PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Bunselpower]

Just sayin' but your Gerome has a +2 Mag mod and Tomefaire. That's hardly physical-locked.

Well shoot the horse and slap me silly, I forgot about Henry's mods. Gerome it is then for Lucina or Cynthia, whichever one Avatar decides not to marry.

That brings me back to Inigo. If I want to go physical, is it worth it to get him Stahl for Bowfaire, thus shuffling someone else to Panne or is Fred just as good?

Edited June 24, 2015 by Bunselpower

[Alastor15243]

Well shoot the horse and slap me silly, I forgot about Henry's mods. Gerome it is then for Lucina or Cynthia, whichever one Avatar decides not to marry.

That brings me back to Inigo. If I want to go physical, is it worth it to get him Stahl for Bowfaire, thus shuffling someone else to Panne or is Fred just as good?

Bowfaire is for snipers and assassins mostly when it comes to male units. Inigo will never be fast enough to be a great sniper and still have a proc, but assassin is an option. But frankly I don't enjoy putting faires on lead units who have multiple piercing weapon types, because you'll be using both of them equally depending on whether the enemy has aegis+ or pavise+

Inigo will be slower with Frederick than with Stahl, but he'll still not be negative speed, and he'll have everything else he needs to be a good physical galeboy. He makes a good paladin or assassin.

I usually pair him up with Severa, and here that actually seems like a good option. What you can do is because your Severa has one more speed than she needs to hit 75 speed as a wyvern lord with AS+2 and a berserker pairup, you can have Inigo pair up with her as a paladin, and with that same class and that AS+2 she'll still hit 75 speed with the 1 less speed bonus that paladin offers compared to berserker.

[Bunselpower]

Cool. That sounds like what I'll do then.

And now Tharja's husband is gone, gonna need a new one. Could it be Donnel, rising from the ashes to give Brady that dark flier pair up bonus?

[Alastor15243]

Cool. That sounds like what I'll do then.

And now Tharja's husband is gone, gonna need a new one. Could it be Donnel, rising from the ashes to give Brady that dark flier pair up bonus?

Donnel!Noire is... usable.

I've never used her because I always use Gaius!Noire. She's just too valuable as a thronie-killer on my no-brave runs for me to part with her for Gaius!Kjelle, since Kjelle, by sheer virtue of always having procstacking, handles not having Gaius much better than Noire does. But in theory the main problem I see with her is that she doesn't have procstacking. She just has Luna, so she'll whiff more often, but that's not gonna be a huge deal unless you're doing a challenge run.

Just to be clear, are you?

[Bunselpower]

Mmm, I was thinking about it sometime. That was gonna be my next line of questioning about the differences between them and what all changes. And then maybe what kinds of challenge runs there are.

[Vascela]

List of common restrictions/requirements you could consider

LTC/6 turn

100%

No paid dlc

No rallies

No braves

Low Deploy

And/or any combinations above. Or you can make something up. "No rescue" would be an example of something nobody really runs, but there's nothing holding you back from doing it just because nobody else does it. I don't think anyone but me takes 100% seriously anymore. And I only see Alastor talk about no braves (which in itself has proven to be quite longer to plan and more fun than expected). You could start small and go for just an LB ban, or you can go all the way and run no dlc/no rally. Just make sure you know what you're doing, and make sure you're having fun.

[Alastor15243]

List of common restrictions/requirements you could consider

LTC/6 turn

100%

No paid dlc

No rallies

No braves

Low Deploy

And/or any combinations above. Or you can make something up. "No rescue" would be an example of something nobody really runs, but there's nothing holding you back from doing it just because nobody else does it. I don't think anyone but me takes 100% seriously anymore. And I only see Alastor talk about no braves (which in itself has proven to be quite longer to plan and more fun than expected). You could start small and go for just an LB ban, or you can go all the way and run no dlc/no rally. Just make sure you know what you're doing, and make sure you're having fun.

