Some "Gems" from the Pairing Thread

[Alureiath]

*EDIT* (7/25/14)

Took out standard marriage guide + Lonqu!Severa (until I can find the more recent posts on them b/c I just kind of jumbled all the old + new information together).

Hello,

Just made an account to share some stuff I found while reading the entirety, yes, the entirety, of the The Pairing Thread: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247?st=0. I would like to say that I've skimmed over some stuff and around page 30-40 I found my ideal team to make/create, so I apologize if some of the posts that I share are more oriented towards my team. Unfortunately, I didn't really think about exact post numbers / author of the post, which I should've done, so I would like to give a huge thank you to the posters I took the information from. This is for people who don't really want to spend a bunch of time just reading through the Pairing Thread because it's a pretty daunting task.

[spoiler=Who shall MU (M) & MU (F) marry?]Male MU:
Gen 2 Galeforce user > Gen 1 Child Bearer without Galeforce, who Has a Daughter > Gen 1 Non-Child Bearer with Galeforce > Non-Child Bearer Lacking Galeforce = Gen 1 Child bearer who lacks Galeforce but has a Son

Reasoning is, provided it's actually used, the full salvo of second gen marriages is just better than not. The only way to have them all wed is MU, and it's a fair waste to not have MU with a galeforcer. Following that, improving a child [particularly Nah] is better than not, but having MU in a usuable position is better than... not. [Tiki, Anna, Flavia have a solid argument for position for "Worst wife for MaMU".]

As for a more particular list:

Lucina is sorta in a tier of her own, offering Aether to Morgan, in addition to [typically] having Galeforce. She also bears Dual Strike+ which sets her as more desirable than Chrom!Cynthia. [in a particular note, Lucina!Morgan benefits exceptionally well from Skill asset]

Below her would... be Chrom!Cynthia.
Followed by the whole lot of the second gen girls, provided they get Galeforce.

Then there's Nowi. Nowi is awful as a wife, and basically damns MU to the bench by blowing his S-support, but hands down, has the best use of MU's inheritance.
Tharja and Sully are about the same.

After that the priority is pretty simple to follow.

Female MU:
In case of Female MU, the priority is different, since extra galeforce.
And... that'd be:
2nd Gen Guy > 1st Gen Guy who's not Chrom > Chrom
[Reasoning: 7:3 might outperform 6:4 [see deployment slots], stronger Morgan.
Chrom literally produces the worst Morgan, and Lucina benefits some of the least from MU inheritance- she's right there with Cynthia, Brady, and the Gale-lacking Boy Trio for "Benefits from MU inheritance".]

As far as the big mods goes, Non-Child Bearer w/o galeforce also includes some second gens.
Kellam!Nah and Ricken!Noire are both in that category- to which they're notable, K!N!M being an overkill DEF brick with 99+ DEF [and yes, 69 SPD, so she gets doubled by nothing and doubles everything but 3 targets], and R!N!M being the F!Morgan equivalent of R!L!M.
Frankly, there's a pretty null gain on the Gale-lacking sons getting MU inheritance- just as running those things has.

I took this pretty early on in the thread I believe, I forget which page exactly but I'm pretty sure the poster was Airship Canon, I could be wrong though! I believe this is still pretty relevant, but I'm not sure, haha.

[spoiler=Unit Breakdowns: Lead Unit, Support Unit, etc.]A Lead Unit is a unit that is upfront in a Pair Up.
A Support is a unit that is in the back.
Relatively simple.

A Hard or Pure Support is a unit that does not ever change its position from the back.
As such, units in this role don't use Active Skills. They typically run Auras, or simple Stat+2 skills.
If a unit lacks either Galeforce or BOTH Vengeance and Vantage, it is pretty much best off in this role.
Examples:
Gerome, Yarne, many Nahs, a load of the first Gen.
Guys perform better here than girls thanks to Aggressor. [10x4 > 10x2]

A common misconception is that Hard Supports are useless. This is completely incorrect, as they are a source of a LOT of damage- especially off the Berserkers.

Beyond that the Lead Types:
Sniper: Exactly what it says on the tin- a Sniper. Pretty much needs Actives. They attack from Range 3 to negate any enemy offense potential. Chrom does well in this role rather than that of a Hard Support, despite lacking Galeforce.
Striker/Standard Lead: They are offensively tilted and are the most common combat unit type. Girls run two procs/faire, Guys run proc/agg/faire. Galeforce lets them do their thing and either retreat, bring in another unit, or bring down another foe.
Tank: Runs Vengeance/Vantage mostly. [The other type of tank: Hard or Pure tanks are fairly bad at full build since they offer nothing that pure offense doesn't already in most cases.] They fight on EP. Most any unit can perform the role of tank in terms of pulling a group as a note.
-- Sweeper: A specialized Tank that runs Vengeance/Vantage to sweep the enemy. Sweepers need Negative DEF modifiers, Vengeance, Vantage, and need to be married to either Lucina or Chrom, and must be 100% reliable for what they do.

