PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Czar_Yoshi]

Aptitude boosts your growths, not your stat caps.

[Soule]

Yeah huh... i dont know what the calculator was spitting out then if it was giving me 77 magic for donnel!laurent!morgan/sage. weird... Now the calculator is unreachable... so i cant double check things... Its not loading for me

Edited October 7, 2014 by Soule

[isetrh]

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.

That's a lot of explanation, thanks! What my Apo team would get in exchange for 1 apt is that it wouldn't need Aurabots anymore. AS+2 and Anathema instead of GF and Vengeance get Lucina's husband's Hit Rate high enough to 100% hit Thronie. Lucina's husband is the main unit who would need an Aurabot.

I have too many Rallies I need to have only one Rallybot, but I could possibly spread my team out by having one Rallybot for the physical units and one for magical. The Sniper x Sage double Galepair would not appreciate this though.

Those calcs are interesting. I can believe that they deliberately favored one proc over another, considering that they made Lethality blocked by Dragonskin.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Yeah huh... i dont know what the calculator was spitting out then if it was giving me 77 magic for donnel!laurent!morgan/sage. weird... Now the calculator is unreachable... so i cant double check things... Its not loading for me

Do you mean this calculator?

You might be thinking of growth rates instead. There's also a calculator for those, and Donnel!Laurent!Morgan's Mag growth with aptitude enabled should be around 77.

That's a lot of explanation, thanks! What my Apo team would get in exchange for 1 apt is that it wouldn't need Aurabots anymore. AS+2 and Anathema instead of GF and Vengeance get Lucina's husband's Hit Rate high enough to 100% hit Thronie. Lucina's husband is the main unit who would need an Aurabot.

I'm doing pretty much exactly the same thing on my 100% DS team (giving Owain Hex over GF for Thronie), so it might be worth it. Granted, with my setup I'd die if he missed at all and the DG failed (I'm fighting at 1 range and would kill myself on Counter- as is the killing blow is a 4 damage hit coming from a Lucina with 1 HP when he has 3 left), so it's kind of important, and Lucina's DSes are very poor so Owain leading wouldn't do much).

Keep in mind when dropping GFs that a) cutting a double Galepair down to single is preferable to cutting a single to a non-Galepair, and b) if you know you won't use it, you can pass down something else like Lancefaire instead.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[isetrh]

Thanks! I haven't done the math to see whether any misses are acceptable (I will when I get home), but it would definitely be bad to fail to kill Thronie. Plus I'm not actually losing a GF, just moving it outside of my Apo team, since Lucina takes Laurent instead of Owain if she doesn't need a Galeboy. I think it seems worth it.

Now I want to try to make Nah the ultimate tank for Lunatic+ maps. How does this look?

Frederick!Nah @ Manakete

LB/DG+/Pavise/Aegis/Lifetaker

Henry!Owain @ Dark Knight

LB/GF/TF/Lifetaker/Vengeance

[Wildshot]

Thanks! I haven't done the math to see whether any misses are acceptable (I will when I get home), but it would definitely be bad to fail to kill Thronie. Plus I'm not actually losing a GF, just moving it outside of my Apo team, since Lucina takes Laurent instead of Owain if she doesn't need a Galeboy. I think it seems worth it.

Now I want to try to make Nah the ultimate tank for Lunatic+ maps. How does this look?

Frederick!Nah @ Manakete

LB/DG+/Pavise/Aegis/Lifetaker

Henry!Owain @ Dark Knight

LB/GF/TF/Lifetaker/Vengeance

Luna+ will mess you up, if I'm not mistaken.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Luna+ will mess you up, if I'm not mistaken.

Ah, but this is not a thread for giving up. Here, I'll show you how it's done: first, you need to think of this as a problem to be solved rather than an immovable roadblock. A good way to start would be to phrase that as a question: "what can be done about Luna+?"

