Lunatic+ advice?

[Talvisota]

Okay so I've completed the game 2 times now, once on Hard and once on Lunatic. Now I want to at least attempt Lunatic+.

From trying the first mission it seems immensely difficult. There also doesn't seem to be much online about it.

How many people have tried it and how did they find it?

If you've tried it do you have any advice? It seems pretty intimidating.

I've heard a large part of the difficulty comes down to random chance of the enemies and the abilities they have but there must be some way

to make it playable.

[HeroMystic]

I've tried Lunatic+ last night myself, and I have to say it makes me immediately want to go back to Vanilla Lunatic. The only advice I can give is to take your time. Make sure everyone has full HP before proceeding to the next round of enemies and support-abuse when the opportunity arises.

[Talvisota]

I remember the initial stages of Lunatic were really difficult, had to rely soley on Fredrick to even have half a chance.

Once I got to Chapter 5 though and the Outerealm gate opened up the pressure eased off a little.

I'm hoping something similar would happen with Lunatic+ but given how op the enemies are it might never end.

Might just play it on Casual lol

[Redwall]

You really want to feed as many kills as possible to the Avatar (who ideally is either +Def or +HP) in Prologue and Ch 1. As long as the top Mage in Prologue doesn't have Vantage+, you can get the Avatar to Lv 5 upon completion of the Prologue; in my playthrough, she received every kill in the Prologue save for the top Mage. Ch 2 is hard, but a modestly strong Avatar allows you to take a lot of defensive pressure off Frederick.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Redwall

[General Horace]

lunatic+ has this nasty habit of proc'ing enemy skills that make you pretty much destined to lose no matter what, particularly if there are a few counter enemies around. pass is pretty nasty too. it's a pretty horrible mode, and I'm one for challenging modes in FE games.

Edited May 11, 2013 by General Horace

[Jedi]

lunatic+ has this nasty habit of proc'ing enemy skills that make you pretty much destined to lose no matter what, particularly if there are a few counter enemies around. pass is pretty nasty too. it's a pretty horrible mode, and I'm one for challenging modes in FE games.

Wow. This pretty much sums up what I heard from both you and PKL. How its quite a bit unfair and such.

I haven't tried the mode yet so my only piece of advice can be.. Erm don't die..? haha

[Othin]

Ranged attacks. If you just go with melee, or even physical 1-2 range, you'll have all sorts of trouble with skills that show up all the time, but it's very manageable if you prepare properly. Keep plenty of magic and bows around; I'm fond of Virion, personally, but others work as well. If you've got a lot of Renown and are willing to make use of it, you can get some great weapons, especially bows. Also, since almost all the DLC maps don't include the additional skills, they can be a nice break to work on improving your team. There's not much point in playing higher difficulties just to trivialize them by grinding on DLC, but one play per map won't hurt anything.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Othin

[Talvisota]

Also, since almost all the DLC maps don't include the additional skills, they can be a nice break to work on improving your team.

Ah nice I didn't consider that. That would certainly make it more manageable.

I'm in Europe so we're lacking most of the DLC but we do have Golden Gaffe and EXPonential Growth.

Infinite Regalia should be coming soon but we have the two big ones thankfully.

[Redwall]

like Othin said, bows in particular are pretty nice. While 1-2 range attacks leave you susceptible to Counter during the enemy phase, bows do not; the complete absence of 1-range offense that makes bows near-worthless in Lunatic actually makes them worthwhile on tanky units like the Avatar. According to what I've read in the Lunatic thread, a bow-heavy team has less to fear with increasing numbers of Counter enemies since they will have only one dangerous skill.

[Linkmstr]

There's no harm in doing Lunatic+ in Casual, but if you're not well... Remember to stay on the defensive most of the time on Lunatic+/Classic and you must be prepared to reset a lot and become a masochist.

This will only be applied for Classic mode. I will edit more later for every chapter. Also remember that the skills are randomized every single time you reset. I will only do the first four chapters including the prologue. I will not make any descriptive moves since it's been almost two months since I've started Lunatic+/Classic.

Prologue:

For this chapter, the enemies will have Luna+, Hawkeye, Vantage+, and Pass. (Pass is not that important in any of the chapters anyway...)

If the mages have Vantage+ and/or Luna+, reset because they can deal huge amounts of damage on Fred. If more than two Myrmidons have Luna+, reset. If more than three barbarians have Luna+, reset. If you can get within those conditions, you'll be fine. Fred can one hit kill the Mages and Mrymidons with a Silver Lance. The barbarians are the annoying ones, but if you pair the avatar up with Lissa for Mag boost, you can kill them easily after Fred gives some damage on them. Lissa can help a lot with healing so it'll be a good idea to let her heal up Fred. Easy EXP distribution in this chapter if you know what you're doing.

