PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Czar_Yoshi]

First off, Chrom and Lucina's passdowns are static. They'll always pass the same skill no matter what. Morgan can't get DS+, ever.

Second, your Morgan is not getting to 100% DS without DS+ as a Sage. He needs LB/V/V/TF/GF and a Celica's Gale to run a VV set, and has at best 43(base) +6(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +8(Sniper support) +2(tonic) =79 Skl. In order to hit 100% DS, he'd need a Sniper support with 81 Skl. A standard Sniper would have 48(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(Skl+2) +2(tonic) =74- you'd need a +7 Skl mod on your support, and you can't get that at all without Avatar's genes, let alone on a Sniper.

Finally, VV pairs tend to completely monopolize a team and spares are useless. Just one (once it gets set up) obsoletes all the rest and most of your normal pairs, too. So going for multiples doesn't carry any benefit.

And Sage x Sage is what you'd be running for maximum VV performance, not maximum optimization. There are many different ways to optimize and while I'm not comfortable claiming that any one of them is the best, if I did it definitely wouldn't be VV.

[Alastor15243]

Hey Czar, when you say that you feel Lucina!Morgan is the best Morgan, is this accounting for the implications of having a male Morgan, namely having one more attack every turn on apotheosis, or are you just comparing the performance of the best female morgan and the best male morgan in a vacuum?

[Soule]

First off, Chrom and Lucina's passdowns are static. They'll always pass the same skill no matter what. Morgan can't get DS+, ever.

Second, your Morgan is not getting to 100% DS without DS+ as a Sage. He needs LB/V/V/TF/GF and a Celica's Gale to run a VV set, and has at best 43(base) +6(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +8(Sniper support) +2(tonic) =79 Skl. In order to hit 100% DS, he'd need a Sniper support with 81 Skl. A standard Sniper would have 48(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(Skl+2) +2(tonic) =74- you'd need a +7 Skl mod on your support, and you can't get that at all without Avatar's genes, let alone on a Sniper.

Finally, VV pairs tend to completely monopolize a team and spares are useless. Just one (once it gets set up) obsoletes all the rest and most of your normal pairs, too. So going for multiples doesn't carry any benefit.

And Sage x Sage is what you'd be running for maximum VV performance, not maximum optimization. There are many different ways to optimize and while I'm not comfortable claiming that any one of them is the best, if I did it definitely wouldn't be VV.

Hmm i see. I saw a post somewhere saying that you could get 3 VV pairs with FeMu x Chrom, though the last pair needed a DLC char. Do you happen to remember the third team?

What are other team setups i should look into? Are there any others with the sheer synergy of VV? "Novel" setups i mean.

Beyond that, if there is no use for more than one tank... I dunno. You always run more than one infini-tank to speedclear elite areas in other games in order to clear multiple areas at one time. The closest thing to VV i've seen would be the Perma-Shadow-Form Assasin tank. You would run 5 tanks in an 8 man team with the other 3 being support for the labyrinth area tank (My personal favorite job as it was the hardest XD), lab being the only area you couldnt solo with a perma tank.

Are elite areas in this game really either that linear or that underpowered?

Oh yes. Something else i meant to ask.

Most of the downsides i've seen to luci being the VV tank as opposed to support is the fact that she would only have one free skill slot. With sniper support, couldnt she replace DS+ with something else?

Um, also what did you mean by "Magical dual strikes on a Longbow"? I looked through bows and I didn't see any that inflicted magic damage

Edited October 3, 2014 by Soule

[Czar_Yoshi]

Hmm i see. I saw a post somewhere saying that you could get 3 VV pairs with FeMu x Chrom, though the last pair needed a DLC char. Do you happen to remember the third team?

You won't be getting any reliable DSes from DLC characters because they can't support.

What are other team setups i should look into? Are there any others with the sheer synergy of VV? "Novel" setups i mean.

Well, I'm working on a very unique team built around having 8 pairs with 100% DS, 8 mov, and Faires on everyone, but that's not exactly a standard novel setup...

Beyond that, if there is no use for more than one tank... I dunno. You always run more than one infini-tank to speedclear elite areas in other games in order to clear multiple areas at one time. The closest thing to VV i've seen would be the Perma-Shadow-Form Assasin tank. You would run 5 tanks in an 8 man team with the other 3 being support for the labyrinth area tank (My personal favorite job as it was the hardest XD), lab being the only area you couldnt solo with a perma tank.

Are elite areas in this game really either that linear or that underpowered?