In this case, the biggest Luna+ threat that Nah is going to be facing in skirmishes is going to be a GK with a forged Wyrmslayer, and possibly Counter or Hawkeye as well. We don't particularly care because Owain has GF and he could take down anything that does happen to be a threat with it, but let's see how this Nah would fare against it during an EP engagement on its terms anyway. Here are the stats of all combatants:

Nah's relevant stats (assuming no Rally/tonics):

Atk: 40(base) +4(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) +23(DS+) =79

Skl: 35(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) +5(DS+) =55

Spd: 35(base) -3(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) +4(DS+) =49

Lck: 45(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) =60

Def: 40(base) +6(mods) +10(LB) +8(pairup) +13(DS+) =77

Hit: 112(base) +70(DS+) +15(S support) =197

Avo: 103(base) +10(S support) =113

Crit and Dge won't matter, everyone's Lck is too high and no Killers are in play.

Owain's relevant stats (same restrictions as Nah, he can have an unforged CG):

Atk: 41(base) +4(mods) +10(LB) +5(TF) +6(CG) =66

Skl: 40(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) =52

Lck: 45(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) =56

Def: 42(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) =53

Hit: 106(base) +85(CG) =191

DS: 86

DG: 52

The GK's relevant stats:

Atk: 48(base) +51(Wyrmslayer++) =99

Skl: 34

Spd: 37

Lck: 45

Def: 48

Res: 30

Hit: 73(base) +100(Wyrmslayer++) =173

Avo: 78

Now that all that's taken care of, time to see how this battle will play out. I'll test for Hawkeye/Counter, Luna+/Counter and Hawkeye/Luna+, because Nah won't care about the other four skills (only Aegis+ will affect her, and Owain will still maul the GK).

Nah doubles. A DS+ hit to the GK does 31. A CG hit to the GK does 36+36. A non-Luna+ hit does 22 to Nah. A Luna+ hit does 61. Nah and Owain have 100% hitrates, the GK has 60 (68.4% true) hit so 48% with Hawkeye and 32.832% without. Pavise is at 55%.

As we can see, only the Counter/Luna+ variant has a chance to KO Nah, and it's 14.7744% (If Nah gets Pavise in, she lives).

So far, I've been hogging the spotlight with all this math, so I'll give you a turn to suggest what can be done to bring that chance of death down to zero (hint: it's possible, and doesn't require changing pairings, putting Owain up front or bringing in Rallies). Don't worry about any of the other enemies, that's what the rest of the team is there for. And remember that Nah can readjust her skills before every battle. Now go for it!

Edited October 8, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[isetrh]

Ah, but this is not a thread for giving up. Here, I'll show you how it's done: first, you need to think of this as a problem to be solved rather than an immovable roadblock. A good way to start would be to phrase that as a question: "what can be done about Luna+?"

In this case, the biggest Luna+ threat that Nah is going to be facing in skirmishes is going to be a GK with a forged Wyrmslayer, and possibly Counter or Hawkeye as well. We don't particularly care because Owain has GF and he could take down anything that does happen to be a threat with it, but let's see how this Nah would fare against it during an EP engagement on its terms anyway. Here are the stats of all combatants:

Nah's relevant stats (assuming no Rally/tonics):

Atk: 40(base) +4(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) +23(DS+) =79

Skl: 35(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) +5(DS+) =55

Spd: 35(base) -3(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) +4(DS+) =49

Lck: 45(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +3(pairup) =60

Def: 40(base) +6(mods) +10(LB) +8(pairup) +13(DS+) =77

Hit: 112(base) +70(DS+) +15(S support) =197

Avo: 103(base) +10(S support) =113

Crit and Dge won't matter, everyone's Lck is too high and no Killers are in play.

Owain's relevant stats (same restrictions as Nah, he can have an unforged CG):

Atk: 41(base) +4(mods) +10(LB) +5(TF) +6(CG) =66

Skl: 40(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) =52

Lck: 45(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) =56

Def: 42(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) =53

Hit: 106(base) +85(CG) =191

DS: 86

DG: 52

The GK's relevant stats:

Atk: 48(base) +51(Wyrmslayer++) =99

Skl: 34

Spd: 37

Lck: 45

Def: 48

Res: 30

Hit: 73(base) +100(Wyrmslayer++) =173

Avo: 78

Now that all that's taken care of, time to see how this battle will play out. I'll test for Hawkeye/Counter, Luna+/Counter and Hawkeye/Luna+, because Nah won't care about the other four skills (only Aegis+ will affect her, and Owain will still maul the GK).