Chapter 1:

For this chapter, they'll have the same skills as prologue.

If the barbarian with a hammer has Luna+, Hawkeye, and/or Vantage+, reset because he can kill Fred and anyone else easily. In this chapter, as long as there aren't too many enemies with Hawkeye and Luna+, you'll be fine. Virion will be a great help in this chapter. Considering he has an Iron Bow instead of a Bronze Bow. Oh and before you finish the chapter, let Virion give his elixir to Fred. It'll help a lot in the next two chapters. You can evenly distribute EXP to your characters pretty easily in this chapter imo.

Chapter 2:

For this chapter, the enemies will still have the same skills as the last two chapters. Fred, again, will be the one to attack ahead a little bit. He'll get roughed up a lot, but the elixirs will help.

As long as there aren't too many enemies with Luna+, you'll be fine. Make sure you can distribute EXP for every character for the next chapter because it'll be one of the hardest chapters.

Chapter 3:

For this chapter, the enemies will now have Counter and Pavise+/Aegis+. This gave me more pain than any other chapter.

If the Knights have Aegis+/Pavise+ or Counter, reset or else you're going to have a really tough time beating them. The bottom part of the map is easy enough. Attack the left side first because Kellam is there and don't recruit him yet until the 2nd turn. That's how I remember of doing it. Fred should be paired up with Chrom and stand almost next to Kellam so then the Archers can come and attack only Fred and not Kellam because he's "invisible" until he gets recruited. Everyone else must be near the left side and, at the same time, not in the enemies' range. Once Chrom and Fred have either killed or damaged the knight, you can proceed with killing the archers and the knight while the enemies' to the right start to move. This will be a great spot to recover some health so do so before the enemies from the right side are too close. After killing every enemy on the bottom, recover your units' health and proceed to one of the doors. Instead of going up and attacking one of the Knights, lure them down the stairs and attack them. It'll be easier to use your avatar or Miriel to attack them from a distance while Fred is blocking its way and being attacked instead. Once you killed the Knight, go to the other door and kill the other Knight. Now then, the enemies on top won't move until you get in their attack range. Pick one side to move and get in range and then all of them will move to that side. Kill them one by one in the stairs, but be careful for the barbarian with a hammer. He's just as deadly as the one back in Chapter 1 against Fred. If you can kill him, you'll get a hammer which is very useful against the boss and the next chapter.

Chapter 4:

For this chapter, you can relax and take a deep breath since there aren't that many enemies here. If the Knights here have Pavise+, you're also going to have a tough time killing them with a hammer that Fred or Vaike can use. Everything else is fine. Nothing much to think about in this chapter imo. *sigh* I'll edit this part when I feel like it. XP

Edited May 11, 2013 by Linkmstr

[Redwall]

the bottom mage can have vantage+; it really makes no difference if your goal is to get avatar to lvl 5.

[Linkmstr]

the bottom mage can have vantage+; it really makes no difference if your goal is to get avatar to lvl 5.

Problem is with Fred. The mages can deal heavy damage on Fred since he starts off with low Res.

[Redwall]

yes, i am aware of fred's low res. you can simply kill it on turn 3 player phase after using turn 2 player phase to heal.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Redwall

[Othin]

It's not just about face-tanking, either. If an enemy has Counter, you'd better have a way to fight them from range, and if they've got Vantage+, you'll be risking counterattacks even when you go for a finishing blow unless you can strike at the right distance to get around them. If they've got Aegis+ and you don't want to face a dramatic increase in their durability, you'll need a melee attack at whatever range their other skills will allow, and if they've got Pavise+, you'll want a bow or magic attack at that range. It's worth bearing in mind that the Levin Sword and related weapons still count as melee, so you can use methods like those to deal heavy magic damage to enemies with Aegis+. Basically, if you want to beat Lunatic+, be creative. When people complain about the mode, it's just because their strategies don't allow for the proper flexibility to beat enemies with different sorts of deadly tricks at their disposal.

[darkkfan]

I'll post the links to the only documentation that I've found on the subject. The first two are my playlog and the next two are other people with similar information. The last two are translations of japanese sites that have links to some chapters.

Walhart (Part 1): http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=38195&p=2294782

Walhart (Part 2): http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=38195&p=2294853

Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=38195&p=2345476

1% Critted: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=39923&p=2386693

Interceptor: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=40300&hl=

Japanese Links 1 (all chapters): http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2F123hrs.web.fc2.com%2Ffe3ds1%2Flunatic.html

Japanese Links 2 (Up to Chapter 4): http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fknmc3.blog.fc2.com%2Fblog-entry-11.html

Edited May 24, 2013 by Walhart

[Redwall]

When people complain about the mode, it's just because their strategies don't allow for the proper flexibility to beat enemies with different sorts of deadly tricks at their disposal.