Yeah, sorry that I never shut up about no-braves, it's just that so far that's the only one I do. I'm currently trying out no DLC though, building up my party for that on a new file.

What i've done so far in that regard is work out how to make a morgan who can survive one round of combat with, and double, anyone (Virion!Yarne!Morgan with Defender and a hero support), and now I'm trying to make some snipers fast enough to tackle the invincisorcs, since they'll be another huge pain. I've got that reasonably worked out thanks to Morgan's parents and the royal sisters. But beyond that I haven't got a clue what to build my party for.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Alastor15243

[Bunselpower]

I think if I were to do one, it would definitely be a no dlc run. I would be interested to figure something out for that. I figure I'm probably going to be on this game for a while since I'm not to sure about fates. Plus, theory crafting is like my favorite thing. That's why I play Pokemon so much.

So what are some other benchmarks for a no dlc run? Is it still comparable to the old ones for speed and other stats, or are they completely different? And are regular pairings acceptable still or, and I'm sure it's this way, ate some of them less effective than others?

Edited June 25, 2015 by Bunselpower

[Vascela]

In the hands of someone who knows how to play very well, your pairings themselves don't really mean anything. I v/v with Ursula supported by Nino with 0% dual strikes and she doesn't have galeforce. Whether or not I used Ursula or Morgan or Laurent to do that didn't matter because I'm very well educated on the map. We all have tools to become successful, so you shouldn't use something because it's successful. You should understand why something works for you and apply it. I'm not successful because of Vengeance; I'm successful because I know how to set up vengeance, maximize vantage, and understand when the right time to use player phase vengeance and so on.

Even in the simple scenario of rescue staves: if you hand me one, I know when to rescue, but I also know when to warp. Hand it to someone who doesn't know its full capabilities and they won't be able to succeed as well as I can.

My goal of this post is to try and ask you this: what do you find interesting or as a fun way to clear Apo? Because vengeance is by far the worst strategy you can use if you don't want to do any pregame calcs. Go proc stack and be at full power at the maps start. Knowing that you want to do no dlc, you should then consider the following options

1) Do I want to used faced units?

2) Do I want to do pregame calcs?

3) Do I care about consistency? I don't mind resetting once in a blue moon.

4) What are my favorite class options? Do I want to go down a magical route, do I want to go down a physical route? Or maybe I want a mixture.

Once you know how you want to play the game, then you can start to learn what you can sacrifice. It isn't just maxing. You have to have a min to follow suit. If you know with all your certainty that you want to use MaMU x Cordelia (random example), then you know you're giving up on certain 3rd gen mod Morgans, you know you aren't using FeMU and any of those options, etc.

Analysis requirements. List what you want, then work from there. All we know is you want to do no dlc apo. Once we have more information about how you want to be successful with your own personalized team, we can start to see what units hit X benchmarks and help you find a way to generate a solution that works for you.

[Bunselpower]

Thanks for for the response. I was just mainly concerned that if I ever did want to do a challenge run, that I would run into something like "Gaius!Kjelle is great, but only if you have limit breaker, otherwise she's worthless". If there is a particularly potent pairing that is great for a no dlc run that I could get at the cost of a lesser used playerthen I wanted to know. But it sounds as though, and I'm not sure why I thought otherwise (caution I guess), that it's not much bigger of a deal on pairings than it is with a full on run.

[JediZelda]

Since this question has to do with pairings (kinda sorta), I figure it's best to ask it here instead of making a whole new thread:

Is it necessary to max all stats for every character for an Apotheosis run? I'm referring to stats that wouldn't be as important to a character, such as Magic for a Berserker Yarne. It's a real pain to try to max out Magic for both him and his wife (Paladin Kjelle). If they're not going to use Magic at all, does it matter? Is there some sort of threshold I need to try to hit?