Nah doubles. A DS+ hit to the GK does 31. A CG hit to the GK does 36+36. A non-Luna+ hit does 22 to Nah. A Luna+ hit does 61. Nah and Owain have 100% hitrates, the GK has 60 (68.4% true) hit so 48% with Hawkeye and 32.832% without. Pavise is at 55%.

As we can see, only the Counter/Luna+ variant has a chance to KO Nah, and it's 14.7744% (If Nah gets Pavise in, she lives).

So far, I've been hogging the spotlight with all this math, so I'll give you a turn to suggest what can be done to bring that chance of death down to zero (hint: it's possible, and doesn't require changing pairings, putting Owain up front or bringing in Rallies). Don't worry about any of the other enemies, that's what the rest of the team is there for. And remember that Nah can readjust her skills before every battle. Now go for it!

The obvious skill to add is Swordbreaker. Nah needs 9.5 more Avo. I can see two ways to accomplish this. One is to make Owain into an Assassin. The other is to add both Quick and Slow Burn. All+2 doesn't add enough to be very useful. Nah would be removing DG+ and PavGis for these.

Either one of these guarrantees survival against that Great Knight, but I would have a problem if a Counter/Luna+/Wyrmslayer Risen showed up in a class with decent Skill. Or do only GKs have Wyrmslayers?

Now thinking outside of those rules: Either of the things I said work against that particular enemy, but PavGis and DG+ would both be good to have against swarms of Luna+, so I'm thinking maybe Stahl!Inigo, because Stahl nor Inigo is doing anything important in my Apo team, and Inigo has Armsthrift, DG+, and positive Strength.

Edited October 8, 2014 by isetrh

[Czar_Yoshi]

A much easier way to get that last 10 Avo is with a generic Hit/Avo+10 skill. Fred!Nah had both Indoor Fighter and Outdoor Fighter, so she'll always have one available. One of PavGis can be kept (probably Pavise, since GKs very rarely spawn with Mages and Archers aren't usually very strong in Lunatic+). If sacrificing two skillslots is unacceptable, switching Owain to SM would provide +13 Avo as well. Speaking of Owain, he's pretty well equipped to try to dodgetank himself with Avo+10 and Lucky 7.

Wyrmslayers do exist on things not named GK, but those will also have much less Atk and thus be a whole different scenario. However, when you've got a full team it's very unlikely you'll be in a situation where Nah is forced to fight more than two foes in one turn, and you can pick who those are, so the whole exercise is hypothetical- that GK is Nah's absolute worst-case scenario. She'll never actually fight one if you keep your wits about you.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Alastor15243]

Hey Czar, what do you consider to be the best Male Morgans? I'm assuming Vaike!Gerome!Morgan and Ricken!Laurent!Morgan are up there? Are there any others you find particularly good?

Edited October 8, 2014 by Alastor15243

[isetrh]

I guess I failed that one. I should have thought of Indoor/Outdoor Fighter...

I know Nah doesn't have to fight very many enemies if I have a full team, but if I'm deploying a full team is there even a point in having a tank? Seems like I would end up killing everything on PP.

I was looking for a niche that Nah could fill, and Manakete seems like the only thing she has going for her over other 2nd Gen girls, but if tanks aren't useful I'll look for something else. I could make her into a pretty decent Apo fighter if deploying her pair would be worth dropping two of my four Staffbots.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Hey Czar, what do you consider to be the best Male Morgans? I'm assuming Vaike!Gerome!Morgan and Ricken!Laurent!Morgan are up there? Are there any others you find particularly good?

