Pairing the Spares

[Ikorus]

So, I loaned out my copy of FE:A to my best friend since high school, and she's a newcomer to the series, aye?

Now, having beaten it once, and with the glories of the interwebz, I had a fair idea of how to guide her when she needed help even when I couldnt see anything. Many a late night support conversation if you will was spent discussing...the support conversations.

More specifically, pairings. She's playing a +def, -luk male, and she's SUPER wishy-washy about it all. not just the pairings, bt even just who to use in a given battle! But, she managed to settle on a few -

Chrom x Sumia

Lissa x Frederick

Panne x Stahl

Maribelle x Libra

Cordelia x Lon'qu

Nowi x Donnel

Gaius x Tharja

Cherche x Virion

That just leaves Sully, Miriel, Olivia and Male Avatar (+def, -luk) capable of spawning their own children, with Tiki, Say'ri, and Anna just kinda hanging out alongside the rest of the male cast. She refuses to marry any of the spotpass recruits (i think just emmeryn and aversa?) because - and frankly I agree - most of their mere still existing is kinda poorly done. Emm cant even support with chrom and lissa! She also wont marry second gen, which we agree is a liiiittle creepy (though cynthia and nah are ADORBS imo)

Now, with her turning to me for advice, and me not having a goddamn clue because she wants at least halfway decent romance and also non-horrible modifiers with minmal to no reliance on dlc for classes, i thusly turn to YOU the crew of serenes forest.

I use this place for all my other information anyway >.>

Thusly, I do beg - aid me please in Pairing the Spares!?

Edited August 11, 2013 by Ikorus

[Skarthe]

For one, your list appears to be missing Cherche as someone who can have a kid. Vaike/Cherche gives a stupid amount of strength but is kinda frail, so I dunno how much I'd recommend it but there's an option for ya.

If you want a first-gen female for the Avatar, it depends on your preference. To optimize Morgan, I'd say go with Tiki so she gets Manakete access; to optimize otherwise, I'd go with Sully so Kjelle gets Galeforce. I don't know how the Avatar/Sully romance is (feel free to check the wiki or the Supports thread for it though!) but I personally like Avatar/Tiki.

As for Miriel and Olivia (and non-Avatar Sully) I don't really know, someone else would be better suited to answer that I think.

[Ikorus]

Ah, Cherche. Love her. Thought I'd listed her.

Well, IIRC she paired off cherche with virion. will add to OP

[kDog214]

Based on what's left:

MUxTiki - since not Nah, it's better off probably being Tiki.

VaikexSully - mostly for armsthrift and mods

HenryxCherche - makes for a rather interesting combination; gives Gerome access to Axefaire, which alongside with Tomefaire, can make him a fairly interesting Dread Fighter; seeing how DLC isn't available, other classes would be better for him; make his focus to provide support as a Berserker with Anathema.

GregorxMiriel - good sorcerer with armsthrift

RickenxOlivia - good magical Inigo

EDIT: If RickenxOlivia proves to be creepy, just go with VirionxOlivia for mods.

Yeah...HenryxOlivia would be a great alternative.

Edited August 11, 2013 by kDog214

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You're probably going to want Vaike/Sully. It's amazing. Gregor/Miriel for sorcerer. Based on what's left MaMU/Olivia would be the best. I swear I'm not doing this because of personal bias. With what they have, it's definitely the best choice.

[Ikorus]

Hah. I did Vaike/Sully my first run. Didn't know about galeforce breeding et al. Still kinda tweaks me. I mean,I agree anyone who can get it should, because its got utility both offensive and defensive, but the whole "no galeforce = terrible" thing...myeh.

I later discovered that Fighter and Barbarian convert to Pegasus Knight and Troubadour for women. Of which Vaike has both. Yet converts instead to mercenary and....something else. So his lack of ponyfying Kjelle made me irate. Vaike ignores game mechanics. what GIVES?

[Shadow Mir]

Hah. I did Vaike/Sully my first run. Didn't know about galeforce breeding et al. Still kinda tweaks me. I mean,I agree anyone who can get it should, because its got utility both offensive and defensive, but the whole "no galeforce = terrible" thing...myeh.

I later discovered that Fighter and Barbarian convert to Pegasus Knight and Troubadour for women. Of which Vaike has both. Yet converts instead to mercenary and....something else. So his lack of ponyfying Kjelle made me irate. Vaike ignores game mechanics. what GIVES?

Actually, Vaike's classes become Knight and Mercenary for females.

[euklyd]

Hah. I did VaikI later discovered that Fighter and Barbarian convert to Pegasus Knight and Troubadour for women. Of which Vaike has both. Yet converts instead to mercenary and....something else. So his lack of ponyfying Kjelle made me irate. Vaike ignores game mechanics. what GIVES?

There is no "standard" map of which classes get replaced by what.

