PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Czar_Yoshi]

Well, I agree with most people,HenryxCherche has worked out. great for me particularly because I like tomebreaker as a skill to.pass Gerome along with Swordbreaker from Cherche so he can serve as a nice tank then grab Axefaire and Sol with Slowburn and go straight to Apothosis.

There are only 3 Tome enemies without Hawkeye in Secret Apo, don't bother with Tomebreaker. Slow Burn actually gives no boosts after turn 15 so don't bother with it either.

If you do want to dodgetank in Apo, use Lon'qu!Severa, who gets all the Breakers, Patience and Avo+10 along with a +6 Spd mod (and who you're already getting). The two places dodgetanking really is a good idea is against the Snipers on wave 2/5 and Anna.

Hi all, this is my first playthrough for Fire Emblem: Awakening and I was hoping to have you all review my pairings.

Chrom x Olivia = Lucina & Inigo

Fred x Panne = Yarne

Stahl x Cordelia = Severa

Vaike x Cherche = Gerome

Donnel x Sully = Kjelle

Lon'qu x Miriel = Laurent

Ricken x Lissa = Owain

Gauius x Tharja = Noire

Gregor x Nowi = Nah

Libra x Maribelle = Brady

Henry x Sumia = Cynthia

Now my big problem here is that I'm trying to find the best pair for my male avatar. He's +Strength -Luck and I wasn't sure who'd be the best pairing for him. Suggestions?

First playthroughs are first playthroughs and you don't get another, so just enjoy the game and don't worry about pairings until your second or third. You probably won't even get half the children without grinding, another thing to avoid on first playthroughs. Pair units because you like them, not because they'll do well postgame.

If you're going to go for perfect pairs anyway, Lucina fits your asset/flaw well and is Avatar's best pairing in general.

Edited May 10, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[BANRYU]

First playthroughs are first playthroughs and you don't get another, so just enjoy the game and don't worry about pairings until your second or third. You probably won't even get half the children without grinding, another thing to avoid on first playthroughs. Pair units because you like them, not because they'll do well postgame.

If you're going to go for perfect pairs anyway, Lucina fits your asset/flaw well and is Avatar's best pairing in general.

^ This. Pair who you like for hair colors or whatever floats your boat and enjoy yourself, yo.

[Darturu]

There are only 3 Tome enemies without Hawkeye in Secret Apo, don't bother with Tomebreaker. Slow Burn actually gives no boosts after turn 15 so don't bother with it either.

If you do want to dodgetank in Apo, use Lon'qu!Severa, who gets all the Breakers, Patience and Avo+10 along with a +6 Spd mod (and who you're already getting). The two places dodgetanking really is a good idea is against the Snipers on wave 2/5 and Anna.

First playthroughs are first playthroughs and you don't get another, so just enjoy the game and don't worry about pairings until your second or third. You probably won't even get half the children without grinding, another thing to avoid on first playthroughs. Pair units because you like them, not because they'll do well postgame.

If you're going to go for perfect pairs anyway, Lucina fits your asset/flaw well and is Avatar's best pairing in general.

^ This. Pair who you like for hair colors or whatever floats your boat and enjoy yourself, yo.

Heh, thanks guys. Been playing RPG's for 20 some odd years and I tend to try to be a perfectionist about my playthroughs.

[PacoHeavyFire]

There are only 3 Tome enemies without Hawkeye in Secret Apo, don't bother with Tomebreaker. Slow Burn actually gives no boosts after turn 15 so don't bother with it either.

If you do want to dodgetank in Apo, use Lon'qu!Severa, who gets all the Breakers, Patience and Avo+10 along with a +6 Spd mod (and who you're already getting). The two places dodgetanking really is a good idea is against the Snipers on wave 2/5 and Anna.

First playthroughs are first playthroughs and you don't get another, so just enjoy the game and don't worry about pairings until your second or third. You probably won't even get half the children without grinding, another thing to avoid on first playthroughs. Pair units because you like them, not because they'll do well postgame.

If you're going to go for perfect pairs anyway, Lucina fits your asset/flaw well and is Avatar's best pairing in general.

I never said I wanted those skills for Apo,I meant that whike you build skills, those skills are really useful, like in Mire or.Dark Flier heavy chapter

The skills i try to have for Apo in any are Sol, or Luna, Galeforce, Faire skilks, Armstrifht,and as fillers Quick Burn, Lifetaker, maybe Renewal. Thing is things like Vantage I think are obsolete in Apo, for example, I always try to.he the one to.initiate.battle

Edited May 11, 2014 by PacoHeavyFire

[MelonGx]

There are only 3 Tome enemies without Hawkeye in Secret Apo, don't bother with Tomebreaker. Slow Burn actually gives no boosts after turn 15 so don't bother with it either.