[Alastor15243]

Since this question has to do with pairings (kinda sorta), I figure it's best to ask it here instead of making a whole new thread:

Is it necessary to max all stats for every character for an Apotheosis run? I'm referring to stats that wouldn't be as important to a character, such as Magic for a Berserker Yarne. It's a real pain to try to max out Magic for both him and his wife (Paladin Kjelle). If they're not going to use Magic at all, does it matter? Is there some sort of threshold I need to try to hit?

If Yarne is marrying either the avatar or morgan, then yes, it is somewhat important to at least get their magic to 30 so that his wife gets the full magic bonus for ignis. It's a small thing, but yeah, if a stat is irrelevant for a unit, make sure it's irrelevant for their partner before you decide not to at least get it to 30.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Thanks for for the response. I was just mainly concerned that if I ever did want to do a challenge run, that I would run into something like "Gaius!Kjelle is great, but only if you have limit breaker, otherwise she's worthless". If there is a particularly potent pairing that is great for a no dlc run that I could get at the cost of a lesser used playerthen I wanted to know. But it sounds as though, and I'm not sure why I thought otherwise (caution I guess), that it's not much bigger of a deal on pairings than it is with a full on run.

Units who are good tend to stay good, but you'll need to play them differently. Pretty much everything I do, for example, hits exactly 75 Spd, so the moment you take one of the boosters off the table, all those standard sets go out the window. Th reasonable Spd thresholds you'll be aiming for will also be adjusted downwards (so instead of 69/75, you might aim for 60/66), and the units who had the best times hitting 75 before will still have the tools and flexibility to adjust.

Basically which units are good won't change too much but the sets and combinations you run on them will significantly.

[TheBakonBitz]

Picked up Awakening last weekend and I love it. I've played Fire Emblem (7) about halfway through before stopping a while back. I started a normal classic run and flew through it and would like a harder challenge. Using this guide I've come up with the pairing I want to use on hard classic:

Chrom with Sumia
Lissa with Ricken
Olivia with Libra/Virion
Maribelle with Lon'Qu
Sully with Donnel
Sumia with Chrom
Cordelia with Stahl
Cherche with Frederick
Panne with Kellam
Miriel with Gregor
Tharja with +Speed/-Luck Male Avatar
Nowi with Vaike

I really like the play style of +Speed/-Luck Male Avatar and looked online to see Tharja was the best choice for that asset/flaw combo, which works out really nice because I actually kind of like her personality. Since I replaced Gaius, would he work better with anyone else? Should I have Libra or Virion pair with Olivia? Is it cool to have Henry alone or does he fit with somebody?

After I clear hard I want to try lunatic. I heard it's very challenging and would like the best team possible. Using the same guide I've come up with:

Chrom with Sumia
Lissa with Ricken
Olivia with Libra/Virion
Maribelle with Male Avatar
Sully with Donnel
Sumia with Chrom
Cordelia with Stahl
Cherche with Frederick
Panne with Kellam
Miriel with Gregor
Tharja with Gaius
Nowi with Vaike

Which asset/flaw works best with Maribelle? Since I replaced Lon'Qu, does he fit better with someone else? Do those pairings look good? Thanks in advance and sorry for all the questions, but online there are so many conflicting ideas I wanted to get a definitive answer before starting.

Edited June 26, 2015 by TheBakonBitz

[Alastor15243]

Be warned. Stahl!Severa constantly looks like she just crawled through a sewer and she wants to beat the crap out of whoever put her up to it. Nah also does well with Stahl and Severa with Vaike, so you could switch them around.

Panne and Kellam isn't a very good pairing, I'd do Virion instead. Virion doesn't give Inigo any procs.

Also be advised that Brady needs the avatar pretty much the least of all the second generation characters, and honestly in most cases Morgan suffers from being 2nd gen instead of 3rd gen much more than most children benefit. Plus it means you can't have all of the 2nd gens paired up (The avatar can marry whichever one of the 13 is left unpaired) Most people here will recommend you pair Avatar up with a second gen, somebody with Aether if your avatar is male, otherwise a specially-bred Yarne, Gerome or Laurent if your avatar is female.

