PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Ebony]

Hey, I'm trying to plan out my pairings for my upcoming playthrough, and am having some difficulties. Here's what I have planned so far from pouring over this thread and whatnot:

Chrom x Sumia

Lissa x Libra

Sully x Donnel

Cherche x ????

Tharja x Gaius

Nowi x Vaike

Miriel x Gregor

Panne x Stahl

Olivia x Frederick

Cordelia x Lon'qu

Maribelle x Virion

Male MU x Lucina

I really don't care about supports/chemistry, more just interested in min/maxing. I'm still fairly new to the game, but greatly enjoy making powerful characters. Any input on who should be changed or what skills/classes should be utilized would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :D

Cherche x Henry is a good one. Cherche x Stahl is also really good for Gerome. Personally I prefer setting MaMu up with a first gen lady. You forgoe one super strong character, but you can really help two kids yourself who may need the class flexibility or stats. Also, muh children.

[Radiant head]

I have a question - is Axefaire Dread Fighter or Hero better for supporting a Tomefaire Dark Flier?

Hey, I'm trying to plan out my pairings for my upcoming playthrough, and am having some difficulties. Here's what I have planned so far from pouring over this thread and whatnot:

Chrom x Sumia

Lissa x Libra

Sully x Donnel

Cherche x ????

Tharja x Gaius

Nowi x Vaike

Miriel x Gregor

Panne x Stahl

Olivia x Frederick

Cordelia x Lon'qu

Maribelle x Virion

Male MU x Lucina

I really don't care about supports/chemistry, more just interested in min/maxing. I'm still fairly new to the game, but greatly enjoy making powerful characters. Any input on who should be changed or what skills/classes should be utilized would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :D

Don't see Henry in there, so looks like Gerome's best father is still available, for Axefaire/Hex/Anathema hard support.

Everything else looks pretty good. Donnel!Kjelle is probably the weakest because of Donnel's mods, but that's the best way to get GF on both her and Noire if that's the way you want to go.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Radiant head

[Czar_Yoshi]

Hey, I'm trying to plan out my pairings for my upcoming playthrough, and am having some difficulties.

Got anything in particular you want them to do? Minmaxing for the sake of minmaxing is fun, but different pairs are good at different things and/or go about being good at them differently.

[Junes666]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Got anything in particular you want them to do? Minmaxing for the sake of minmaxing is fun, but different pairs are good at different things and/or go about being good at them differently.

I'm still not totally set on any particular role for anyone yet. My main goal is to have a lot of class variety, since I find that keeps the battles interesting. Ultimately I'd like to take on Apotheosis with them, never done that before though so still learning the best way to go about it.

[TheSilentChloey]

Maybe Tumblr. I saw a blog that had Libra x Tharja as the best pairing for her.

Don't go near Tumblr either.

[Shinshia]

Hi everyone,

I haven't been here in a while, I'm redoing my pairings for Apo and I think I'm pretty much set, however I'm left with Noire and Gerome unpaired and with not so great fathers left (Donnel, Vaike, Frederick, Kellam).

Could I work something out for them? Maybe Donnel!Noire and Vaike!Gerome? Or Frederick!Noire? Though I'm not sure how a non-GF pairing would work out...

Thanks!

[Czar_Yoshi]

Non-GF Noire is fine (especially with Vaike), but what about your other pairings? Odds are there's an easy swap somewhere that would benefit Gerome.

[Frenzify]

Snipers are good in post-game or even high difficulties main game because they can attack dangerous enemies that have 1-2 range without counter. Lon'qu Noire is considered one of the good ones. No Galeforce, but high speed and skill.

Stahl!Kjelle is not very good because Kjelle only wants Galeforce, and Stahl's mods aren't that great either.

Henry!Severa is okay (Severa is hard to mess up in general), but the problem is that the high mag mod goes nowhere without access to Tomefaire, and Dark Mage overlaps, which means Henry would have been much better used elsewhere.

Fred!Owain is kind of bad because he goes from low str and high mag to just mediocre in both. Stahl is better if you want a physical Owain because at least the mag is +2. Still probably one of Fred's less terrible kids.