So there's nothing for Vaike to "break".

EDIT: Well technically there's no way to know that for certain at this time. There could be a standard class map, and then various characters have exceptions, but that seems unlikely.

Anyways, seeing the pairings that have already been decided on, I'd second Vaike x Sully, and I think I remember Ricken x Olivia being a pretty good support.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Euklyd

[Ikorus]

Been a couple days, everyone looks widely in favor of holding MaMU in reserve and pairing sully with vaike, and there was a whole one suggestion regardin MaMu and Miriel (also Olivia) in Oliva and gregor respectively (Also MaMu).

So lets change tack. out of brady and inigo, who stands to gain more of what they want to be what they were intended to be (tank, support, player phaser, enemy phaser, etc) from MaMu?

Also, in regards to ALL of the eligble women (Miriel, Olivia, Tiki, Anna, Say'Ri) what do they each have to offer for FeMorgan in terms off classes, skill inheritance, and stats (+def, -luk MaMU, remember...if that matters) that might give them an edge over the competition in winning the avatar's heart? i understand avatar and morgan are incredibly versatile, to to maximise that in the simplest way lets assume they both will end the game as grandmasters.

side query: regarding how rallies are both incredible and yet failtacular (major stat boosts when stacked, but hard to use effectively since it ends up sacrificing your turn) ...how does one learn how to use them in such a way as to maximise their awesomeness while minimising the suck factor? because im horrble at it. i bring this up because grandmaster. rally spectrum saves several skill slots to do the same thing.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Ikorus

[euklyd]

Also, in regards to ALL of the eligble women (Miriel, Olivia, Tiki, Anna, Say'Ri) what do they each have to offer for FeMorgan in terms off classes, skill inheritance, and stats -snip-

Tiki is the only one of those who gives anything besides mods to Morgan (F).

More importantly, you forgot the deciding factor: hair color.

I'd say that among those, Anna and Tiki are best because hair color, and then Tiki also gives Manakete, which I guess is pretty cool.

EDIT: Oh wait Olivia also gives pretty nice hair, and you get two Avatar kids, so she's not a bad choice either.

Been a couple days, everyone looks widely in favor of holding MaMU in reserve and pairing sully with vaike, and there was a whole one suggestion regardin MaMu and Miriel (also Olivia) in Oliva and gregor respectively (Also MaMu).

So lets change tack. out of brady and inigo, who stands to gain more of what they want to be what they were intended to be (tank, support, player phaser, enemy phaser, etc) from MaMu?

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded statement, since most units can do several jobs very well.

And are you sure you aren't confusing Brady and Laurent?

Anyways I will say that Gregor is a pretty bad father for Inigo gameplay-wise, because his class set is a complete overlap.

side query: regarding how rallies are both incredible and yet failtacular (major stat boosts when stacked, but hard to use effectively since it ends up sacrificing your turn) ...how does one learn how to use them in such a way as to maximise their awesomeness while minimising the suck factor? because im horrble at it. i bring this up because grandmaster. rally spectrum saves several skill slots to do the same thing.

Use SpotPass/DLC/guest Avatars for rallying, because they have access to all classes for their gender, but no support ability, so they're not great for combat anyways.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Euklyd

[Ikorus]

yes. yes i am confusing the two of them. probably because i prefer to ignore the fact that laurent exists. brady i have a tough time liking, but i get where hes coming from. screw laurent. ...i do so love his mom though. 1st play she was mweh and gradually became unusable. second play i switched her to dark mage and never looked back. she is the ur-goddess of destruction and not even henry can out-curse her, let alone tharja.

By "what they were intended to be" i mean that some of the children have pretty clear leanings on what they want to do, such as Kjelle not caring a whit about having a galeforce dad since she wants to soak up enemy hits and dish hefty returns while Gerome just wants to have metrick fucktons of strength hit and crit to hide behind a faster unit with good Dual Strike rating and beat the hell out of things with a high-power or Brave-attribute axe. Anyway yeah, all units are somewhat more versatile than past games, so no-one save chrom and avatar is irreplaceable, but almost everyone has an ideal playstyle for relative efficiency. Grinding forever for skills is just irritating when your ilvl is so high kills are only worth 6xp.

Lamenting the lack of Provoke and Shade...they'd be much better than silly things like in/outdoor fighter or luk+4, if you ask me.

[euklyd]

Before I start, I wanna say one thing.

You seem to be getting more and more into optimization territory, which

a) is totally unnecessary, especially given that this is your friend's first playthrough, and

b) doesn't even seem like what she was looking for in the first place ("halfway decent romance and also non-horrible modifiers").

Now that that's been said, I'll continue with my post...

...Kjelle not caring a whit about having a galeforce dad since she wants to soak up enemy hits and dish hefty returns...

Well you're probably wrong there; have you seen the mods she gets from Sully?

