Lunatic Playstyle

[Moira]

What strategy do you guys normally use when playing Lunatic/Classic? The one time I played it through I paired fa female mu with chrom and primarily used them, later adding Morgan and Lucina, and going through levels with them paired up. I want to start a new run, and I think it'd to see what other people do and possibly implement some of those strategies.

Some questions:

Units and pairings?

The difficult chapters where you phase frederick out but your other units are still terrible? (5-10)?

Should I/is it possible to use any children from said unit pairings? (I feel that some child paralogues will be really difficult)

What skills do you get on the characters you're using?

any response/advice would be useful. Thanks!

[tuvarkz]

Units and pairings: If you are going no-grind, if the female doesn't join until chapter 7, she should remain a support unit at all times.

ChromxSumia is pretty much a must for no grinds, because Olivia will screw with Lucina's stats.

Frederick should remain at least until chapter 15 or so as a support unit, that +4 bonus on STR/DEF is really good.

Child paralogues: The difficult ones are Severa's and Gerome's tbh.

Skills? You should try to get some nice using of Sumia and Cordelia so they can get galeforce, plus in this case locktouch might not be a bad skill to pass from the male parent.

[Thor Odinson]

Last time was a while ago but

[spoiler=my team for reference in which I speak on]

L/Classic

No grind

FeMU +Str -Res standard me setup

-MU (paired with Chrom) for VeteranLucina because I really don't trust Chrom's strength ever turning out good for me when I most need him to. Lucina joined with more base strength than Chrom, though partly because by the time I got her MU's strength was in the 40s already. Went Merc->Hero->GK->back to Hero for 25 and final.

-Sully (paired with Fred) because I tend to favor Sully a lot and Fred is the best support partner. Worked out well in my favour, for Sully became tankier than even MU for a time after getting crazy blessed. Went Paladin->GK.

-Panne (paired with Lon'qu) for flier. Didn't do as well as she usually does in Hard since more hazards, but still pulled her weight. I tried to train Lon'qu for combat initially, but his durability just couldn't keep up and he fell too far behind so I just threw him a promo item and had him support bunny. Went Wyvern Knight->Wyvern Lord

-Lucina (usually supported by Chrom) got the Chrom support after her join, and MU switched to using random people because she can. Thankfully took after her mom in stats, and not dad. Very potent killer. Went Great Lord->Paladin

-Morgan (Paired with Kjelle) was trained for combat, but eventually became more of a rally spectrumer because his level ups were not cooperating and he's the only one who has it anyway. Whatever. I have four very good frontliners anyway. Went Grandmaster->Paladin.

-Tiki (Paired with Anna) mostly filler during round 1, but became extremely potent after I went back after first grimakill and got the kids and spotpass characters. Those manakete exp gains aren't kidding around.

-Anna and Libra for staffers. Libra is either supported by Cordelia or Cherche depending on what I need more of. Cordelia got enough back kills to go Falco for an extra rescue user if need be.

Basically I just

Use tanky units

Faceroll everything

The end

Children of Avatar can be easily made potent. Not sure about others. Kjelle wasn't the best she could be since Fred didn't have great stats to pass down, and she worked better as a support unit in my case. Didn't even try supporting with Yarne; he can't instapromote. Didn't use any other kids so don't really know.

Galeforce is nice and definitely helpful, though unnecessary for completion and I didn't use it in my team setup. I went with Sol on my MU (I could've gone Galeforce should I have done a more MU-centric team instead of training a fuller team, though), Sully grabbed Aegis before heading over to GK since she doesn't have regen, Lucina inherited Veteran and just regen'd off Aether (I gave Morgan Sol, though, since he came with his own Veteran) and Panne just avoidstacked until the Hit+20 fuckers showed up and I used careful positioning on that.

I felt that Lunatic stopped being hard around chapter 4 or so. Okay, 3 isn't actually that bad either, but still not the most optimal place to train weaker units. I actually used 4 to feed Chrom and Sully a bunch of kills (Sully was functionally good by 5 with a Fred support) and racked up their levels. Chapter 7 was another really easy chapter to feed kills in, just be mindful of the backforcements if you aren't going fast. I used that one for Panne. Fred is an excellent support unit, like said above.