It has a little more to do with how Rallybots and the AI work. In order to be useful, you want your units to be rallied constantly (+10 to all stats and a bit more), which requires two defenseless units to follow them around everywhere. Because of this, it's extremely helpful to move your units in packs, which limits the utility of spreading out. The AI is also overly fond of Zerg rushes, so you don't have to go to it- it'll go to you.

Oh yes. Something else i meant to ask.

Most of the downsides i've seen to luci being the VV tank as opposed to support is the fact that she would only have one free skill slot. With sniper support, couldnt she replace DS+ with something else?

It's not as simple as "use Sniper/Sage, get 100%". In order to have 100% DS, you need an S support and 160 combined Skl between the lead and support unit. DS+ lowers that threshold to 120 (so an average of 60 instead of 80). To hit 80 Skl on both units, you'll want LB and Rally (+20 each), leaving you to hit 60 with your class base, mods, +Skl skills and tonics, and a pairup boost (which only one unit gets). Even if you're using Sniper x Sniper, you have to work for 100% DS- Sage x Sniper is more of a "barely possible" thing than "standard option". You cannot just throw two units of the right class together and expect them to have 100% without LB, Rally and DS+.

Um, also what did you mean by "Magical dual strikes on a Longbow"? I looked through bows and I didn't see any that inflicted magic damage

Lead attacks with a Bow to hit Def, support unit attacks with a Tome and hits Res.

Sorry if that's brief, there's this thing called Smash happening right now...

[Soule]

Sorry if that's brief, there's this thing called Smash happening right now...

Lol no worries bro. I'm figuring it out. Doing pretty good.

Kinda like FeMu x Chrom VV with chrom as a Dread Lord. Kicking some ass.

Would Vengance on a support character activate based on the lead characters HP? How does that work?

Edited October 3, 2014 by Soule

[Roivann]

Lol no worries bro. I'm figuring it out. Doing pretty good.

Kinda like FeMu x Chrom VV with chrom as a Dread Lord. Kicking some ass.

Would Vengance on a support character activate based on the lead characters HP? How does that work?

Vengeance can't activate on a support character.

[Soule]

Bleh that ending was... unsatisfying... :/

Heh oh well XD

[Soule]

how's the new smash if i can ask in this thread? Any good? worth 40 bucks? I was kinda worried about how the controls would transition to the 3ds. Its definitely not any form of competitive controller XD

[OTheFool]

how's the new smash if i can ask in this thread? Any good? worth 40 bucks? I was kinda worried about how the controls would transition to the 3ds. Its definitely not any form of competitive controller XD

1. It's great. The controls might take some time to get used to, but they're pretty good, in my opinion.

2. Probably shouldn't post this here. Go over to the smash bros forum.

In other news, how does Maribelle x Chrom fare? Any good? How's Chrom!Brady? Maribelle's the only person I haven't married Chrom to yet.

[Czar_Yoshi]

how's the new smash if i can ask in this thread? Any good? worth 40 bucks? I was kinda worried about how the controls would transition to the 3ds. Its definitely not any form of competitive controller XD

There's a whole subforum for Smash on this site here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showforum=26

I've been playing it all day. There's a demo if you want to try it out before sinking any money into it. The 3ds's a/b/x buttons start to get painful after a few hours, but the circle pad actually works really well.

In other news, how does Maribelle x Chrom fare? Any good? How's Chrom!Brady? Maribelle's the only person I haven't married Chrom to yet.

Brady doesn't care, Lucina loves it. It's kind of a pain to do ingame because Maribelle comes stafflocked, but is a very solid choice postgame.

[Rydia]

I have two! One of them is Henry!Cherce and the other one is Mu!Maribelle.

Because I'd love to have a great Brady and I do really wonder what skillset and stats should I pick for the father in a lunatic run to have both a good Brady and a good Morgan. I mean, how to optimize them? I will have MAribelle passing down GF only to Brady, which skill should I give from her mother? Or the father? I have to ask because I generally play as a woman and the only time I married Maribelle was... in my first run, I think? And I don't even remember how the brothers were back then.

In other news, how does Maribelle x Chrom fare? Any good? How's Chrom!Brady? Maribelle's the only person I haven't married Chrom to yet.

I'm a huge Maribelle and Chrom supporter so let me say this: it's a great pairing. People say Lucina isn't good as Olivia's daughter often but Maribelle gives her access to lifetaker, galeforce and a good magic stats. She makes her more versatile than Olivia!Lucina (who is physical oriented) and good as Sumia's. She gets access to Renewal (war cleric), dual support + and lifetaker, she has Aether she... aargh, she's just a wonderful magic user.

