PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Czar_Yoshi]

For a Dark Flier!Cordelia paired with a Spd+ Lck- Dread Fighter!MU, how viable is this setup for endgame and DLC? I'm on Lunatic btw

Cordelia-

LB, GF, Iote's Shield, Lancefaire, Sol

I figure between Sol and Iote's Shield, she shouldn't be in danger too often. Lancefaire is there to make use of her strength mods while as a DF so she can have both forms of attack.

Sorin(MU)-

LB, Tomefaire, Agg, Vantage, Ignis

The only thing I'm not sure of in this set is Vantage. I only put it there to ensure he can survive a bit of tanking in the event he takes too much damage on the enemy phase without messing up his Ignis proc.

A sort of last resort for me is to change Cordelia into a Falconknight, but since I already have a Sumia who is stuck to the hip with Chrom acting as my mobile staff user...

So first off, Apo and non-Apo postgame are fairly different- I'd recommend different sets for them that you can switch between. Let's talk non-Apo postgame first.

Right now, you've got both Cordelia and Avatar set up to lead. I'd advise reworking that so that Cordelia comes out once on Player Phase, gets a kill, and then switches back to Avatar to tank EP. Cordelia won't be in much danger this way, so you can drop Iote's Shield (replacing Sol with Lifetaker is optional). I'd also strongly advise giving her Armsthrift over Lancefaire- high-use pairs burn through weapons at an unbelievable rate in non-Apo postgame. So she'll be looking at LB/GF/Sol/AT/filler (Anathema is fun here for the +Crit boost). You may also want to change her to Dark Knight for better defensive pairup boosts, but that's optional.

For Avatar, he wants to focus on tanking. Vantage isn't actually much use without some sort of healing skill, so you'll want to replace Ignis with Sol. Since you'll be spending most of your attacks on EP, switching Aggressor for Res+10 could also help. Tomefaire is also optional and I'd advise dropping it for AT. Finally, here's the thing about Vantage: if it activates and you kill the enemy before they attack you, you effectively blocked their attack. If it activates, but you don't kill the enemy before they attack, it essentially had no effect. It'll also only activate when you're below half HP, which won't happen often with Sol and LB. So I'd advise swapping it out for a different defensive skill, like Lucky 7, a Breaker, PavGis or DG+.

For Apo, offense is far more important than healing, and it's fairly rare to get hit by Bows anyway so Cordelia will want to transition her skills into more offense. Vengeance over Sol is a good place to start. She could keep Lancefaire around if she wanted, but it's not all that good on a DF- I'd advise using All+2 instead. For the spot Iote's Shield is currently in, she could take Spd+2, AT, Lifetaker, or bring back LF (personally, I'd take Lifetaker).

Avatar will never want to come up front here due to Aggressor having double power in the back, so he doesn't need anything that only has an effect when leading- I'd advise giving him All+2, Hit+20, Axefaire over Tomefaire and a Brave Axe (unless he's +Mag/-Str or something, in which case you should stick with Tomes).

Also, Chrom x Sumia has the potential to outperform most non-Lucina/Avatar/Morgan 2nd gen pairs thanks to DS+. You definitely shouldn't stick them on utility duty for Apo.

[Alastor15243]

Hey, just wondering, assuming 100% DS and using brave weapons, is there ANYTHING that can survive an average-strength pair's attack, even if no procs activate? I don't understand why such emphasis is put on procs and such when apotheosis can reliably be beaten without brave weapons if you know what you're doing, and then adding brave weapons means triple that damage, effectively meaning you could kill the enemies three times over, and with that kind of overkill, would removing procs really prevent your forces from being able to KO reliably?

[Ownagepuffs]

Procs are your main source of non DLC offense, less so if hitting Res. Under no holds barred conditions, there are none that can even dream of scratching you.

That being said, without LB, only Chrom and Lucina are getting 100% DS unless you do some wacky breeding with like LQ!Yarne!Morgan x Frederick/Gaius!Severa or something.

[Alastor15243]

Procs are your main source of non DLC offense, less so if hitting Res. Under no holds barred conditions, there are none that can even dream of scratching you.

That being said, without LB, only Chrom and Lucina are getting 100% DS unless you do some wacky breeding with like LQ!Yarne!Morgan x Frederick/Gaius!Severa or something.