Not necessarily; there are those who complain because they feel Lunatic+ is unfair and there are those who complain because they feel Lunatic+ is unfun. I think it's fair, but even with optimal tactics, it's not going to be fun for many people.

[Tables]

When people complain about the mode, it's just because their strategies don't allow for the proper flexibility to beat enemies with different sorts of deadly tricks at their disposal.

Not necessarily; there are those who complain because they feel Lunatic+ is unfair and there are those who complain because they feel Lunatic+ is unfun. I think it's fair, but even with optimal tactics, it's not going to be fun for many people.

I'd add also that, it's adding difficult and nasty skills onto enemies randomly in an already brutally hard mode. While I guess that probably any skill combination could be dealt with, you're probably getting towards a point that every action is prescribed AND some luck is involved, at least early.

Personally, I'd probably really enjoy a Hard+ difficulty (Hard mode but enemies get 2 of the lunatic+ skills each) - I reckon that'd be more difficult than Hard but easier than Lunatic, and that's kinda what I think I want anyway. But it'd also let you test your mettle against semi-random enemies, requiring strategy choices to be made on the fly.

[thefairman]

It's not just about face-tanking, either. If an enemy has Counter, you'd better have a way to fight them from range, and if they've got Vantage+, you'll be risking counterattacks even when you go for a finishing blow unless you can strike at the right distance to get around them. If they've got Aegis+ and you don't want to face a dramatic increase in their durability, you'll need a melee attack at whatever range their other skills will allow, and if they've got Pavise+, you'll want a bow or magic attack at that range. It's worth bearing in mind that the Levin Sword and related weapons still count as melee, so you can use methods like those to deal heavy magic damage to enemies with Aegis+. Basically, if you want to beat Lunatic+, be creative. When people complain about the mode, it's just because their strategies don't allow for the proper flexibility to beat enemies with different sorts of deadly tricks at their disposal.

people complain about the map mode because the difficulty is purely artificial. since there is no map variety in the game (eg, all maps are the same size and structure) and no variety in objectives (kill or kill boss), the only way to increase difficulty is to just jack up enemy numbers, stats, and weapons. things like reinforcements on Enemy Phase add to this. anything even remotely tricky (saving Sayri, Maribelle, Severa, etc) is accomplished easily with a Rescue Staff (which also happens to trivialize many parts of the game but that's a separate topic).

Lunatic+ mode things more "difficult" (assuming no DLC grinding) by giving enemies broken skills with no consideration to map feasibility. a small map loaded with Counter in Chapter 3 is unbeatable if you don't have a hugely trained Avatar, which is not doable if earlier maps have too much Luna+ or Vantage+ etc. in the end, in the most difficult part of the game (pre-chapter 5~. once you get a few good ranged options in your team, i'd assume the game plays largely like a regular Lunatic run except with EP Counter cheesing to watch out for), you spend more times resetting because of bad enemy skill placement (or fishing for a good level up) than you do actually playing the game. Lunatic+ is not really a test of player skill (although it does require micro and creativity) but of player patience.

difficulty doesn't have to involve the player banging his head against the wall while trying to fend of 20 enemies all armed with Counter, Luna+, and assorted random skills but that's what they went for here. the stench of laziness in game design really shows itself in Lunatic and Lunatic+. (for the record, i've beaten with types, although not without grinding a bit on Lunatic+). i'd prefer if they brought back Ranking style system like in FE7; S Ranking the game added spice and difficulty to the game without resorting to cheesy tactics. this tendency to just pump up up the enemies (which started in FE9) is disappointing.

just my 2 cents though. not saying its not fun (although reseting 30 times on one map isn't my idea of fun) or difficult. just frustrating.

[Campion]

If you have an avatar that may not do as well to start, like +mag/-str as mine is, I found relying on Chrom worked well. Him and Fred did need a proper amount of strength to get past Ch.3 though, so getting good level ups mattered.

[Othin]

Hey, I get that the mode isn't for everyone. But I can't take complaints about it seriously when people complain about jacking up stats and then they complain about requiring fancier other tactics to take down enemies.

[arvilino]

Hey, I get that the mode isn't for everyone. But I can't take complaints about it seriously when people complain about jacking up stats and then they complain about requiring fancier other tactics to take down enemies.

I'm sort of curious how that would work otherwise anyway. Boosting their stats and/or numbers in conjuction with other methods like positioning(which the additional enemies in higher difficulty modes do) is only ways you could implement requiring different tactics to handle the same scenario. It's noticeable in this game and FE12 where the higher stats introduces new challenges with certain enemy set-ups that weren't present in the lower modes.