The other notable ones are various Owain!Morgans (Avatar can be part of a double Galepair while only losing 1 Mag to Laurent), various Yarne!Morgans (slightly less Str than Gerome, vastly superior Skl/Spd and Yarne supports non-dodgetank Avatar better in general), and Chrom!Inigo!Morgan (the only one who can put RK to good use).

I'd probably put Yarne as the best unless there's some specific threshold you're going for, but that applies to every unit in the game.

I guess I failed that one. I should have thought of Indoor/Outdoor Fighter...

I know Nah doesn't have to fight very many enemies if I have a full team, but if I'm deploying a full team is there even a point in having a tank? Seems like I would end up killing everything on PP.

Say you see another GK, but this time with Hawkeye/Aegis+ and holding a Silver Lance++. Nah can take him down on EP without suffering a scratch and with a 98.4% chance for him to die. A GF unit would waste a whole turn doing that.

So you wouldn't actually deploy a full team, you'd just deploy enough to clear out all the nasty stuff that will wear Nah down. It's much faster and more efficient than using GF on everything.

[isetrh]

Say you see another GK, but this time with Hawkeye/Aegis+ and holding a Silver Lance++. Nah can take him down on EP without suffering a scratch and with a 98.4% chance for him to die. A GF unit would waste a whole turn doing that.

So you wouldn't actually deploy a full team, you'd just deploy enough to clear out all the nasty stuff that will wear Nah down. It's much faster and more efficient than using GF on everything.

That makes sense, thanks! I think I'm satisfied with this build then. I will be back here at least one more time to assign the four Galeboys between Cynthia, Noire, Kjelle, and Nah, but I need to do some planning/math myself first.

[Duke of Dozel]

What child character outside of Morgan has the highest SKL/SPD mod while having the cavalier/knight line?

I'm interested in trying out a GK unit that doesn't suck.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Duke of Dozel

[Soule]

...

Edited October 9, 2014 by Soule

[Diabeasty]

What child character outside of Morgan has the highest SKL/SPD mod while having the cavalier/knight line?

I'm interested in trying out a GK unit that doesn't suck.

Gaius!Kjelle has 5 spd, 5 skl. Sumia!Lucina has 4 skl, 5 spd. Vaike!Severa has 4 spd, 4 skl. Stahl!Severa has 3 skl, 4 spd. Gaius!Noire has 2 skl and 4 spd. Those are just the ones with Galeforce off the top of my head. Yarne has good stats as well, you'd just need to have his father be Stahl or something.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Lon'qu!Kjelle will be the highest (6/6) but she lacks GF. Other than that, Gaius!Kjelle will be what you want.

Gaius!Kjelle@GK (LB/GF/LF/Luna/All+2) x An Assassin

Spd: 37 (base) +5(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +9(pairup) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =75

No procstack for you, which hurts because GK's Skl smells and no Vengeance, but oh well.

[Alastor15243]

Lon'qu!Kjelle will be the highest (6/6) but she lacks GF. Other than that, Gaius!Kjelle will be what you want.

Gaius!Kjelle@GK (LB/GF/LF/Luna/All+2) x An Assassin

Spd: 37 (base) +5(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +9(pairup) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =75

No procstack for you, which hurts because GK's Skl smells and no Vengeance, but oh well.

Honestly it sounds like it might be better to forget 75 speed and maybe go for General, if I recall correctly its speed isn't much worse at all, and it has way better skill.

[Czar_Yoshi]

2 less Spd, 7 more Skl. Actually, apart from Mov and Spd (and Swd access) GK has nothing over General- General even has more Mag and Res! The difference is so extreme that GK has the lowest total stat caps in the game out of any promoted class (even worse that Griffon and Bow Knight), while General has the best.

In total, General has 2 more Str, 10 more Mag, 7 more Skl, 2 less Spd, 2 more Def, and 5 more Res.

If you decide to make Kjelle a General, drop All+2 in exchange for either Astra or Deliverer, and switch her support to a Berserker- she'll lose 5 Spd from the deal, keeping her above the next threshold (69). She'll definitely need Boots if you don't give her Deliverer, but the raw power from a procstacking General with a Berserker support is very tempting... For reference,

Atk: 50(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Berserker) +5(LF) +17(B.Lance) +2(tonic) =105 before procs. Her support is likely to be packing 100+ Atk as well.