Finally, I'd check to see what you want your characters to be and who they'll be paired up with before finalizing these pairings. Oftentimes you'll find you might want to make Inigo physical since he's really the only galeboy who can go that way.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Alastor15243

[JayTheKing]

Who is the best s-rank partner for War Cleric Lissa?Stahl or Vaike?

[TheBakonBitz]

Be warned. Stahl!Severa constantly looks like she just crawled through a sewer and she wants to beat the crap out of whoever put her up to it. Nah also does well with Stahl and Severa with Vaike, so you could switch them around.

Panne and Kellam isn't a very good pairing, I'd do Virion instead. Virion doesn't give Inigo any procs.

Also be advised that Brady needs the avatar pretty much the least of all the second generation characters, and honestly in most cases Morgan suffers from being 2nd gen instead of 3rd gen much more than most children benefit. Plus it means you can't have all of the 2nd gens paired up (The avatar can marry whichever one of the 13 is left unpaired) Most people here will recommend you pair Avatar up with a second gen, somebody with Aether if your avatar is male, otherwise a specially-bred Yarne, Gerome or Laurent if your avatar is female.

Finally, I'd check to see what you want your characters to be and who they'll be paired up with before finalizing these pairings. Oftentimes you'll find you might want to make Inigo physical since he's really the only galeboy who can go that way.

Thanks for the reply, I may switch Vaike and Stahl around, but I've heard Stahl is the best father for Severa. Who do your recommend instead of Panne and Kellam? Did you mean do Panne and Virion or did you mean pair up Olivia and Virion. I would like my Inigo to be physical so that's why I was thinking Virion over Libra.

Edited June 26, 2015 by TheBakonBitz

[Bunselpower]

Units who are good tend to stay good, but you'll need to play them differently. Pretty much everything I do, for example, hits exactly 75 Spd, so the moment you take one of the boosters off the table, all those standard sets go out the window. Th reasonable Spd thresholds you'll be aiming for will also be adjusted downwards (so instead of 69/75, you might aim for 60/66), and the units who had the best times hitting 75 before will still have the tools and flexibility to adjust.

Basically which units are good won't change too much but the sets and combinations you run on them will significantly.

And I wouldn't expect anything else, but it's good to know that the pairings tend to stay mostly on par.

One final time, I have these pairs lined up, is there anything I can do to maximize effectiveness or efficiency? If I sacrifice someone's middling usefulness to maximize someone else's usefulness, I am all for it. I'll recruit all the kids, but if nah or somebody ends up on the trash heap I have no problem. I just don't think I can let avatar marry Cynthia, her voice is like sandpaper to my ears.

Anyway, here they are.

Chrom X Sumia

Lucina X +Mag -Def Avatar

Ricken X Lissa

Frederick X Olivia

Virion X Maribelle

Gaius X Sully

Lon'qu X Cordelia

Henry X Cherche

Stahl X Panne

Gregor X Miriel

Donnel X Tharja

Vaike X Nowi

With the kids paired up as such

Owain X Nah

Inigo X Kjelle

Brady X Noire

Cynthia X Gerome

Severa X Yarne

Morgan X Laurent

I got over excited and started playing last night, and Virion and Maribelle are ready to be married, so by the time someone reads this, I could already have pairs made.

[Vascela]

Something else you should keep track of is the number of faced units you are using. If you allocate X unit slots of your 20 to 2 rally bots, Chrom, Olivia, Avatar, Sumia, and 6 rescue bots (arbitrary number, it's personal preference), then you have room for 8 faced kids. A few kids aren't even potentially fielded in the first place, so why bother having those kids exist/have a parent you want elsewhere? Who cares about Inigo's potential if he isn't used?