It'd be a challenge in itself to make the chapters more difficult if the enemies themselves weren't much more threatening, since even the most devious set-ups aren't going to be that effective if the enemies can barely damage your forces and get easily defeated.

[HeroMystic]

Hey, I get that the mode isn't for everyone. But I can't take complaints about it seriously when people complain about jacking up stats and then they complain about requiring fancier other tactics to take down enemies.

Except you're ignoring the fact that Lunatic+ add skills at random for each enemy unit, requiring you to either change your tactics every time you fuck up, or constantly reset for a better enemy list. I don't know about you, but that sounds like bad design to me.

The Counter skill is just the most obvious thing to complain about, because the skill as a whole is the most poorly designed skill in all of Fire Emblem, and there's a reason why it was only prevalent towards the latter end of the game. However, the designers decided to add it to the Lunatic+ skill list, and the fact that it works exactly the same way in Non-Lunatic+ difficulties just shows how completely stupid that skill is.

Personally, I feel FE9's difficulty scaling did it best, with Hard Mode being difficult enough for newer players. FE13 made their difficulty gaps too damn large, and they sorely needed another difficulty level between Hard and Lunatic to make up for that. Despite this, I enjoyed and figured out Lunatic mode, and it's only truly hard if you don't feed kills to a +DEF Avatar.

[dondon151]

with the stat inflation, these balancing issues were inevitable.

[Othin]

Except you're ignoring the fact that Lunatic+ add skills at random for each enemy unit, requiring you to either change your tactics every time you fuck up, or constantly reset for a better enemy list. I don't know about you, but that sounds like bad design to me.

The Counter skill is just the most obvious thing to complain about, because the skill as a whole is the most poorly designed skill in all of Fire Emblem, and there's a reason why it was only prevalent towards the latter end of the game. However, the designers decided to add it to the Lunatic+ skill list, and the fact that it works exactly the same way in Non-Lunatic+ difficulties just shows how completely stupid that skill is.

Personally, I feel FE9's difficulty scaling did it best, with Hard Mode being difficult enough for newer players. FE13 made their difficulty gaps too damn large, and they sorely needed another difficulty level between Hard and Lunatic to make up for that. Despite this, I enjoyed and figured out Lunatic mode, and it's only truly hard if you don't feed kills to a +DEF Avatar.

I see no issue with a requirement that you modify your tactics each time rather than trying the same strategy over and over and hoping it works.

Nor do I see a reason to say that a brutal skill that requires thought and encourages otherwise unconventional tactics is at all poorly designed. This is not a matter of the game being poorly designed; this is a matter of you trying to use the same strategies you always have and whining when they're not good enough for a game with more complex enemies.

[Interceptor]

like Othin said, bows in particular are pretty nice. While 1-2 range attacks leave you susceptible to Counter during the enemy phase, bows do not; the complete absence of 1-range offense that makes bows near-worthless in Lunatic actually makes them worthwhile on tanky units like the Avatar. According to what I've read in the Lunatic thread, a bow-heavy team has less to fear with increasing numbers of Counter enemies since they will have only one dangerous skill.

Truth, here. My Lunatic+ team is nothing but bow users: a combination of Warriors, Snipers, Bow Knights, and Assassins. Once you have enough Avoid/DEF to survive face-tanking, it becomes a powerful strategy that makes Counter useless.

I'm considering adding a Mire user for funsies.

I see no issue with a requirement that you modify your tactics each time rather than trying the same strategy over and over and hoping it works.

Nor do I see a reason to say that a brutal skill that requires thought and encourages otherwise unconventional tactics is at all poorly designed. This is not a matter of the game being poorly designed; this is a matter of you trying to use the same strategies you always have and whining when they're not good enough for a game with more complex enemies.

Also truth. There are issues with Lunatic+ and how it is balanced in the earlygame, but one of the nice things about it is that the mode actually makes you think. Plus, it makes taking chances actually have consequences: if you reset, you have to come up with a new strategy, because the skills will be different next time. It's not like vanilla Lunatic, where you can keep bashing your head against the wall with suboptimal strategies until you finally break through.

And speaking of which, a lot of trouble that people seem to have comes from their rigid adherence to tactics that work in other modes, but get punished in Lunatic+. The skills are designed to make you break out of your comfort zone:

• Aegis+/Pavise+: forces varied damage types
• Luna+: counters concrete durability
• Hawkeye: counters avoid-tanking
• Pass: makes walling more difficult
• Vantage+: adds threat to finishing off enemies that could counter attack
• Counter: prevents creating a super-unit that kills everything on Enemy Phase; they'd kill themselves first

There's plenty of stuff to help deal with those skills, but you have to use the game's mechanics in ways that you're probably not used to, and prioritize offense differently, etc.