Sometimes the Berserkers miss at those LCK 70~99 Sorcerers.

I guess Ill read it but just for curiosoty, the thing. Is I dont.consider Apotheosis hard, I mean... I've cleard both paths about5 times with different parents children cmbination and for the.most.part I think you could use anything and do well.

The thing is once I got yelled at for using a ChromxMU(+Mag -Lck) Morgan with L Breaker, Sol, Tomefaire, Galeforce, And Rightful King because apparently that makes me stupid. After that I stopped thinking there are BEST parent/children combinations,I just like seeing everyones opinions

You could use anything = True

Do well = Not so true. It depends on player's standard.

People in this thread believe that one-strike-KOing every unit is the most efficient method for ordinary Apotheosis runs.

Pairing optimization is just for providing children to be available to one-strike-KO Apo enemies & making the one-strike-KO easier.

So that's why people in this thread suggests achieving a basic skillset for all children such as Gale + Proc + suitable class + good mods (+Weaponfaire) for leading units, Weaponfaire + suitable class + good mods (+Agg) for pure supports, Vantage + Vengeance + Tome class (+Lucina as wife) for Apo Tanks, as their standard.

Edited May 11, 2014 by MelonGx

[BANRYU]

Heh, thanks guys. Been playing RPG's for 20 some odd years and I tend to try to be a perfectionist about my playthroughs.

I totally understand because I'm the same way, but trust me, you don't want to be a perfectionist first time lol. Trying to do too much of that nonsense ruined the game for me. Also, I highly, highly recommend avoiding grinding or doing the Risen encounters. I did way too many of those, and many of the lategame chapters had zero difficulty and zero fun as a result.

[Emerald Ink]

I dunno, once I got the hang of what I was doing, it was kind of fun to just blaze through the latter portion of the game during my first run. I remember feeling particularly epic when my avatar, as a Dark Knight and without any pair-up bonuses, just charged right up to Walhart and one-shotted him. Of course, that was normal difficulty - higher difficulties probably are still gonna require at least a little grinding if you're new to the series like I am.

[BANRYU]

Maybe it's just because I'm such an old-timer about it lol.

Okay so I've been wondering about trying to get my Nah a better dad (Vaike is currently the planned one though it's certainly up for debate).

For reference, here are my pairs with debatable parentage :

- Lissa x Libra

- Miriel x Stahl

- Maribelle x Ricken

- Cordelia x Lon'qu

- Cherche x Gregor

- Nowi x Vaike

- unused dads: Virion, Kellam

Right now I'm considering Ricken as a chief candidate, since he would give her a slightly better skill set in Sage and GK's Luna and Brady already gets those anyway. If I do the Ricken thing, I'd probably do Maribelle x Virion, Cherche x Vaike, and Miriel x Gregor, making Stahl single once again (which seems a shame but eh).

I think the main pairings that might be suspect here are Nowi x Ricken and Maribelle x Virion (though IIRC someone posted this pairing a few pages back and it seemed acceptable). Thoughts?

[MRDRHAWK]

Vaike's actually considered to be about the best non-MU dad for maximum tanking and to maximize her usability since Kjelle & Noire are more priority for Galefarks inheritance.

Ricken's aight to pass Sage, but you already get GK for Nah anyways due to Vaike's daughter inheritance, which also gives her the best end class for a physical unit in Hero. Plus, his mods are better elsewhere (like, say, on Miriel).

If you really want Vaike elsewhere then Kellam!Nah is supposedly super good but idk all that that pairing really has over Vaike!Nah is Sage access which doesn't matter much with her shit magic mods with Kellam as a dad (or does Kellam pass a neutral magic mod? idk) so I just don't bother.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Oy, Nah already has Sage.

[PacoHeavyFire]

Vaike's actually considered to be about the best non-MU dad for maximum tanking and to maximize her usability since Kjelle & Noire are more priority for Galefarks inheritance.

Ricken's aight to pass Sage, but you already get GK for Nah anyways due to Vaike's daughter inheritance, which also gives her the best end class for a physical unit in Hero. Plus, his mods are better elsewhere (like, say, on Miriel).

If you really want Vaike elsewhere then Kellam!Nah is supposedly super good but idk all that that pairing really has over Vaike!Nah is Sage access which doesn't matter much with her shit magic mods with Kellam as a dad (or does Kellam pass a neutral magic mod? idk) so I just don't bother.

Agree, Vaike is an amazing choice fir Nowi, Nah becomes incredibly better with all the.class inheritancr she receives from Vaike.