And you might feel comfortable using 3-4 rally bots or be rescue heavy and use 7-9 bots for that. You should definitely reconsider what opportunity costs means for your playthrough. If you are dropping Severa (as an example, not as a recommendation), then it doesn't matter how good Lon'qu!Severa is; you can put Lon'qu somewhere he is actually doing something. Just something to think about.

[Alastor15243]

Thanks for the reply, I may switch Vaike and Stahl around, but I've heard Stahl is the best father for Severa. Who do your recommend instead of Panne and Kellam? Did you mean do Panne and Virion or did you mean pair up Olivia and Virion. I would like my Inigo to be physical so that's why I was thinking Virion over Libra.

Oh Stahl!Severa's quite good, it's just that her hair color is nightmarishly hideous.

Yes, I did mean Panne and Virion, that way Yarne can be a berserker with Hit+20, which is by far the best physical hard support setup in the game.

Virion does not make a good Inigo, because Inigo needs a proc, either luna or, if you don't mind the setup involved, vengeance. So Inigo's viable fathers are, for physical: Stahl, Chrom, Frederick, Kellam and Henry, and for magical, Ricken, Libra, Kellam again, and Henry again. Kellam's the worst on both lists due to his atrocious speed and poor stats in relevant areas (defense isn't very important usually in Apotheosis).

My favorite father for Inigo is Frederick because he's not very useful on anyone else, but on Inigo the strength and skill is appreciated, the speed penalty doesn't hurt him too much because he's still at least neutral in his speed mod with him, I much prefer Luna combined with Astra over vengeance because it's simply more manageable to use, he has all the skills to be a perfect dodgetank if you wanna do that (I don't), and to top it off, Frederick gives him great hair that suits him quite well.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Picked up Awakening last weekend and I love it. I've played Fire Emblem (7) about halfway through before stopping a while back. I started a normal classic run and flew through it and would like a harder challenge. Using this guide I've come up with the pairing I want to use on hard classic:

Fair warning: that guide is an offense against everything intellectual, and you're not even using it for its intended purpose (postgame/DLC, as opposed to an ingame run). So... I think that plan might crash and burn.

Basically, Awakening's main story gets harder the more units you use due to the way the enemy stats/AI and the exp formula work. On Hard, it's perfectly reasonable (and likely intended) for you to field the maximum possible number of units, but you'll get in trouble if you try to train more units than you can fit on a map at a time. Making pairings for every single parent is what you want to do when you want a full team of 13 children and Avatar to tackle the harder DLC maps (that's easy to field in one map), not for the main story.

If you're planning to do all that anyway, figure out your postgame pairs, and then play through the game with ~half of them, grinding the rest up later. If you're not planning to (though it's pretty fun and if you love Awakening is a very good investment), you'll need to downsize your team significantly.

Now Hard is pretty lenient about exactly who your pairs are and generally lets you use whoever you want with whoever else (though units like Ricken and Donnel might have some trouble). In general all you'll care about is making sure you don't have to train anyone who doesn't have a support for an extended amount of time- such as leaving your Avatar with nobody until Tharja rolls around (Chrom would be his standard backup, but he'll be busy early on with Sumia).

Using Frederick will also soak up a pretty large amount of exp to keep him relevant, so you might want to go with a smaller team if using him.

For Lunatic, which units are good and bad matters a good deal more, and you'll need to keep your team size smaller. For example, Ricken is borderline useless and will do more harm than good paired with Lissa (an otherwise great unit), and Maribelle will effectively pass no weapon ranks to Avatar's kids, a major liability that only Nowi and sometimes Panne can properly overcome.

What you should do for Lunatic is start by focusing on Chrom, Avatar and their wives (or just pair them together, but Avatar-M is better for making large teams on Lunatic(+)). Chrom's best option is Sumia, but a dance-ground Olivia can work too if he's really patient. Avatar has several good options: Nowi has incredible growths and with some planning ahead has almost no hump to get over, while Cordelia has a great class set and allows for a double Galeforce passdown (which, if done alongside Chrom x Sumia, allows you to have six GF units by Cht.14). Those two are the best, but Panne also can work out due to having an easy time getting off the ground and giving a son whom Lucina can marry for extreme stompiness and Lucina herself can be worth it if you save a lot of Paralogues for building supports.