If you like speedy Generals, Sumia!Lucina is roughly the same as this but with DS+ for guaranteed Berserker hits. Very powerful if she's married to Stahl!Yarne.

You can also opt to pair either of them with a Paladin for more Def- they won't miss out on 69 Spd, but their Def becomes high enough to use as an asset. The Paladin can also make a nice ferry.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[isetrh]

Okay, I've thought about it a bit, and I'm thinking of pairing up my Galeboys like this:

Gregor!Yarne!Morgan x Donnel!Kjelle

Henry!Brady x Gaius!Noire

Libra!Owain x Chrom!Cynthia

Stahl!Inigo x Frederick!Nah

Reasoning

Morgan x Kjelle

Kjelle or Noire would perform equally well as Morgan's Assassin wife, so it's a matter of which does a better job elsewhere. While Noire can make good use of her Speed and class/skill set being a Sniper, I'm not seeing a lot Kjelle can do that's very appealing.

Brady x Noire

Noire is just fast enough to reach 69 Speed as a Sniper paired with a Sage. Henry!Brady unfortunately foes not hit 69 Speed, but he does have Vengeance and enough Skill to reach 97% DS whether he's in front or in back. He probably wouldn't want to fight Thronie anyway, since his Dual Strikes are from a Sniper with no Agg.

Owain x Cynthia

Cynthia's DF x Sage pair isn't breaking 94/95% DS (depending on who's in front) with anything less than a Lon'qu!Brady, so Owain won't care that he has the lowest Skill of any Galeboy. Owain has Vengeance, so he's happy, and good Magic, so Cynthia's happy.

Inigo x Nah

With DG+ and GF, Stahl!Inigo is pretty well set up to maximize Nah's survivability, and AT lets the pair tank for much longer before needing the Convoy. I was thinking he could be a Bow Knight. BK doesn't give Def/Res pair up, but against the most dangerous enemies, that would have reduced (Luna+) or no (Counter) effect anyway. The Movement that BK offers seems useful for avoiding dangerous enemies until the time is right or picking them off on PP. The Speed pair-up boost will increase Avo and help Nah double.

How do these pairs look? Thanks!

[Ownagepuffs]

An added note about Sumia!Lucina. Outside of Robin of course, Sumia!Lucina @ Lancefaire General actually has the highest Str of the 3 GF Lucinas. Who said she doesn't do physical well? Definitely one hell of a General.

[Czar_Yoshi]

How do these pairs look? Thanks!

Mostly fine to me.

About Inigo's class though, consider that when your Def is very high and you're fighting a lot of foes, a little extra makes a big difference- if your foes are doing 10 damage to you, switching to a +2 Def support like Paladin reduces that to 5 damage, letting you survive 15 hits instead of 7. If they're doing 5 already, you go from taking 16 hits to KO to being invincible. The effect isn't as pronounced against stuff with Luna+ and Counter, true, but it's massive against normal mooks.

[Alastor15243]

So actually from what you're saying, Czar, it sounds like General is an awesome class if you can manage the speed. Too bad that only certain Morgans can handle it. I imagine they generally require Lonqu!Severa/Yarne!+Spd!Morgan. I suspect Lon'qu!Severa!+Spd!Morgan would be superior since she can then have a berserker husband. 35 (Base) + 10 (mods) + 8 (Berserker pair-up bonus) + 2 (tonic) + 10 (Rally) + 10 (LB) = 75 speed, plenty of skill, and one HELL of an offense with Stahl!Yarne as her husband.

...Ugh. YarnexFeMorgan. Yuck and Ouch and No. I guess this is for somebody else to enjoy then.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Alastor15243

[isetrh]

Mostly fine to me.