-1 Str, -1 Mag, +2 Skl, +2 Spd, -1 Def

That looks to me like if she's gonna be tanking, it'd be dodge-tanking. And before someone points out that mods are not the determining factor, classes/skills are (and she does get Pavise/Aegis)... while that is true, she also gets Vantage, so if you're tanking, you may as well run a set that kills enemies before they touch you, so that still doesn't involve soaking hits.

And Kjelle wants GF a lot more than someone like Nah does, anyways.

Gerome just wants to have metrick fucktons of strength hit and crit to hide behind a faster unit with good Dual Strike rating and beat the hell out of things with a high-power or Brave-attribute axe.

This is better, although I wouldn't see a reason to use anything but a Brave weapon. Other than that, yes, it's a good summary for Gerome.

I'd say that some units are better suited to certain roles than others are, but some roles are just better than others. Kjelle might be a *better* tank than Cynthia, say, but that doesn't mean Kjelle would rather tank than she would run in, kill a dude, and Galeforce away (which, IMO, is one of the highest callings available ).

I'm not actually very good at assigning roles, somewhat because I'm not entirely clear on what all the various roles are, but mostly because I favor some roles (Vantage-tank, hit&run) vastly more than I do other roles.

The only roles I'm "clear" on are the supports, and those are Yarne, Laurent, and Gerome.

Maybe someone else who has more confidence in their abilities could clear this up.

On second thought, I might be able to whip something up quickly:

[spoiler=Quick suggestions]

• Olivia x Avatar/Ricken/Kellam - Reasonably cute supports, Inigo gets everything he needs to either abuse GF for hit&run (Luna, Paladin/Hero, etc), or attempt to be a magical Vantage-tank (he doesn't get Vengeance, but Luna should work).

• Sully x Vaike - They seem to fit well together, personality-wise, and Kjelle will be pretty good, and could tank pretty well with Aegis/Pavise/Sol. Avatar is the only dad left who gives GF, so you might want to consider that as well.

• Miriel x Gregor/Ricken/Kellam - Laurent gets Vantage, so can Vantage-Vengeance(-Wrath, if you want to do that as well). If you want a hard support, Henry or Ricken would work as well, although I might actually choose Kellam over Henry, for DG+. No idea about romance.

• Marry Avatar to whoever you friend wants. I'd choose Tiki or Olivia, maybe leaning towards Tiki.

Hope that helped.

[Ikorus]

Eh yeah, full blown optimisation is kinda stupid, but as an avid pokemon player competitive breeding is something that just rears its ugly head once in a while for me. i really dont mean to do it in scenarios like this (occasionally i do kean it, but id say so specifically).

But that looks like good advice i might use myself sometime. so yeah. Besides that i really have a habit of underusing vantage and rallies vantqge-vengeance in particular has interesting applications, though throwing in sol might actually be a bad idea for that set. if only there was a way to ensure foes attacked who you want them to instead of who you dont. so for avatar you contend its mainly a tiki vs olivia argument? tiki for obvious fourth manakete, but why olivia over miriel? I assume inigo needs MaMU more than laurent does?

Not that i personally care for laurent but not my call. i just offer advice, which needs reasons. which is why i made th thread as my own expertise is tapped out.. also his mother is growing on me. Rapidly. all the facemeltery of a sage with none of the frailty. 10 levels as mage also REALLY compensated for dark mages earlygame hit defficiencies.

[euklyd]

so for avatar you contend its mainly a tiki vs olivia argument? tiki for obvious fourth manakete, but why olivia over miriel? I assume inigo needs MaMU more than laurent does?

because those two offer good hair colors, and that's all that matters :P

Why Olivia over Miriel? Because Inigo has a lot more potential, IMO, since he has Galeforce.

And then Avatar x Tiki has a lot of fans from the non-optimization, support side of things, and I kinda see where they're coming from. I honestly am not a huge fan of Manaketes (and Taguels even less), but at least Tiki has a niche, and if I remember right, the supports weren't bad either.

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I'm going to say Avatar/Olivia is the best option. Inigo needs the versatility because he'll be a frontliner. Laurent gets everything he could possibly want from Gregs. Avatar/Tiki is good, but that will hinder Inigo.

[Ikorus]

Well. Im glad people are generally on the same page. makes the info more reliable. now, to milk more data and generally be a nudge...

WHY choose gregor over more magcally inclined parentals such as ricken or henry?

In the event of tiki breeding (i cant stop staring at her chest personally, with more curiosity than sexuality. it defies every one of miriel's precious laws of nature) who would pair up with olivia and more importantly why?

And finallu...tiki has a niche. what would that be, exactly, and do you refer to characer or combat?

[PM ME MARIANNE ART]

Well. Im glad people are generally on the same page. makes the info more reliable. now, to milk more data and generally be a nudge...