After that, you can add a few more pairs- usually it's best to choose the female first and then pick a husband for them. Staff users are easier to bring along than combat units, so Lissa is a safe pick (she's almost strictly superior to Maribelle) and Libra is an easy drop-in husband for her. Olivia can dance to grind and build support but isn't too common outside of Chrom. Any of Panne, Nowi and Cordelia that don't marry Avatar are very strong. For good husbands, Gregor tends to work out well as a drop-in, and with some effort getting started, Stahl can really shine.

[Bunselpower]

Something else you should keep track of is the number of faced units you are using. If you allocate X unit slots of your 20 to 2 rally bots, Chrom, Olivia, Avatar, Sumia, and 6 rescue bots (arbitrary number, it's personal preference), then you have room for 8 faced kids. A few kids aren't even potentially fielded in the first place, so why bother having those kids exist/have a parent you want elsewhere? Who cares about Inigo's potential if he isn't used?

And you might feel comfortable using 3-4 rally bots or be rescue heavy and use 7-9 bots for that. You should definitely reconsider what opportunity costs means for your playthrough. If you are dropping Severa (as an example, not as a recommendation), then it doesn't matter how good Lon'qu!Severa is; you can put Lon'qu somewhere he is actually doing something. Just something to think about.

Was that to me? Because I already had thought about this and made sure that people like Owain and Noire got the most of what was left but didn't hinder anyone else. I don't think those pairs hindered anyone anyway.

[TheBakonBitz]

Oh Stahl!Severa's quite good, it's just that her hair color is nightmarishly hideous.

Yes, I did mean Panne and Virion, that way Yarne can be a berserker with Hit+20, which is by far the best physical hard support setup in the game.

Virion does not make a good Inigo, because Inigo needs a proc, either luna or, if you don't mind the setup involved, vengeance. So Inigo's viable fathers are, for physical: Stahl, Chrom, Frederick, Kellam and Henry, and for magical, Ricken, Libra, Kellam again, and Henry again. Kellam's the worst on both lists due to his atrocious speed and poor stats in relevant areas (defense isn't very important usually in Apotheosis).

My favorite father for Inigo is Frederick because he's not very useful on anyone else, but on Inigo the strength and skill is appreciated, the speed penalty doesn't hurt him too much because he's still at least neutral in his speed mod with him, I much prefer Luna combined with Astra over vengeance because it's simply more manageable to use, he has all the skills to be a perfect dodgetank if you wanna do that (I don't), and to top it off, Frederick gives him great hair that suits him quite well.

So if I pair Fred and Olivia which sounds great for a physical Inigo, who would be good to pair with Cherche, Kellam?

Fair warning: that guide is an offense against everything intellectual, and you're not even using it for its intended purpose (postgame/DLC, as opposed to an ingame run). So... I think that plan might crash and burn.

Basically, Awakening's main story gets harder the more units you use due to the way the enemy stats/AI and the exp formula work. On Hard, it's perfectly reasonable (and likely intended) for you to field the maximum possible number of units, but you'll get in trouble if you try to train more units than you can fit on a map at a time. Making pairings for every single parent is what you want to do when you want a full team of 13 children and Avatar to tackle the harder DLC maps (that's easy to field in one map), not for the main story.

If you're planning to do all that anyway, figure out your postgame pairs, and then play through the game with ~half of them, grinding the rest up later. If you're not planning to (though it's pretty fun and if you love Awakening is a very good investment), you'll need to downsize your team significantly.

Now Hard is pretty lenient about exactly who your pairs are and generally lets you use whoever you want with whoever else (though units like Ricken and Donnel might have some trouble). In general all you'll care about is making sure you don't have to train anyone who doesn't have a support for an extended amount of time- such as leaving your Avatar with nobody until Tharja rolls around (Chrom would be his standard backup, but he'll be busy early on with Sumia).