Actually, +Skill-DefAvatar and LQ!Yarne will get 100% too if you give them both All+2, and LQ!Yarne!Morgan X anyone with 2 - (UnitCanAffordToUseAllStatsPlus2 = true ? 2:0) skill will work too as long as they have sniper access. If they have assassin they need 1 more skill, and if it's hero they need yet another point in skill. And this is all ignoring the existence of Czar_Yoshi and others' "100% DS for everyone" builds.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Alastor15243

[Ownagepuffs]

*without DLC

That's what I meant.

[Alastor15243]

*without DLC

That's what I meant.

Oh without LB/DLC, right, sorry, missed that.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Hey, just wondering, assuming 100% DS and using brave weapons, is there ANYTHING that can survive an average-strength pair's attack, even if no procs activate? I don't understand why such emphasis is put on procs and such when apotheosis can reliably be beaten without brave weapons if you know what you're doing, and then adding brave weapons means triple that damage, effectively meaning you could kill the enemies three times over, and with that kind of overkill, would removing procs really prevent your forces from being able to KO reliably?

Considering that most high-Skl classes have fairly low Str and there aren't any good magical ones, non-Lucina pairs tend to run into a huge block with Thronie. Anna is also a concern if you want to attack at 1 range due to Counter+Aether, but pretty much everything else goes down in 6 hits no matter what.

With my team, I've got a setup for Thronie that takes Counter damage into account and gives me a guaranteed range 1 win, and for the Double Zerkers my Kjelle x Yarne can squeeze out an ORKO within 6 hits, and everything else isn't much of an issue.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Owain_the_swordsman]

What should my Lonqu!Sorc!Severa's set (no dlc skills) should be?Planning AT/GF/Vantage/Vengeance (Or Astra)/?

[Alastor15243]

What should my Lonqu!Sorc!Severa's set (no dlc skills) should be?Planning AT/GF/Vantage/Vengeance (Or Astra)/?

No reason for astra when you have vengeance if you're using vengeance properly.

...I think.

In all honesty vengeance still baffles me. I still can't for the life of me figure out how you're supposed to use it in apotheosis. I keep whiffing because Lucina keeps dual-guarding the attacks meant to power Henry!Owain up. Ask Czar_Yoshi, but I'm fairly certain that's what he'd say, since Vengeance can easily get to 100% proc rate, even without LB.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Alastor15243

[Czar_Yoshi]

Yeah, Vengeance is basically KO insurance (another reason why I don't like VV- if you're deliberately trying to set it up ahead of when you're going to actually need it, DG can ruin your plans unless you split up, which takes a ton of planning and limits your ability to improvise in-game.

I never use Vantage on Severa myself. If this isn't for Apo, she's good as-is, if it is for Apo, Sorcs smell.

[Ownagepuffs]

What should my Lonqu!Sorc!Severa's set (no dlc skills) should be?Planning AT/GF/Vantage/Vengeance (Or Astra)/?

Van/Ven/GF/Hex/Anathema

AT for grinding.

[Hunter Nightblood]

Okay, so I am a shameless shipper, and I ship Henry and Olivia. So, what are the advantages and disadvantages to that pairing? This would be for Lunatic mode (and possibly Apotheosis, although I have a file that is way more prepared to do that).

[Czar_Yoshi]

Since they both come very late and Inigo has a hard Paralogue, don't expect him to do anything in Lunatic. Both Henry and Olivia are kind of drop-in utility units.

In Apo, Inigo gets lots of Skl and Vengeance, which is nice if you don't mind the loss of Henry elsewhere.

[Raagentreg]

Haven't got mich time to post so sorry if it's unrefined, can you guys please give some feedback on my pairings? Assume a first secret apoth run, Lunatic+ hence the +DEF -LUCand my only rule was avatar cannot marry someone who can marry someone else:

Avatar(+DEF, -LUC) x Tiki - tiki!Morgan

Chrom x Maribelle - Chrom!Brady, Maribelle!Lucina

Lissa x Ricken - Ricken!Owain

Sully x Gaius - Gaius!Kjelle

Miriel x Libra - Libra!Laurent

Sumia x Henry - Henry!Cynthia

Panne x Frederick -Fred!Yarne

Cordelia x Lon'Qu - lonQu!Severa

Nowi x Vaike -Vaike!Nah

Tharja x Donnel - Donnel!Noire

Olivia x Stahl - Stahl!Inigo

Cherche x Gregor - Gregor!Gerome

Cheers in advance, and won't be able to reply until later.