About Inigo's class though, consider that when your Def is very high and you're fighting a lot of foes, a little extra makes a big difference- if your foes are doing 10 damage to you, switching to a +2 Def support like Paladin reduces that to 5 damage, letting you survive 15 hits instead of 7. If they're doing 5 already, you go from taking 16 hits to KO to being invincible. The effect isn't as pronounced against stuff with Luna+ and Counter, true, but it's massive against normal mooks.

Thanks! I was assumimg that most enemies without Luna+ would tink Nah with her 72 Defense and 65 Resistance. Unless Risen can have legendary weapons (I tried to look it up, but I didn't really know where to look) not tinking is limited to Sages by a little bit and Wyrmslayers. If Risen Sages are common, then it might be worth it to make them tink her too. How often do they show up?

[Czar_Yoshi]

So actually from what you're saying, Czar, it sounds like General is an awesome class if you can manage the speed. Too bad that only certain Morgans can handle it. I imagine they generally require Lonqu!Severa/Yarne!+Spd!Morgan. I suspect Lon'qu!Severa!+Spd!Morgan would be superior since she can then have a berserker husband. 35 (Base) + 10 (mods) + 8 (Berserker pair-up bonus) + 2 (tonic) + 10 (Rally) + 10 (LB) = 75 speed, plenty of skill, and one HELL of an offense with Stahl!Yarne as her husband.

...Ugh. YarnexFeMorgan. Yuck and Ouch and No. I guess this is for somebody else to enjoy then.

75 Spd is OK to forgo for all of general's other boosts- the Mov is actually the big barrier to using them- they need Boots or Deliverer. With a +5 Spd mod and a +2 Spd support, they hit 69 which is the next highest Spd benchmark, and both Sumia!Lucina and Gaius!Kjelle are excellent candidates for doing that.

But anyway, let's see what happens if one of them does decide to take on Anna without 75 Spd. I'll go with Sumia!Lucina@General (LB/GF/DS+/Luna/Aether) x Stahl!Yarne@Berserker (LB/Agg/AF/Hit+20/Prescience). Yarne could probably manage All+2 over prescience, but I'm too lazy to do Hit calcs right now and don't remember what Stahl!Yarne needs for Anna off the top of my head so I'm playing it safe. Lucina gets the Gradivus and Yarne gets a 5/15 Brave.

Lucina's Atk: 50(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(pairup) +2(tonic) +19(B.Axe) =101. Yarne's Atk: 50(base) +5(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +5(AF) +18(B.Axe) +2(tonic) =110. Lucina's Def should be 73. Anna has 75 Atk now. Assuming Anna does proc Aether and hits both times, Lucina takes 2+39 damage and has 44 HP left.

Lucina counterattacks for 21+26+26+21+26 =120, assuming no procs. Anna dies on Yarne's 3rd swing, and Lucina takes 42 damage from Counter, so she lives with 2 HP left. If she gets a Luna on either hit, she'll do 35+26+26+21 or 21+26+26+35 =108 and KO Anna before taking Counter damage, surviving with either 9 or 23 HP left. If she gets an Aether on the first hit, she does 21+35=56 and recovers 10 HP, dying to Counter. She needs 3 more HP to survive, which can be achieved by lowering the forge on her Axe. Dropping it all the way does 19+33 =52 and heals 9 (53), causing her to survive with 1HP. Excellent. It shouldn't mess with either of the earlier KOs (116 and 104, with Anna dying at the same places each time). After taking 52 from Lucina's Aether, Yarne does 26+26 and finishes her off. If she procs Aether on her second proc, Anna will die to the Luna hit and Lucina won't take Counter damage from it.

This is cool. I'll do hitrate checks just in case later.

Thanks! I was assumimg that most enemies without Luna+ would tink Nah with her 72 Defense and 65 Resistance. Unless Risen can have legendary weapons (I tried to look it up, but I didn't really know where to look) not tinking is limited to Sages by a little bit and Wyrmslayers. If Risen Sages are common, then it might be worth it to make them tink her too. How often do they show up?

They don't show up that often, but when they do they're in packs.

No Regalia on Risen.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi