]

Right. Thanks.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

What I want to know is, in a nogrind environment, is it feasible to get galeforce and sol before heading over into bow knight? Or should I just ditch galeforce and go straight for merc->hero->BK. I'd prefer Warrior, but sadly fematar doesn't get to use that. Maybe the +4 will almost make up for it, I dunno. On Lunatic I ran Hero->Great Knight and that worked really well, but counter is gonna hurt with that. Or is there some other good physical route I can take?

It's entirely possible to get Galeforce and Sol on FeMU by Chapter 16 if she is your main tank. You probably don't need Bow Knight by that point, though, as with Sol and Galeforce, a carefully-played FeMU/Chrom duo run should have a very low risk of death. I've done it three times in a Lunatic+ no-grind, no DLC/bonus box environment. The second time I even banned myself from using life-steal skills (so I chucked Sol as soon as I learned it). My methods are a fair bit less reliable than Interceptors, though and typically involve very precise kiting and tanking.

The route I normally take is:

Tactician 20 (requires an Anna Second Seal, or if you use Bonus Box, dipping into that)

Tactician 0-20 (what level depends on if an Anna Master Seal shows up, as early enough will allow skipping this step entirely)

Grandmaster 10 (Ignis is really, really helpful for one-shotting Counter enemies; Rally Spectrum doesn't help here; heavy enough usage of FeMU should result in this around Chapter 9 or 10)

Dark Flier 15 (Galeforce by midway through Chapter 15 at the latest, though she /should/ get it earlier)

Hero 15 (Sol by end of Chapter 16 at the latest if reclassing during 15; I once questioned Axebreaker and planned to go to just level 10, but it's actually really, really helpful; Armscroll to skip E Axes if available)

Paladin 15 (By Chapter 18, often before; Aegis is extremely useful later on when there's a lot of high hit mages and bow users; this is where you'd diverge to Bow Knight, I guess)

Dark Knight 20 (Versatile weapon set, plus 42 Def and 40 base Res and good mobility; Life-taker is situationally useful, but I hardly ever equip it)

Dark Knight 0-20 (Just reclassing back to 1 until stats are all capped)

Bowbreaker is easily a replacement for Aegis against bow users, but you'd have to be extra-careful around mages, especially since a -Res Bow Knight is going to have an extra-terrible Res cap (27). Def will still be generally okay to fight physical enemies until late game. Although, with 8 movement, if you don't bring any other units and throw the Boots on FeMU, she can Galeforce kite all day on most maps. I do have to say that with my setup, its performance will likely be inferior to Dark Knight, though.

If I were trying to get there, I'd probably run this plan:

Tactician 20

Tactician 0-20

Grandmaster 10

Dark Flier 15 (If no Pass, Galeforce is crucial to a FeMU/Chrom duo run not getting cornered as a Sniper)

Sniper 15 (Pretty much for Bowfaire, although Hit+20 could be useful against Bowbreaker until FeMU gets it)

Bow Knight 20

The plan skips Sol, but I think the detour to Hero might be a bit too inopportune. You could try to stick it in after Dark Flier or Assassin if you want, though.

Another option where the player is willing to use Spotpass shops (although there's still the issue of getting past E Lances):

Tactician 10-20

Pegasus Knight 10-20 (this is a very vulnerable point... though Relief could be helpful)

Dark Flier 15

[Hero 10-15] (maybe... it's another vulnerable point with Hand Axes and that's assuming Armscroll to skip E Axes)

Sniper 15

Bow Knight 20

Looking it over my builds again, I think they're probably suboptimal compared to following Interceptor's guide to the letter, at least if you really want to use bows.

[PM ME MARIANNE ART]

So how about dat final boss?

[Czar_Yoshi]

What about it?

[Thor Odinson]

It's entirely possible to get Galeforce and Sol on FeMU by Chapter 16 if she is your main tank. You probably don't need Bow Knight by that point, though, as with Sol and Galeforce, a carefully-played FeMU/Chrom duo run should have a very low risk of death. I've done it three times in a Lunatic+ no-grind, no DLC/bonus box environment. The second time I even banned myself from using life-steal skills (so I chucked Sol as soon as I learned it). My methods are a fair bit less reliable than Interceptors, though and typically involve very precise kiting and tanking.