And, of course, better than Sully's Lucina... because when you marry Chrom and Sully you screw up two units at once so... yeah :/ Even if their support is great.

Talking about Brady... well, Chrom!Brady is a good Brady, not the best one but a good unit. Heck, it's basically impossible to screw up such a great unit :s Brady could be a random npc's son and he'd still be a broken unit, he needs nothing but to be to shine. It's a waste of rightful king, that's true, but if you marry him you can basically build one of the strongest Morgans in the whole game (My opinion, of course. And you need a +Luck/-Str avatar). You have a chance to build a unit with an insanely high activation of Miracle, even more with pair up... so you can basically get a powerhouse.

Also, Maribelle and Chrom's support is just lovely in my opinion, I'd still do it even without a good child-combination, just make sure to pass down Brady Galeforce from Maribelle

Edited October 4, 2014 by Rydia

[Czar_Yoshi]

I have two! One of them is Henry!Cherce and the other one is Mu!Maribelle.

Because I'd love to have a great Brady and I do really wonder what skillset and stats should I pick for the father in a lunatic run to have both a good Brady and a good Morgan. I mean, how to optimize them? I will have MAribelle passing down GF only to Brady, which skill should I give from her mother? Or the father? I have to ask because I generally play as a woman and the only time I married Maribelle was... in my first run, I think? And I don't even remember how the brothers were back then.

That's extremely hard to read. What exactly are you asking for?

I don't recommend Maribelle x anyone in Lunatic.

Miracle isn't a good skill. Unless you have 100% activation it's completely useless postgame, and anyway defense =/= power. Your Morgan may be able to take one more hit under random circumstances, but it has a ton less KOing power than others, and that's what matters.

[Alastor15243]

Hey Czar, when you say that you feel Lucina!Morgan is the best Morgan, is this accounting for the implications of having a male Morgan, namely having one more attack every turn on apotheosis, or are you just comparing the performance of the best female morgan and the best male morgan in a vacuum?

Just repeating this in case you didn't see it

[Rydia]

That's extremely hard to read. What exactly are you asking for?

I don't recommend Maribelle x anyone in Lunatic.

Miracle isn't a good skill. Unless you have 100% activation it's completely useless postgame, and anyway defense =/= power. Your Morgan may be able to take one more hit under random circumstances, but it has a ton less KOing power than others, and that's what matters.

My apologies, I'm really tired and I'm messing up stuff here, I still have difficulties when it comes to express myself in english. I... I don't even know why I wrote such a thing, it's too messy even for my standards D:

I mean: I'm looking for a good setup for Henry!Gerome (I know it's not optimal but I like to experiment) and a good combination to get a good Brady/Morgan from a Male unit (I have this terrible habit to delete old files all the time and start new ones all the time as soon as I finish them. So I re-restarted the game). I usually play as a female so it's... pretty much a new thing for me and I'm not used to worry too much about male!Robin's child optimization.

For Lucky Morgan... he can be really good and MIracle is very loved around when it comes to him. And ew people already created pretty solid tanky versions of the little boy.

Mine is a bit different, a little more powerful oriented and I don't pair him with Owain- anyway even without a 100% activation rate Miracle was a great support skill that saved me more than once. And he was a galeforced child paired with another galeforced strong child and I couldn't really complain.

Also, with Morgan you can pretty much get an almost 100% activation never did it because with the game not being competitive I can offer myself a little... bit of relax? Anyway I completed postgame on lunatic with Chrom!Maribelle and I think she's great :/

Edited October 5, 2014 by Rydia

[Czar_Yoshi]

Just repeating this in case you didn't see it

Well, I was specifically using a partial vacuum (Avatar's performance is taken into consideration, but not the overall team's). But I'd stand by my statement even if it was the whole team.

Here's the thing about attacks per turn: they have diminishing returns. Apo's enemies tend to come in groups of five (or three). Generally, your units only have a large enough movement range to reach one group from where they start out (your units will likely start together due to rallies)- you're going to have to wipe out the closest pack (5 attacks minimum), and you're probably going to want to take down a second pack: have your Galepairs kill one unit in the first pack, then move on to the second. You'd need 10 apt to pull that off. Anything more than that, though... Well, you're going to run out of units to Gale off of (and some enemies are just in better positions for this than others- you can't count on having one that works). Your units likely will still be able to do something (grab a kill someone else missed) but in general you're going to see pairs sitting around with nothing to do when your team has over 10 apt (hence why I designed my 100% DS team to have a focus on high movement and be able to operate off only one set of Rallies).