Formatted properly now.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Raagentreg

[Alastor15243]

Haven't got mich time to post so sorry if it's unrefined, can you guys please give some feedback on my pairings? Assume a first secret apoth run:

Avatar x Tiki

Chrom x Maribelle

Lissa x Ricken

Sully x Gaius

Miriel x Libra

Sumia x Henry

Panne x Frederick

Cordelia x Lon'Qu

Nowi x Vaike

Tharja x Donnel

Olivia x Stahl

Cherche x Gregor

Cheers in advance, and won't be able to reply until later

Your pairs look reasonable, except Avatar x Tiki. That's a pretty crappy pairing, just want to make sure you know that. Morgan wants a parent who gives him/her great mods, a unique skill, and/or another omniclass sibling. Tiki gives none of these things and comes absurdly late in the game.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Alastor15243

[Ownagepuffs]

Tiki is perhaps the worst wife for Robin for minmaxing, I kid you not. That pair is getting the bench.

Miriel x Libra is a bit redundant since Laurent is not getting any new classes or skills worth using. Recommended: Gregor, LQ.

Panne x Frederick is good, but Yarne would like a +Hit skill. Recommended: Virion, Henry, Stahl

Cherche x Freddy is actually pretty solid, but Gerome would like a +Hit skill as well. Highly recommended: Stahl, Henry

Everything else check out okay. If it were up to me, I'd shuffle your pairings like

Cherche x Stahl

Miriel x Gregor

Panne x Libra (would be Henry but Sumia is with him)*

Olivia x Frederick

*Just as a side note, I don't know if you picked Chrom x Mary/Sumia x Henry out of shipping preferences or for minmaxing, hence why I didn't talk about them. If for the latter, then Sumia makes the best wife for Chrom for minmaxing. Sumia's combat is superior to all of Chrom's other non Robin wives and you get 2 Aether children.

[Raagentreg]

So just got back, thanks for feedback alastor and puffs, sorry for the late edit too, as for your comments:

Two things to bear in mind, firstly I didn't see this thread before the pairings were made, I used the site's max stat tool. Also I focussed more on the modifiers than the skillsets after looking for unique classes passed down, like Gaius and Vaike daughters (although in close pair cases, I made sure I checked the skill distribution - maybe overlooked some things in the process)

On the Avatar x Tiki, the thing I like about it is it has manakete which with a +Def -Luck Avatar makes a literal brick wall of a Morgan with aegis/pavise/breakers of choice/etc which has base defensive stats (LB'd) of 56/55 Def/Res before Drgstone+ Modifiers, which I can't remember off the top of my head but I think were +10ish. So it seemed at the time to look like an incredible brick wall theory, as well as yay unique unit of a manakete \o/ As for that pairing being the literal worst, I present you Say'ri, who adds Nothing whatsoever and has appauling modifiers :P That's my vote for worst! Also now after I edited to say that avatar was to marry someone unable to marry (would've been aversa with +Mag -Str Mu, but... Accidentally deleted that luna+ file with a new game when support convo farming...)

As for the redundancy with LibraxMiriel, what I liked from that pair was the high Mag stat, but I could be swayed to exchange to a RickenxMiriel and LibraxLissa pairing, giving both nice high mag stats, and better skill distribution for Laurent, which is very reasonable from you guys to point out the poor pairing.

As for Miriel x Gregor, what I didn't like from the pair is the -mag that gregor gives (despite amazing skills looking throughh them now) and that goes on the whole for most of the pairs, as well as overlooking certain skills (having looked through, I didn't realize how highly hit +20 and Ven/Van combo were rated) and after reading some more through here, what seems to matter more important are the skills over stats (and nearly no mention of All+2!)

As for Chrom/Sumia/Maribelle arguement, again stats for me ruled the day, and also when you don't know better, how tempting is triple dual skills? Also side note, I love the high mag stat of the Maribelle pairing as well as not liking Aether that much (despite it being a pretty good skill, don't get me wrong, it's the proc rate and reliability side of things, so I considered both Rk and Aether pretty replaceable skills, so didn't factor in them at all) so after that pair the clear option for sumia is Henry and Henry (figured that before even looking to this thread)

So as it stands at the moment, the only locked pair is Chrom x Maribelle and my Robin is a Male Avatar (+Def -Luc), the rest are still open to change (I don't want to go back through Luna+ opening chapters again... 3 times is enough blunt force trauma thank you very much :P)

[Ownagepuffs]

Since I'm always on mobile I'm gonna write a short reply. Though there is much to be said, I'll just let Czar do it because I'm lazy he is very knowledgeable on this subject.