Also, what do you mean by OHKO? Is that possible in Apo? What I do is pack forged brave weapons for my lead unit and brave and beast killers, maybe armourslayers for my support units, then just kill everything in one turn, idk if thats similar or...

[BANRYU]

Yeah allright, I suppose I'll stick with what I've got then. I'm not sure how I forgot that Vaike!Nah gets Great Knight, but Luna access was one of the main reasons I was considering Ricken (that, and a magical Nah). e___@ Derp.

Thanks guys.

[Raftina]

Vaike!Nah is usually better as a general than a GK. You get the same str pairup bonus, but general has better str and skl.

[BANRYU]

So Nah as a support General would make better use of her Axefaire than something like a Hero or WL, huh?

Edited May 11, 2014 by BANRYU

[Raftina]

Compared to WL:

General's +4 str is much better than WL's +1 str pairup bonus. Use WL only if you want to use flying movement to cart around the other character.

Compared to Hero:

Check whether the spd bonus will help the husband 2x enemies that he otherwise can't.

[Czar_Yoshi]

OK, so first off General gives Str+3 and GK/WL give Str+4. However...

Nah is locked as a hard support due to no Galeforce, and she's female so she has to marry a Galeboy to be of any use in hyper-offensive teams. That means she needs to marry Morgan, Owain, Brady or Inigo. If Morgan-M is present, Lucina has dibs on him, and Brady and Owain are very magical, so a physical Nah must marry Inigo, who, like Nah, can be either physical or magical. Since magical is better then physical (ranges braves and lower enemy Res in general), why have them be physical? Magical Nah has a greater range of workable fathers due to being unscrewable (she already has Mage/Sage and +1 Mag from Nowi), and can marry Inigo, Owain or Brady which both gives you more teambuilding leeway and avoids Inigo and Nah's bad supports.

My preferred Nah is Virion!Nah@Sage (LB/TF/All+2/Mag+2/Skl+2).

[Raftina]

OK, so first off General gives Str+3 and GK/WL give Str+4. However...

Compared to WL:

General's +4 str is much better than WL's +1 str pairup bonus.

These numbers actually refer to the fact that generals' str cap is 4 higher than WLs' (50 vs 46), and WLs' str pairup bonus is 1 higher than generals'.

[MelonGx]

Stahl x Panne

If Lissa, Olivia, Cordelia, Cherche, Miriel these 5 girls are all paired without Stahl, I'll suggest pairing Stahl x Panne and bench Panne's fiance (probably Frederick).

Reason: Hard support Berserkers do need hit boost skills on Apo SR Sorcerers, Berserkers, Boss Sniper & Anna.

Edited May 12, 2014 by MelonGx

[tuvarkz]

Assuming you are planning on sending Yarne against any of them that is.

[Duke of Dozel]

Yarne can handle a fight by himself, but since he lacks galeforce, VV, and lacks a great magic mod, he's destined for support. Because Yarne already has most of the classes he needs from Panne, all he really wants is a good supporting class, and it's a waste if you give any Berserker father to him, since they are needed elsewhere.

I haven't done StahlxPanne yet, but he does get GK, so thats something...

[BANRYU]

@ Czar Yosh: If I didn't clarify, we're assuming that I'm going with physical Axefaire Nah for my current run. I appreciate the suggestion, but I think I'll try to go with the former.

StahlxPanne sounds good in theory if he's not being used as a dad... He loses the Wyvern tree and Pavgis but gets Vantage and Sniper, huh.

Well, here are their mods to compare:

Fred: Str +5 / Mag -2 / Skl +5 / Spd +2 / Lck +0 / Def +4 / Res +0

Stahl: Str +5 / Mag -1 / Skl +4 / Spd +4 / Lck -2 / Def +4 / Res -1

TBH I don't really know what a difference the -1 skill/+2speed/-2Luck/-1res makes for someone who is basically a support unit. I suppose Skill is the only one that matters there. But heck even for a frontline unit, Fred's mods seem slightly better.

EDIT: PS, what's the recommended skillset for Manakete Morgan (no Limit Breaker)? I assume something like Gale/Luna/Swordbreaker/Ignis/All+2 or Wyrmsbane or something, right?

Alternatively, is VV viable for ManaMorgan?

Edited May 13, 2014 by BANRYU

[Raftina]

The point of using Stahl is to get access to Hit +20 to improve berserker's low hit.

VV is bad for manaketes because VV depends on killing the enemy before they can strike. Manaketes can't use a brave effect weapon, so they are essentially dealing half as much damage as a tome user. They are significantly more likely to fail to kill an enemy before the enemy strikes and are thus significantly more likely to die.