I'm not saying having more attacks is bad, but once you're over 10 GF becomes something conceivable to sacrifice instead of an automatic must-have. My 100% DS team would suffer massively if I tried to get GF back on Noire, and I'm also strongly considering dropping it on Owain. So in Morgan's case, I would indeed pick Aether and awesome parents over an extra Galeforce and slightly higher Atk mods.

I mean: I'm looking for a good setup for Henry!Gerome (I know it's not optimal but I like to experiment) and a good combination to get a good Brady/Morgan from a Male unit (I have this terrible habit to delete old files all the time and start new ones all the time as soon as I finish them. So I re-restarted the game). I usually play as a female so it's... pretty much a new thing for me and I'm not used to worry too much about male!Robin's child optimization.

Postgame? Berserker (LB/Agg/AF/Hex/Anathema).

Edited October 5, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Ownagepuffs]

I should be more active in this thread to prevent Czar from having to answer 100000-million questions every time he comes in here. I don't have Smash so you can rely on me (somewhat).

[Soule]

Why havent i been seeing a Donnel!x!Morgan build? With base >70-80 magic, skill and speed (assumed. I dont know how to calc that other than the calc here on the forums. And that doesnt do three gens) plus access to VV builds, i dont see why i havent found any topics on it.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Soule

[Ownagepuffs]

The site does do 3 gens, gotta make the second gen, then that second gen becomes available in the list of Morgan's parents. Anyway, I guess there just hasn't been a worthwhile build with Donny involved since other than giving out Peg tree Donny is underwhelming as a parent.

[isetrh]

I've been thinking about Czar_Yoshi's post about APT having diminishing returns, and how I might make my team better taking that into account. I currently have 18 APT (7 pairs, 4 with Galeboys), so a lot of that is going to go to waste.

I was thinking that maybe Lucina could take Ricken!Laurent instead of Henry!Owain. This way she doesn't need an Aurabot to kill Thronie. Nah (who I am not fielding in Apo) would then be able to take a Galeboy for her support. Being able to take out an extra Counter mook on player phase would give Nah a much easier time tanking L+. Since she is pretty much the best tank ever not counting her Morgan, and she won't be in Apo, I thought it would be cool to make her able to tank L+ maps with just herself and her husband.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Why havent i been seeing a Donnel!x!Morgan build? With base >70-80 magic, skill and speed (assumed. I dont know how to calc that other than the calc here on the forums. And that doesnt do three gens) plus access to VV builds, i dont see why i havent found any topics on it.

Because Donnel literally has the worst mods of any G1 unit except for some bad Avatar builds (Olivia's total is lower, but Donnel's mods are less useful all around) and since Morgan has all classes anyway mods are the only thing he/she wants from his/her parents (unless that parent is Lucina or Chrom!Cynthia). How well Avatar functions with his/her spouse is also a major concern, and none of Donnel's children have, well, anything going for them that other units don't.

I've been thinking about Czar_Yoshi's post about APT having diminishing returns, and how I might make my team better taking that into account. I currently have 18 APT (7 pairs, 4 with Galeboys), so a lot of that is going to go to waste.

While they are diminishing, they're still decently large. None of it's "going to waste" unless the average of (apt-kills) is more than one.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[isetrh]

unless the average of (apt-kills) is more than one.

Sorry, what does "average of (apt-kills)" mean? I'm interpreting that as "apt-EV(number of kills)", but that doesn't seem like it could possibly be right.

[Czar_Yoshi]

the average difference between the number of kills you're capable of making per turn and the number of kills you do make per turn. Essentially the average number of attack units who don't have an enemy to fight on their turn.

[isetrh]

I did some estimations, and everyone has a less than 1% chance of failing to kill mooks. I have 4 100% DS pairs for bosses, so those kill chances shouldn't lower things significantly. So I have more than 17.82 average kills per turn. I'm still a little confused by your formula since I would end up getting .18, and I can't think of what that number would mean, but as far as I can tell I have a lot of actions that will go unused.

Edited October 6, 2014 by isetrh

[Czar_Yoshi]

I'm not referring to anything like your success rate of getting KOs, I'm referring to how often your units have someone to fight. This isn't something that's very easy to see in the planning phase.

Basically, say a team of 18 apt is fighting some mooks on any particular turn. There are 15 mooks in their range for this turn, and the team kills them all. There are three attacks left that that team had no use for because there weren't any mooks around to use them on, so three attacks were wasted that turn.

Thus, the average number of attacks wasted per turn is going to be the number of attacks wasted due to having no target over the course of the entire map divided by the number of turns it took to clear the map.