Oh man you're going through Lunatic+? Focusing on pairings is like the worst possible idea lol. Also, hey now at least Say'ri can do Lancefaire Wyvern Lord and she has Galeforce. Tiki is just blegh. If you truly want manakete kids then Nowi is a much better choice than Tiki.

Anyway, there are quite a few cases where skills > mods. Gregor x Miriel being one of those cases.

Priority goes skills (Galeforce, procs, and faires all fall under this category) > modifiers > whatever. Laurent can do much, much more with Vantage than he can with a few points of magic. Gregor!Laurent is like, god tier.

[Raagentreg]

Lunatic + grind run, so got to chapter 5, golden gaffe'd to buy a LB, At, All+2, Tomefaire, counter or sol Avatar sorcerer, (has EVERY skill available to him costs a whopping 122800 Gold to recruit) and then plough through to before chapter 19, so you have access to all except the basically postgame guys with forged Nosferatu. So had to lock Chrom with Maribelle early for obvious reasons, as I had already drafted that list. Also side note, that setup works 100% of the time when farming LBs with Sniper Chrom. There's a specific strat too if you guys want to know too, which is along the lines of, don't let Jaffar or Linus engage you (Lethality/Counter) stick in forests.

Doing L+ for prestige on spotpass because I'm like that :P classic too on that note, also there's nothing like stomping one of the most unfair modes that I've ever played in any game that I own with one unit! (And a half with support chrom) also gonna mass-farm to get everyone - and I mean everyone - to max stats limit breakered, and all supports to A (Anyone wondering - Lost Bloodlines 3 for farming when you can solo w/Chrom support and Summer Scramble for supports) so that I have one "Complete" file. Side note, it's unlikely I'll actually use tiki for fighting, just as a parent, not ideal I know, but hey.

Also now you know why the pairings is the one thing I want to see the logic behind and get "right"

P.S. Lunatic plus may have affected me

[burgerkong]

Since I'm always on mobile I'm gonna write a short reply. Though there is much to be said, I'll just let Czar do it because I'm lazy he is very knowledgeable on this subject.

Oh man you're going through Lunatic+? Focusing on pairings is like the worst possible idea lol. Also, hey now at least Say'ri can do Lancefaire Wyvern Lord and she has Galeforce. Tiki is just blegh. If you truly want manakete kids then Nowi is a much better choice than Tiki.

Anyway, there are quite a few cases where skills > mods. Gregor x Miriel being one of those cases.

Priority goes skills (Galeforce, procs, and faires all fall under this category) > modifiers > whatever. Laurent can do much, much more with Vantage than he can with a few points of magic. Gregor!Laurent is like, god tier.

What Ownagepuff is referring to is the combat capabilities of Avatar and his wife. Avatar is great in Apotheosis by virtue of his good stat distribution (with the right Asset/Flaw) and his amazing skill distribution (only beat by Morgan and his other potential child). Tiki X Avatar really handicaps Avatar's potential usefulness in Apotheosis, while Say'ri has a significantly better class set thanks to Peg Knight, and an arguably better Morgan thanks to better mods (Manakete is very poor in Apotheosis).

Defensive builds are pretty bad in Apotheosis, hence the lack of Manaketes. All those vaulted defensive stats you listed with Morgan don't mean much if the enemy has Luna+ (which they do on Secret Path) and you take several turns to kill them. The best defense is to simply never get hit, which is why current Apotheosis teams revolve around Brave weapons, high Dual Strike%s, and offensive proc skills.

The one thing I disagree with Ownagepuff is Gregor's godliness with Miriel. Gregor!Laurent is fine and dandy, but unless you're going for a niche 100% Assassin build, I don't see the appeal; he's certainly not god tier. Armsthrift is mainly for grinding utility, and Vantage-Vengeance Sage is something that is run better by someone like Owain, who has Galeforce & inherent Vantage already, alongside a low-priority father in Libra. If Gregor!Laurent is god tier just for Vantage, then surely someone like Libra!Owain is even above that for Galeforce+Vantage+Vengeance.

If you want Laurent as a dedicated Sage support, Libra is fine (it's who I'm running in my current Apo team). Gregor offers nothing for a support Sage Laurent, so the +Mag mod ends up being more useful.