The route I normally take is:

Tactician 20 (requires an Anna Second Seal, or if you use Bonus Box, dipping into that)

Tactician 0-20 (what level depends on if an Anna Master Seal shows up, as early enough will allow skipping this step entirely)

Grandmaster 10 (Ignis is really, really helpful for one-shotting Counter enemies; Rally Spectrum doesn't help here; heavy enough usage of FeMU should result in this around Chapter 9 or 10)

Dark Flier 15 (Galeforce by midway through Chapter 15 at the latest, though she /should/ get it earlier)

Hero 15 (Sol by end of Chapter 16 at the latest if reclassing during 15; I once questioned Axebreaker and planned to go to just level 10, but it's actually really, really helpful; Armscroll to skip E Axes if available)

Paladin 15 (By Chapter 18, often before; Aegis is extremely useful later on when there's a lot of high hit mages and bow users; this is where you'd diverge to Bow Knight, I guess)

Dark Knight 20 (Versatile weapon set, plus 42 Def and 40 base Res and good mobility; Life-taker is situationally useful, but I hardly ever equip it)

Dark Knight 0-20 (Just reclassing back to 1 until stats are all capped)

Bowbreaker is easily a replacement for Aegis against bow users, but you'd have to be extra-careful around mages, especially since a -Res Bow Knight is going to have an extra-terrible Res cap (27). Def will still be generally okay to fight physical enemies until late game. Although, with 8 movement, if you don't bring any other units and throw the Boots on FeMU, she can Galeforce kite all day on most maps. I do have to say that with my setup, its performance will likely be inferior to Dark Knight, though.

If I were trying to get there, I'd probably run this plan:

Tactician 20

Tactician 0-20

Grandmaster 10

Dark Flier 15 (If no Pass, Galeforce is crucial to a FeMU/Chrom duo run not getting cornered as a Sniper)

Sniper 15 (Pretty much for Bowfaire, although Hit+20 could be useful against Bowbreaker until FeMU gets it)

Bow Knight 20

The plan skips Sol, but I think the detour to Hero might be a bit too inopportune. You could try to stick it in after Dark Flier or Assassin if you want, though.

Another option where the player is willing to use Spotpass shops (although there's still the issue of getting past E Lances):

Tactician 10-20

Pegasus Knight 10-20 (this is a very vulnerable point... though Relief could be helpful)

Dark Flier 15

[Hero 10-15] (maybe... it's another vulnerable point with Hand Axes and that's assuming Armscroll to skip E Axes)

Sniper 15

Bow Knight 20

Looking it over my builds again, I think they're probably suboptimal compared to following Interceptor's guide to the letter, at least if you really want to use bows.

It's not so much I want to use bows as I want to follow a strength-based build and with +str -res magic isn't exactly her strong suit. I'd honestly much prefer axes over bows, but that'd leave me too open to counter if I can't oneshot (handaxes are weak, as well, theoretically I could go for spotpass shop and buy tomahawks and forge those, maybe?)---and even with highest possible str at 54 there is still a lot of things she can't OHKO without some rally support.

Counter's basically my biggest worry, really. Without it in such likelyhood of play I could go for the forged braves apotheosis style (and also stick to my usual scheme of Hero->GK). DK is another one I thought about due to, like you said, Lifetaker being situationally useful, but I'm not sure how well her magic will be of use as that will be her only source of ranged in both Levin Sword and tomes. It's certainly worth considering if the low mag doesn't hurt that much. There's still the risk of eating counters, though. I'd like to not have to reset maps beyond the earlygame hell.

I do admit +Str -Res is far from optimal, but it's my favourite build and I intend to go through with it.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Thor Odinson

[Czar_Yoshi]

While it's easy to say "OHKO Counter goons with brute force", the reality is that PavGis+ is common enough to make that annoying at the least. It's doable, it's my preferred method of beating Cht.24 (because every single enemy there is weak to Beastkillers or Rexcalibur), but it's extremely difficult without forged effectives. And while Apo style with Braves, Galeforce and Rescuebombing is possible, it requires so much Galeforce to tip the balance between being able to hold a space you can retreat to and being forced into a corner where you must defend that if you somehow manage to pull it off without grinding, you'll expend more effort doing so than you'd save later. Basically, defense trumps offense unless you have a really lot of offense, and if you have just middling offense it can actually be a liability (more damage from Counter and more EP battles per turn thanks to clearing more space around you).

Edited January 11, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Thor Odinson]

Would GK be actually viable then due to WTC giving it access to both beastkillers and hammers? Or would the low speed be too much of a liability. It got me through Lunatic on sheer defense alone, but with Luna+ and counterbastards, I'm not sure it'd fly here either. 24 sounds like hell. It was the one single chapter past earlygame I had trouble with in the entirety of Lunatic and I don't think I want to deal with it.

BK/Sniper is probably the best option for my particular build, probably. With +6 str Warrior Morgan in play (should I grab Rally Spectrum for him? He does start in Tact after all and having Ignis along the way don't hurt either. MU could pass Sol as well so he won't have to run to Hero to grab regen as he starts with veteran) it shouldn't be too awful.

Maybe.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Thor Odinson