This number is based on map positions and is very likely to change for each clear you do, so you can't calculate it while you're building your team (unless you've got some sort of Apo simulator to test your team on, which I should make sometime). In general though, if that average is over 1, you could remove a Galeforce from your team without seeing major negative effects. Whenever it's high enough to justify removing a whole pair, you get more room to add Staffbots, which allow you to reach more enemies during a turn (so more Staffbots lowers your average kills missed/turn). There's sometimes a point where swapping attack units for Staffbots will actually increase the number of kills you are able to get per turn, and that's where downsizing your team becomes a really good idea.

So really it's just a measure of how efficient your team is being. There are several ways around it, though: you could design a team that doesn't require both Rallybots to be present at the start of each turn (maybe your team can partially operate without Rallies), or add more Rallybots (what I did in my 100% DS team)- this allows you to attack from two places per turn and greatly increases the odds of getting your maximum amount of kills. Or you could design a team based partially around EP combat instead, so that the number of kills per PP is less important.

Also, while having attack pairs do nothing during your turn usually isn't a good thing, it's not necessarily bad either. Keep an eye on who it is sitting out: if it's always the same unit, they probably should go, but if it tends to switch between several then the extra turns are just being used to increase your PP options. They're extras, they're unnecessary, but they do give you more flexibility in what you can do- say there's one enemy left and two pairs who can take it, one pair might be better suited to fighting that enemy and if you had built your team with just one of those two pairs you wouldn't have this choice.

So in that case, GF becomes like PavGis/DG+: an extra option. It's useful, but also dispensable and you have to figure out whether it or something else would be a greater benefit to your team.

Again though, all this is probably impossible to compute before actually building your team, unless you've got a simulator or a very anti-RNG team.

For a change of topic, here's some interesting math regarding enemy Astra in Apo.

Astra essentially multiplies your damage by 2.5. Aether (ignoring the healing factor)multiplies it by 2 and then adds half the enemy's Def. So the difference between Aether and Astra's damage output is the difference between half of (your Atk - the enemy's Def) and half of (the enemy's Def). A little algebra later, and it turns out that Astra outdamages Aether if your Atk is more than twice the enemy's Def, and Aether is stronger if it's less. Pretty cool, right?

As a matter of fact, ignoring PavGis, if your Atk is always twice the enemy's Def, then the higher the enemy's Def is, the more damage you'll do. However, if you've got a Brave and are doubling, you're doing 4x damage, making the KO threshold be quite low. 40 Def for 80 HP and 50 Def for 99 HP, actually. Now take a random, wild guess at what the lowest Def/Res values in S.Apo for enemies with those HP levels are.

40 and 50 exactly, yep. It's like the Devs intended this or something. So basically if you're unpaired and are doubling an enemy without PavGis (and have a 0% CoD and 100% accuracy), Astra is never better than Aether. However, if you're unpaired and fighting the same enemy but with PavGis, then Astra is better as long as your Atk is between 2 and 3 times the enemy's Def (any less and Aether is better, any more and you KO anyway).

I'm not entirely sure how dual strikes change this (I just made it up now and haven't tested anything) but my guess is that all that stuff still holds true. It's not like the DSes are going to prevent the enemy from dying once you're in the "Astra is better" threshold... Though if you have 100% DS, they will lower the upper ceiling of that threshold a lot.

[Soule]

Because Donnel literally has the worst mods of any G1 unit except for some bad Avatar builds (Olivia's total is lower, but Donnel's mods are less useful all around) and since Morgan has all classes anyway mods are the only thing he/she wants from his/her parents (unless that parent is Lucina or Chrom!Cynthia). How well Avatar functions with his/her spouse is also a major concern, and none of Donnel's children have, well, anything going for them that other units don't.

Well, passing down aptitude would be the thing yeah? Why would mods matter if the ability gets stats so high? i mean 77 magic is nothing to scoff at. Oh i see... stat boosts when paired are static (mods) and aren't based on current stats? That seems... unintuitive :P. Then i guess the question becomes if that damage boost (20% damage boost or very near it i think if the equation is just attack power - defense where attack power is "[Magic + Spell Might] x effectiveness + weapon rank bonus" or something similar as the wiki didnt have the exact equation. Lol one way or another, it would be close to 20 percent if magic was the largest number in the equation. Yay pre-calculus!) would cover the loss of stats from the terrible modifiers.

Oh wait... Morgan can be a villager? Oh no he cant XD. I had to check cus the calc listed it as an option.But i assume thats because donnel was a relative.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Soule