[Alastor15243]

Dude, if you like Tiki's defense and that's the reason you're going for her, go for Nowi. Then you get two children who are just as good. Better yet, go for nah, because unless you give Nowi a bad def husband, her defense will be even better.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Alastor15243

[Czar_Yoshi]

OK, first off, go find a guy called Interceptor. He's got a L+ guide in his sig that can get a +Spd/-Def Avatar (which is possibly the best set for Apo) through Pro-Cht.4 in less than 3 hours. It's pretty nice.

Now, here's some numbers on exactly how useless tanks are in S.Apo. Let's take your Morgan, with a generic General pairup and your skillset of LB/Aegis/Pavise/Lancebreaker/Bowbreaker. Morgan's relevant stats:

HP: 85

Atk: 40(base) +0(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +8(pairup) +2(tonic) +23(Dst+) =93.

Spd: 35(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +3(pairup) +2(tonic) +4(Dst+) =66. You're -barely- in the clear here.

Def: 40(base) +6(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(pairup) +2(tonic) +13(Dst+) =91. Sounds pretty tanky.

Now here's what Apo has to say about that: There's a Sniper who shows up in Waves 2 and 5. He's got 70 Spd, 70 Def, a Brave Bow (96 Atk, 254 Hit), and a skillset of Dragonskin/Pavise+/Aegis+/Luna+/Vantage+. Against him, you'll be doing 5x1 damage, and he'll be doing 51x2 to you before your Aegis. Already, your ultimate tank has a very realistic possibility of death- you just need to whiff both DGs and both Aegises, which is probably around a 5% chance- but you've got such terrible offense that there's no way you're taking him down in less than 2 turns, assuming your General is really strong. More likely it'll take 3 to get rid of him. None of this is taking his mooks into account- he's got four more Snipers with Silver Bows (89 Atk) and Luna+, who are going to be doing 44 per shot to you before Aegis. Even if you had perfect luck with Aegis, you'd still die in four hits, and you need to take six. These aren't even the only things Apo has against tanks, there are 3 Berserkers with 99 HP/Atk, and Dragonskin/Luna+/Hawkeye/Counter/Aegis+ and plenty of other stuff.

Basically, Def has nothing on Apo.

[Rydia]

I have a very, very silly question: I'm starting my new run to apo in lunatic plus and I'm planning to marry Say'ri because I genuinely like her. This... being aware she's far from being and excellent mother. Anyway, my point is: to get the best Morgan what asset/flaw should I pick? I'm considering +spd/mag- but I'm not too sure about it...

[Czar_Yoshi]

+Str/-Def or +Spd/-Def would be your best bets for postgame. Ingame, do whatever works for Avatar- Morgan will come too late to see much use no matter what you give her.

[Raagentreg]

Cheers for some of the newer comments, especially czar yoshi.

Just for reference I have never tried the secret path side of Apoth, and so I knew there was some seriously mad stuff there... I didn't realize HOW mad they were until you told me about the god-sniper there, so thanks very much for taking me through the maths of it all too, makes plain and clear sense to me now!

As for interceptor, I have seen his first guide and owed him many a thanks for the help it's been to me, and stuck to that guide because that just worked! (The +Def -Skl guide) and now after looking again to find the newer guide, with the +Spd stat, I may start banging my head against a brick wall some more for that, as it will be worth it in the end, (And I detest +Def avatar, means to an end and whatnot)

So out of the specific wives that remain, bear in mind no hinderance at ALL to get them.

I would assume Aversa's or Say'ri's (convinced me there) a good pairing (Choice of Say'ri / Aversa / Emmeryn and Flavia - let's ignore Anna and Tiki for this.) Remember my criteria for a wife was once that couldn't marry at all in the first place.

Also as I am starting again, given that Chrom is free (and now pairing with Sumia) and after reading through a bit more over the comments, I was wondering if this revised list looks better:

Avatar(+Spd -Def) x Aversa or Say'ri

Chrom x Sumia

Lissa x Libra

Sully x Gaius

Miriel x Gregor

Maribelle x Ricken

Panne x Henry

Cordelia x Lon'Qu

Nowi x Vaike

Tharja x Donnel

Olivia x Frederick

Cherche x Stahl

And once again thanks for all the feedback from you all, and as I am completely new to Apoth Secret mode, thanks for being patient with me. so I'll be reading back through more of this thread for a bit more info when I get the time (Which will happen, Maxing everything's gonna take a looooong time, not sure if I'll be able to do it in time for Xmas) and then hopefully crack the level at some point!