Gaius!Yarne is probably solid, but Gaius can pass Pegasus Knight to a daughter like Noire or Kjelle, so may want to consider that. Actually yeah if it's not too late switching Stahl and Gaius will give you a top tier Kjelle and Yarne.

Thanks. I figured it wouldn’t be the best, but good to know they're not that terrible... besides Stahl!Kjelle and Frederick!Owain. Frederick and Lissa are already married, and even if there weren't I probably still would have gone through with it, but I have Vaike free, so maybe I could swap him with Stahl. Kjelle would get access to more skills and probably better stats, I assume? And after looking at their support conversations, I like them much more than Stahl's (although, that's probably irrelevant in this thread).

Anyway, it's also good to know that sniper Noire with Lon'qu as a father isn't as bad as I assumed it would be. Galeforce also would have been nice, and I almost had Gaius as her father, and Lon'qu as Yarne's, but was put off of it for reasons. But I can make do without GF.

[Radiant head]

It's nearly impossible to have pairings that are terrible, because pairings are basically about good and better not good and bad (as Czar puts it). So while something like Fred!Owain isn't as optimal as something like Ricken!Owain and his high magic, he isn't bad compared to most first gen units either.

The thing about Kjelle and Noire is that they only get GF with Donnel and Gaius, and Donnel passes GF at the cost of poor mods, so it's considered viable to give Gaius to Kjelle and Noire to go without GF.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Radiant head

[Czar_Yoshi]

although, that's probably irrelevant in this thread

This is an advice thread, and if you're looking for how to make a strong team that works around aesthetic conditions, that's perfectly fine. The only things irrelevant here are people who neither want nor offer help.

[Shinshia]

Non-GF Noire is fine (especially with Vaike), but what about your other pairings? Odds are there's an easy swap somewhere that would benefit Gerome.

My other pairings are:

Sumia!Lucina @ Sniper x Libra!Owain @ Sage

Chrom!Cynthia @ Dark Flier x +Mag/-Def Robin @ Grandmaster

Chrom!Cynthia!Morgan @ Valkyrie x Ricken!Inigo @ Sage

Virion!Severa @ Wyvern Lord x Gregor!Laurent @ Berserker

Gaius!Kjelle @ Paladin x Stahl!Yarne @ Berserker

Lon'qu!Brady @ Sage x Henry!Nah @ Valkyrie

And of course Sumia x Chrom.

[TheSilentChloey]

What is Gaius!Kjelle like as a unit? I know that she can get Galeforce (thank god) and was wondering about things like skill sets and ending classes. I am trying Gaius!Kjelle for my current M!Mu run to see how she works out as a unit. That and ideas are sort of needed

I so far have two ladies that need to be married (*cough, cough*Panne and Cherche*cough,cough*) and I only have a few options to chose from. So with that in mind here are the marriable men that I have left:

Kellam, Vaike, and Donnel,

It is not easy to work out, although I am leaning to Donnel!Yarne with Underdog as a taguel (perhaps, but I am not so certain on that one). Which would leave either Kellam or Vaike for Gerome (Axefaire/Bowbreaker Wvyern Lord? or Luna Wyvern Lord? Hmm so hard to choose wisely).

[Frenzify]

Werid... Are Donnel's poor mods exclusinve just to Kjelle, or across all his children, because I could have sworn I had heard nothing but good things about Donnel fathering any child, or was that just because of aptitude?

In that case, as I was going to pair him with Olivia, and he wouldn't even have had the Pegasus line to pass on, out of my single men, Stahl, Libra, Ricken, and Donnel, of course, who would be the best pairing for Olivia?

[TheSilentChloey]

Werid... Are Donnel's poor mods exclusinve just to Kjelle, or across all his children, because I could have sworn I had heard nothing but good things about Donnel fathering any child, or was that just because of aptitude?

In that case, as I was going to pair him with Olivia, and he wouldn't even have had the Pegasus line to pass on, out of my single men, Stahl, Libra, Ricken, and Donnel, of course, who would be the best pairing for Olivia?

No his mods are not exclusive to just Kjelle. Aptitude makes up for them to a point. Also he has the skill underdog, which can be of greater use.