If you're having more trouble, then focus on a smaller team so you can really get the exp to rack up their stats. MU should be able to solo with back support, really, so you can always fall back on that if you are having too much trouble training up a larger team.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Thor Odinson

[Czar_Yoshi]

Prologue? Water trick. Frederick shouldn't see combat as a lead unit outside of the first turn, possibly for the rest of the run.

Cht.1 and 2? Tank everything with Avatar.

Chapter 3? Train Avatar more, but also give a little exp to Chrom (and some to Sumia if she'll be marrying Chrom).

Post Cht.3: Get Renown items, Bonus Box items, and Second Seal. Reclass Avatar to Mercenary.

Cht.4 through 10: Destroy everything with Avatar. If a suitable waifu shows up, start building support, otherwise stick with Fred/Chrom.

Cht.11: Dance Olivia to Lv.30 if she'll be marrying Chrom and Lv.15 if not.

Cht.12/13: Make sure Olivia/Sumia have Galeforce to pass down.

Pass Morgan and her sibling some combination of Veteran, Armsthrift, and anything else that's useful, and pass Lucina and her sibling Galeforce. Destroy the rest of the game with those four units.

Honestly, Lunatic by itself isn't very interesting. If you want a challenge, fight the Risen on Lunatic without DLC or Spotpass units, and when you're done prove your teamsworth by beating the Challenge Pack maps and Apo.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Moira]

I am planning on not grinding at all or using wireless options to buy weapons (I will use the bonus box stuff, only have about 1500 renown).

However, I will use anyhting merchants bring. The first 4 chapters in ,my last playthrough were fairly easy to overcome (chapter 2 was the most annoying), but problems began to arise when I tried to start using other units, probably because I relied on Frederick too much. It sounds like Chrom should be paired with Sumia? Unless I dance Olivia to 30 which sounds a little tempting. Im thinking +defence -luck for my avatar,(will be male). I kinda want to marry him to Miriel, but I still haven't decided on that one. Thanks for the responses!

[shadowofchaos]

Honestly, Lunatic by itself isn't very interesting.

Prologue? Water trick

Cht.11: Dance Olivia to Lv.30 if she'll be marrying Chrom and Lv.15 if not.

Cht.12/13: Make sure Olivia/Sumia have Galeforce to pass down.

Destroy the rest of the game with those four units.

...yes, making that statement while using exploits that are only "necessary" for Lunatic+.

Raising an entire team rather than funneling all your EXP to destroy the difficulty isn't really a qualifying situation for your statement of "really isn't very interesting".

That's pretty much equivalent to me saying "I can have ga spells before I beat the Fire Cavern in FF8 junctioned to Squall even though I'm only level 15, so the bosses aren't really very interesting."

Edited February 2, 2014 by shadowofchaos

[Moira]

I would enjoy using more units (maybe around 10) but I don't know if there will be enough exp to go around and make everyone useful. Still, if I can lunatic would be much more fun.

[shadowofchaos]

That's where the difficulty of Lunatic comes in. People that have "been there, done that" like Czar_Yoshi need to realize that there are people that still find it a little daunting, especially on what people want to do in said difficulty.

The good thing about this game is that, if you have a "no-grind" policy going on and you find yourself hitting a wall... you might not have fun anymore. And that kills the point. The point is to have fun with the game, and if you need to... get a little exp for the people struggling.

Saying "Lunatic isn't very interesting" almost implies a condescending tone to those just starting out.

[Moira]

I found the first 4 chapters to be fun. They were challenging at first, but once I devised a strategy it was fun to play them through. However, in later chapters it just became throwing chrom and a female mu into the middle and watching them dominate, which was kinda boring. Thats why I'd like to have a larger team, in order to be able to do more strategic gameplay. However, without grinding it becomes challegning to keep them all at a decent enough level to be useful. I really don't like chapters 5-7 specifically because my units are still weak and dont have supports built up yet. This is why in my first playthrough I grinded a couple levels on my two units to have them S support and have a couple more levels, almost making it too easy.