[MelonGx]

Berserker's hit:

[(35+Mod+LB+Rallies+Tonic+All+2)*3+(45+Mod+LB+Rallies+Tonic+All+2)]/2+ForgedBraveAxeHit

=[(35+4+10+10+2+2)*3+(45-1+10+14+2+2)]/2+75

=205

Enemies Avo:

Anna: (70*3+65)/2+20=157 --- 205+10+15-157=73

Berserker: (64*3+65)/2=128 (+20=148 for Wave 4's) --- 205+10-128=87 (-20=67 for Wave 4's)

Boss Sniper: (70*3+60)/2=135 --- 205+10-135=80

Boss Sorcerer: (60*3+99)/2=139 --- 205+10-139=76

Sorcerer: (55*3+70)/2=117 --- 205+10-117=98

That means Berserker needs Hit+33 for 100% hit everything, or Hit+24 for 100% hit non-throne bosses.

If use breaker to deal with them, you need 4 breakers.

Edited May 13, 2014 by MelonGx

[Erielle]

Hello. I'm new here. Registered just to get advice. I'm on my first playthrough of Awakening. First game of the series I've played (don't hate me). However, I'm a bit of a completionist and a perfectionist, so I've been trying to put together good pairings. I had a pairing set up I was satisfied with... but I then I hit a snag: I didn't know that you couldn't have any support levels on Chrom with any of his potential partners if you wanted him to pair with Olivia. I could easily just marry off Sumia and Sully, who are both at C with Chrom and I have no support status with Chrom and Maribelle. However, MU is also at C and I was going to pair her with Laurent....

Now, normally, I'd just start over, but I just ended up starting over as it was the day before yesterday because I was stupid and didn't know that I could recruit Kellam and Gaius. Well, I found that out after playing and grinding for 17 hours (admittedly some of that was leaving my 3DS on because I'd gotten distracted by something else...) and now I'm finally back to the point where I was, but at 10 hours in, since I skipped all cutscenes and whatnot. I really don't want to start over again. So much grinding. D:

Anyway, here is how I was going to set up the pairings before this snag... If anyone has any ideas to fix this without too much trouble, I'd be grateful (would preferably want to not marry MU to Chrom because isn't it better to have MU marry one of the children?). Oh, as a note, MU is female with +magic -strength.

Thank you. :)

http://imageshack.com/a/img836/8784/yotd.jpg

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm playing casual on normal difficulty (I've never played a tactics sort of game before...) ... so I suppose I don't have to minmax... but... I'm so used to doing it for other games. >_<

Edited May 16, 2014 by Erielle

[BANRYU]

Hello. I'm new here. Registered just to get advice. I'm on my first playthrough of Awakening. First game of the series I've played (don't hate me). However, I'm a bit of a completionist and a perfectionist, so I've been trying to put together good pairings. I had a pairing set up I was satisfied with... but I then I hit a snag: I didn't know that you couldn't have any support levels on Chrom with any of his potential partners if you wanted him to pair with Olivia. I could easily just marry off Sumia and Sully, who are both at C with Chrom and I have no support status with Chrom and Maribelle. However, MU is also at C and I was going to pair her with Laurent....

Now, normally, I'd just start over, but I just ended up starting over as it was the day before yesterday because I was stupid and didn't know that I could recruit Kellam and Gaius. Well, I found that out after playing and grinding for 17 hours (admittedly some of that was leaving my 3DS on because I'd gotten distracted by something else...) and now I'm finally back to the point where I was, but at 10 hours in, since I skipped all cutscenes and whatnot. I really don't want to start over again. So much grinding. D:

Anyway, here is how I was going to set up the pairings before this snag... If anyone has any ideas to fix this without too much trouble, I'd be grateful (would preferably want to not marry MU to Chrom because isn't it better to have MU marry one of the children?). Oh, as a note, MU is female with +magic -strength.

Thank you. :)

http://imageshack.com/a/img836/8784/yotd.jpg

There's nothing wrong with Awakening being your first Fire Emblem game. If it was your first, it was your first and that's that. If you like it, maybe you'll look into the other games lol. No pressure, of course. Welcome to the forums, by the way.

I'll tell you what we tell most people who do their first run-through of this game: Just enjoy it and have fun. Pair whoever you want and don't pay too much mind to optimization until you've beaten the game at least once. (As someone who also obsesses over optimization, I can attest that trying too hard to do that and grinding too much kind of ruins the fun of the game just a little.) For someone who's a beginner to the series, you especially just want to spends some time building experience with it, I think. Take your time and do your best to recruit everybody, then worry about optimizing after you beat the game at least once or something.

Edited May 16, 2014 by BANRYU