If you are going with Libra!Inigo he's not too bad and can work as a hybrid unit as Inigo gains the mage class for tomefaire/dark mage classes for vengance as well as the priest class if you would like renewal and miricle. I haven't tried the other guys for Inigo yet, so I am not so sure. Czar Yoshi is better at giving the run down of the different types of Inigo.

Edited December 16, 2015 by TheSilentChloey

[Thor Odinson]

Werid... Are Donnel's poor mods exclusinve just to Kjelle, or across all his children, because I could have sworn I had heard nothing but good things about Donnel fathering any child, or was that just because of aptitude?

In that case, as I was going to pair him with Olivia, and he wouldn't even have had the Pegasus line to pass on, out of my single men, Stahl, Libra, Ricken, and Donnel, of course, who would be the best pairing for Olivia?

Donnel's poor mods are for everyone. His mods are just kinda shit. Aptitude isn't very good for postgame since you'll hit your caps within a few reclasses anyway while getting your skills regardless so doesn't even really matter. Kjelle is just the only kid he's even okay on only because she has everything else she needs and only want Galeforce and if you really want Gaius on Noire, Donnel!Kjelle's mods hurts less than Donnel!Kjelle's, due to Sully's mods being better than Tharja's.

Like, if you want Donnel to dad (in a gameplay-optimal fashion), Kjelle's more or less the only really acceptable choice than anything, even though Gaius is better for her and Noire can afford to go non-gale better than Kjelle can. It does help that Donnel!Kjelle's hair matches her armor well, though.

Stahl sounds the best for Olivia there. He has Luna and decent mods and Inigo's mods tend towards physical. If you want magic Inigo Ricken's probably acceptable.

[Radiant head]

It does help that Donnel!Kjelle's hair matches her armor well, though.

This is why I did Donnel!Kjelle anyway.

Though ironically she does pretty bad in her purple armor classes with Donnel's mods and wants to basically stick to either Pally or Hero.

[Czar_Yoshi]

My other pairings are:

I'd just leave Noire and Gerome benched and use the extra room to bring more staffbots. That's a pretty solid team and it would be better to support it in a way that actually helps than just adding more members who are worse and usually wind up with nothing to do.

What is Gaius!Kjelle like as a unit? I know that she can get Galeforce (thank god) and was wondering about things like skill sets and ending classes. I am trying Gaius!Kjelle for my current M!Mu run to see how she works out as a unit. That and ideas are sort of needed

She's got a lot of Spd and Skl, a good procstack in Luna/Astra and plenty of ending classes- a solid A tier child. She's usually used in Wyvern Lord or Paladin with a Berserker husband.

Werid... Are Donnel's poor mods exclusinve just to Kjelle, or across all his children, because I could have sworn I had heard nothing but good things about Donnel fathering any child, or was that just because of aptitude?

In that case, as I was going to pair him with Olivia, and he wouldn't even have had the Pegasus line to pass on, out of my single men, Stahl, Libra, Ricken, and Donnel, of course, who would be the best pairing for Olivia?

Donnel is bad at everything.

[spoiler=Donnel rant]The reason a lot of people like him- and this might be a bit of stereotyping, but it's a pretty good example of what happens- is that early in the game you get Fred, a unit with high bases and slow growths, and Donnel, a unit with very low bases and high growths. A bit of common sense says that it's better to invest early on and get long-term rewards from that than it is to cash in all at once, and Donnel has a very strong midgame (when his growths have kicked in, but his mods and class pool haven't begun to hurt) to reinforce this. And that should be fine, but there's a problem.

The game's difficulty curve is not linear- it doesn't start easy and get hard, assuming the player plays as intended. Awakening's difficulty curve is really wonky and starts hard, then gets easy, then goes all over the place. So an early-investment, late-return strategy has you expending resources when you need them the most, and reaping returns when there's nothing to do. This also has the side effect of making Donnel's boom seem stronger than it really is, since the game is going easy when he's strong.

So Donnel's character archetype tends to trick players into thinking the game works a different way than it really does, but doesn't punish it on lower difficulties. The result is a bunch of people who get upset when game-reinforced "optimal" strategies don't work on higher difficulties, and that's bad game design.

People like him as a dad because of Aptitude, I guess. Ingame it's kind of nice, but because children gain exp so fast and have such high bases anyway, they're always capping stats before they finish their ingame skillsets without it, so it doesn't make that much of a difference. Postgame, it's expected that all your stats will be capped always anyway, so Aptitude is useless there.