[Shadow Mir]

...yes, making that statement while using exploits that are only "necessary" for Lunatic+.

Raising an entire team rather than funneling all your EXP to destroy the difficulty isn't really a qualifying situation for your statement of "really isn't very interesting".

That's pretty much equivalent to me saying "I can have ga spells before I beat the Fire Cavern in FF8 junctioned to Squall even though I'm only level 15, so the bosses aren't really very interesting."

What's more, one of those is having Sumia/Olivia get to level 15 Dark Flier before chapter 13, in a mode that isn't conducive to grinding unless you're using DLC... Never mind the fact that neither can take hits. That being said, I haven't tried Lunatic, so I can't be of help here (and I personally consider low-manning boring; besides, just about any FE game can be trivialized by funneling experience into a few units)..

Edited February 2, 2014 by Levant Fortner

[Czar_Yoshi]

...yes, making that statement while using exploits that are only "necessary" for Lunatic+.

Raising an entire team rather than funneling all your EXP to destroy the difficulty isn't really a qualifying situation for your statement of "really isn't very interesting".

Hey now, he asked how I play Lunatic and that's how I play. I like exploits, I don't like DLC/spotpass grinding, and Lunatic+ is more conducive to that sort of thing so I find vanilla Lunatic less interesting.

[PKL]

Use Frederick early on while feeding Avatar and chrom a bit. Feed Stahl a few kills, pair Kellam into Stahl->watch Stahl not care about enemies. Frederick Sumia OTP. Cordelia arrives and I glue Stahl to her, watch her grow into a beast. Get Lucina with Veteran, watch her become my best unit.

[Moira]

Just finished chapter 2 and my levels are currently:

Chrom at lvl 8

mu at lvl 4

Frederick at lvl 2

Lissa at lvl 3

Nobody else has levelled, and Chrom has gotten so many because chapters 1 and 2 were mostly Chrom sitting on a fort with Frederick paired up with him. Chrom also has a c support with mu and Frederick.

[Moira]

Ugh i've hit the brick wall of chapter 5. Kellam and Miriel can't compete and I'm considering just dorpping them and going back to Chrom, Sumia, and mu

[Drgnquester]

As blasphemous as it sounds, I like grinding to get super-high stats. I don't really use exploits and ridiculously OP parent combinations, because you can't really gimp any of the kids thanks to grinding and LB.

That being said, I'm probably the minority who likes grinding the DLC in Lunatic mode, so don't mind me~

[Groyer]

My strats are to pick a god.and pray.

Once the DLC opens up though it's just a matter of buying weapons for grinding. If you don't want to abuse DLC too much though, kudos to you. Just pick a god.

And pray.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Groyer

[FleurDeGlace]

Urgh, I can't even get through the Prologue of Lunatic mode, lols.....

Makes me feel sucky.....

[Skarthe]

Urgh, I can't even get through the Prologue of Lunatic mode, lols.....

Makes me feel sucky.....

It can take some time to get used to. How many times have you played through the game, and how much experience do you have with the series? I had multiple playthroughs on every FE in North America (plus FE4) and one on Awakening Hard, and I still lost on the Lunatic prologue a couple times. Still do if I get an unlucky crit from the Elthunder mage or something.

But yeah. The people who frown on grinding DLC, as I understand it, mostly do so because it removes the challenge from the game; why play on a higher difficulty setting if you're going to grind to trivialize it anyway? To each their own though.

[Czar_Yoshi]

But yeah. The people who frown on grinding DLC, as I understand it, mostly do so because it removes the challenge from the game; why play on a higher difficulty setting if you're going to grind to trivialize it anyway? To each their own though.

...To have the Lunatic+ Classic show up on their Streetpass team?

[FleurDeGlace]

It can take some time to get used to. How many times have you played through the game, and how much experience do you have with the series?

I've played Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones multiple times. Played Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon once through.

For Fire Emblem: Awakening, I have one playthrough up to Chapter 16 where I gave up cause I could not complete that chapter and another one up to Chapter 6 or so that I'm going through now.

Life's busy and I only just got the game recently due to it being out of stock almost everywhere and I don't have much time to play the game at all.....