WHY choose gregor over more magcally inclined parentals such as ricken or henry?

In the event of tiki breeding (i cant stop staring at her chest personally, with more curiosity than sexuality. it defies every one of miriel's precious laws of nature) who would pair up with olivia and more importantly why?

And finallu...tiki has a niche. what would that be, exactly, and do you refer to characer or combat?

Gregor gives Laurent Vantage, AT, Sol and he already has vengeance, so he's the perfect sorcerer. In the event of Tiki breeding, Inigo would lose a lot of assets he would gain from the Avatar. If anyone else, he would just be a watered down Laurent. I suppose Henry!Inigo would be a good DF, but the avatar is still the best choice.

[euklyd]

Well. Im glad people are generally on the same page. makes the info more reliable. now, to milk more data and generally be a nudge...

WHY choose gregor over more magcally inclined parentals such as ricken or henry?

In the event of tiki breeding (i cant stop staring at her chest personally, with more curiosity than sexuality. it defies every one of miriel's precious laws of nature) who would pair up with olivia and more importantly why?

And finallu...tiki has a niche. what would that be, exactly, and do you refer to characer or combat?

I assume you're talking about for Laurent's dad? Well...

Ricken is good for a hard support, and he also gives Luna, but there's not much skill synergy.

Henry gives Laurent basically nothing, since he already has Dark Mage.

Compare to Gregor, who gives Vantage, so you'll either tank with Nosferatu, or just kill everything that attacks you before they land a single blow. He also gives Armsthrift, which lets you abuse a forges Celica's Gale or Aversa's Night forever. Sol is a bit of a bonus.

Tiki's niche is her green hair Manakete class. That's all. Olivia is probably a better choice from a gameplay perspective, but as I said, I got the impression that your friend cares about supports, and I personally think that Tiki has better supports with Avatar than Olivia does.

Gregor gives Laurent Vantage, AT, Sol and he already has vengeance, so he's the perfect sorcerer. In the event of Tiki breeding, Inigo would lose a lot of assets he would gain from the Avatar. If anyone else, he would just be a watered down Laurent. I suppose Henry!Inigo would be a good DF, but the avatar is still the best choice.

Except for, y'know, the whole Galeforce thing. But yeah, he'd be a bit worse at Vantage-/Nosfa-tanking than Laurent.

[Ikorus]

Erm...Sorry to sound dumb but what's AT?

[euklyd]

AT = Armsthrift. For me it translates to never having to worry about my forged Celica's Gales breaking.

[Skarthe]

In the event of Tiki breeding, Inigo would lose a lot of assets he would gain from the Avatar. If anyone else, he would just be a watered down Laurent. I suppose Henry!Inigo would be a good DF, but the avatar is still the best choice.

Avatar is the best parent for ANY applicable child character, not just Inigo; using the Avatar to breed anyone results in the same argument for every other child. From a gameplay standpoint, the only question is whether one would rather optimize Morgan (in this case, by passing her Manakete from Tiki) or have basically two slightly weaker Morgans. On top of that, yeah, I prefer Tiki's supports over Olivia's, but I'm also biased because I really like Tiki.

And as Euklyd said, Inigo wouldn't exactly be a watered-down Laurent. Despite being a worse Nosferatank, he arguably makes a better offensive unit in any case due to Galeforce access, which Laurent can never have. He has natural access to Sol and Armsthrift, plus with Kellam or Ricken for a father to give him Luna (Kellam for physical, Ricken for magical) he's an excellent attacker, and he makes a pretty decent one without them anyway. I don't know how good those supports are though, I haven't tried them.

[Canto]

He has natural access to Sol and Armsthrift, plus with Kellam or Ricken for a father to give him Luna (Kellam for physical, Ricken for magical) he's an excellent attacker, and he makes a pretty decent one without them anyway. I don't know how good those supports are though, I haven't tried them.

Eh... I'd be wary of strictly classiifyng Kellam as 'Physical'. Modswise yes, he does provide a +1 STR, but at the same time he's not penalizing MAG (unlike Frederick), and the best class that he's passing down is Sage. Trickster, General, and War Monk are all kind of niche. He gets a great selection of melee classes at base (Berserker, Hero, Assassin) but Kellam!Inigo I'd say could go either magical or physical (with the downside more or less being the lower speed).

[Skarthe]

Eh... I'd be wary of strictly classiifyng Kellam as 'Physical'. Modswise yes, he does provide a +1 STR, but at the same time he's not penalizing MAG (unlike Frederick), and the best class that he's passing down is Sage. Trickster, General, and War Monk are all kind of niche. He gets a great selection of melee classes at base (Berserker, Hero, Assassin) but Kellam!Inigo I'd say could go either magical or physical (with the downside more or less being the lower speed).

I'm saying physical as compared to Ricken, who passes better mods for magical use. You aren't wrong though.