His mods hurt everyone. Kjelle has some pretty decent mods from Sully already, so she can bear Donnel's better than others can (she still hates them). Noire's mods from Tharja are much shakier than Sully's, so she gets ruined by Donnel and will have to settle for being a piddly Sniper with bad Spd, Skl and Str. For comparison, Gaius!Kjelle has +3/3 Skl/Spd on Donnel!Kjelle, and Vaike!Noire has +2/2/2 Str/Skl/Spd on Donnel!Kjelle- a +6 increase in relevant stats in both cases.

Don't let him within a thousand miles of Olivia if you care about anything other than aesthetics, he has almost total class overlap with Inigo- only Villager will get passed (and Fighter for HP+5/Zeal, but Inigo has both Hero and Warrior already) and Inigo is already wanting for mods too. He'll even be left procless from the pairing.

[Shinshia]

Ok thank you Czar!

[TheSilentChloey]

*snip*

She's got a lot of Spd and Skl, a good procstack in Luna/Astra and plenty of ending classes- a solid A tier child. She's usually used in Wyvern Lord or Paladin with a Berserker husband.

I see.

*Snip*

I so far have two ladies that need to be married (*cough, cough*Panne and Cherche*cough,cough*) and I only have a few options to chose from. So with that in mind here are the marriable men that I have left:

Kellam, Vaike, and Donnel,

It is not easy to work out, although I am leaning to Donnel!Yarne with Underdog as a taguel (perhaps, but I am not so certain on that one). Which would leave either Kellam or Vaike for Gerome (Axefaire/Bowbreaker Wvyern Lord? or Luna Wyvern Lord? Hmm so hard to choose wisely).

[Ezrius]

In a playthrough with a Male Robin (+Spd, -Def) with the condition that you must marry 1st gen (because creeping on your war buddies' time displaced children is pretty bad), how bad of an option is Say'ri? Despite the fact that Tomes are pretty insane in this game, I tend to like the aesthetic of physical classes (swords, even).

She's strictly worse than Cordelia, stat wise (losing 1 Skl and 1 Spd), but she has access to GF, Astra, two faires, two breakers (including Lances), and Deliverer. This doesn't seem like a terrible skill pool for a lead, but is it still "good" in endgame with a Robin hard support? I know there are choices that would be functionally better (Cordelia stands out despite Severa not needing it, as does Lissa for Robin!Owain), but I'm just trying to see if there's an under-appreciated character hiding here. If she could only produce a son...

Edit: For some reason I just didn't mention Galeforce in that skill set originally...

Edited December 16, 2015 by Ezrius

[Radiant head]

I don't think she's terrible. The main drawback of using her as a lead unit is probably the lack of Luna/Vengeance, which is the same reason why Lissa, Maribelle, and Olivia aren't considered good lead units for post-game. You'd have to use Astra, which is less reliable when not stacked. Guessing Assassin would be the final class (which is sad because the Swordmaster design looks better).

The main issue I would have is that her mods look really underwhelming. I thought they would be at least similar to Lon'qu's.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Radiant head

[Lucina's Husband]

How useful can Lissa be as an offensive lead/wife for your Avatar on Apotheosis? I ask because I love the idea of getting a super fast Owain (+Speed/-Def), but I also understand that Lissa lacks a good proc.

Thinking of doing either Avatar! Owain (+Speed, -Def) x Sumia! Lucina or Cynthia, Aversa! Morgan (+Magic, - Def: It's like a trade off of like 4 magic points for two points of speed, I think) x Lon'qu! Brady, or Chrom! Inigo! Morgan (+Skill, - Def) x Olivia! @Lucina. Can't really decide.

[Radiant head]

You can always try just doing an A-support with Robin and Lucina in Apo (one girl has to be unpaired anyway). DS+ closes some of the gap between A and S, though probably won't ever get 100%.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Radiant head

[Vascela]

You could also take Lissa as a hard support with MaMU as a Sniper lead.

[TheSilentChloey]

Which is the best father for a taguel Yarne? I know that taguel are not the best class but what would it take to make Yarne work as a taguel?