Using Frederick will also soak up a pretty large amount of exp to keep him relevant, so you might want to go with a smaller team if using him.

For Lunatic, which units are good and bad matters a good deal more, and you'll need to keep your team size smaller. For example, Ricken is borderline useless and will do more harm than good paired with Lissa (an otherwise great unit), and Maribelle will effectively pass no weapon ranks to Avatar's kids, a major liability that only Nowi and sometimes Panne can properly overcome.

What you should do for Lunatic is start by focusing on Chrom, Avatar and their wives (or just pair them together, but Avatar-M is better for making large teams on Lunatic(+)). Chrom's best option is Sumia, but a dance-ground Olivia can work too if he's really patient. Avatar has several good options: Nowi has incredible growths and with some planning ahead has almost no hump to get over, while Cordelia has a great class set and allows for a double Galeforce passdown (which, if done alongside Chrom x Sumia, allows you to have six GF units by Cht.14). Those two are the best, but Panne also can work out due to having an easy time getting off the ground and giving a son whom Lucina can marry for extreme stompiness and Lucina herself can be worth it if you save a lot of Paralogues for building supports.

After that, you can add a few more pairs- usually it's best to choose the female first and then pick a husband for them. Staff users are easier to bring along than combat units, so Lissa is a safe pick (she's almost strictly superior to Maribelle) and Libra is an easy drop-in husband for her. Olivia can dance to grind and build support but isn't too common outside of Chrom. Any of Panne, Nowi and Cordelia that don't marry Avatar are very strong. For good husbands, Gregor tends to work out well as a drop-in, and with some effort getting started, Stahl can really shine.

Thank you for the tips. I never thought having a smaller team would be beneficial, but it makes perfect sense to have a few good elite units. Having six Galeforce units by chapter 14 sounds amazing, I'll definitely try that when I start Lunatic. When would you recommend adding more people to the roster (by level, chapter, etc.) and what is a good final size for the team? Lastly is + Speed/- Luck still a good choice for Lunatic/Pairing with Cordelia or is there a better choice?

[Czar_Yoshi]

Typical good assets for Lunatic(+) are Def and Spd. Spd lets you do more if you know what you're doing, Def makes the mode less of a headache if you don't. -Lck and -Skl tend to be the least intrusive flaws, but even if you're good at stacking Dge to negate enemy crits, -Lck will still annoy you earlygame, and come back to haunt you midgame if you want to pick up Armsthrift. Skl tends not to matter at all later, but Thunder's hitrate will be shaky early on so you'll need to avoid situations where you're relying on it hitting to avoid death.

Ideally you'll stick with just Avatar until Cht.2, add your second unit late Cht.2 or early Cht.3, and once you're through Cht.6 (focusing on Avatar, but giving stray kills to everyone you'll want to raise later) get all your parents going. The game takes a big dip in difficulty during Cht.7-11 to give you time to build your team and prepare for what's coming.

[Alastor15243]

So if I pair Fred and Olivia which sounds great for a physical Inigo, who would be good to pair with Cherche, Kellam?

I feel really bad for the armor knights in pairing games. Like Arden, Kellam's pretty much a terrible option for anyone, really.

Gerome either wants somebody with Hit+20, or Henry. Personally, Henry's my favorite father for Gerome because then he lets Gerome do pretty much what Yarne can do: run berserker without missing constantly, as long as you equip him with the anathema he'll get from Henry. Berserker is an obscenely useful hard support class, and you'll want as many boys as possible who can run it for your physical units. Either Cynthia or Lucina will definitely want a berserker husband because they're fast enough to hit 75 speed (Fast enough to double everything) as snipers, who are really useful in apotheosis thanks to longbow and double bow access. They're also just generally useful for making certain physical girls stronger and faster.