Then Field Support:
-Staffbot: A Unit that specializes in using Staves and doesn't participate in combat.
-Rallybot: A Unit that specializes in using Rally skills and doesn't participate in combat.
-Dancer: Olivia. Refreshes units.

Don't have a link unfortunately to this particular page either in the forums and I think the poster was Czar_Yoshi.

[spoiler="Basic Skill Guide"]People in this thread believe that one-strike-KOing every unit is the most efficient method for ordinary Apotheosis runs.
Pairing optimization is just for providing children to be available to one-strike-KO Apo enemies & making the one-strike-KO easier.
So that's why people in this thread suggests achieving a basic skillset for all children such as Gale + Proc + suitable class + good mods (+Weaponfaire) for leading units, Weaponfaire + suitable class + good mods (+Agg) for pure supports, Vantage + Vengeance + Tome class (+Lucina as wife) for Apo Tanks, as their standard.

Unsure of reliability because was posted some time ago, but I still think it applies. Here's a link: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=63.

[spoiler=Children: To go Physical / Magical, Pair-Up Priorities, Passing on Skills, etc.]Anyway, when building your team the main thing to keep in mind is making sure the pairup boosts of your 2nd Gen pairs match their partner's main attacking stat, making sure every pair has at least one Galeforce/Proc unit, and making sure you have at least one pair with 75+ Spd. If you have all that, you can clear Apo pretty reliably as long as you make all the right ingame preparations beforehand (forge your weapons, use tonics etc). Male unit's physical/magical alignment tends to matter more than female's because all girls can access Bride, which attacks physically but gives +Mag/Spd. That said, most units depend on their parents and can actually go either way (sometimes simultaneously like Nah and Gerome).

Lucina: Physical (Olivia/Avatar), Magical (Maribelle/Sumia/Avatar)
Kjelle: Both (good Bride candidate)
Cynthia: Always Magical
Severa: Physical (Lon'qu/Stahl), Magical (Ricken), Both (Virion)
Nah: Physical (Vaike/Gregor/Stahl), Magical (Virion), Both (Henry)
Noire: Both (good Bride candidate)
Owain: Always Magical
Laurent: Always Magical
Brady: Always Magical
Yarne: Always Physical
Inigo: Physical (Chrom/Stahl), Magical (Ricken/Libra)
Gerome: Physical (Vaike/Gregor/Stahl), Both (Henry)

So, when putting a team together, Lucina gets first priority because she has DS+ which allows her to either support VV or safely fight more dangerous things. Her preferences are generally Avatar-M > Morgan-M > Laurent > Libra!Owain > everyone else, though she can work well with anyone and generally wind up as part of your best pair.

Second priority goes to Morgan. Morgan-M will prefer Lucina best with everyone else mostly equal (keep in mind Nah means no double Galeforce), Magical Morgan-F is generally Owain/Brady >Magical Inigo, Physical is Physical Inigo >Yarne/Gerome. I tend to prefer Owain to Brady, but the two are pretty much equal.

Third priority goes to Nah because she has no Galeforce and must marry a boy with Galeforce to be useful. Physical Nah is locked to Inigo unless Physical Morgan-M wants her, Magical Nah can go to any of the Galeboys.

Fourth priority goes to Physical Severa because her high Spd, natural Vengeance, loads of Breakers and inclination toward Physical give her a very large niche-filling potential. Namely, Lon'qu/Virion!Severa, paired with a Berserker and using All+2 can hit 75 Spd (the threshold to double every enemy in the game) as a Wyvern Lord, and are the only unit suited to do so besides Morgan. Gerome and Yarne are her best candidates, though Physical Inigo can work as well.

Everyone else can then get matched up however you like, there should be a magical Galeboy or two, Cynthia, Kjelle, Noire, possibly Laurent and a Galeforceless Berserker left.


Passing skills: Always Galeforce, if that's missing then DS+ is fine. Panne passes Str+2 or Swordbreaker unless marrying Fred in which case it doesn't matter. Donnel passes Underdog, for male-only skills Axefaire is good for combat and Despoil is nice for training.

End classes: Sage and Dark Flier are good for magical. For Physical, Assassins are weak but give +Str/Skl/Spd and have very high Skl, Snipers can attack at 3-range, give +Str/Skl and have very high Skl, Paladins are high-Mov and give +Str/Skl/Spd/Def, Berserkers are very strong/fast and give a ton of +Str/Spd but have terrible Hit, Warriors are very strong and give +Str/Def, Wyvern Lords are slow but have high Str/Mov and give +Str/Def, and Dread Fighters look cool. Brides attack physically but give magical pairup boosts.

THANK YOU CZAR_YOSHI! This post answered so many of my questions and doubts. I have no idea how to make it stand out even more, but if anyone reads this it summarizes a lot of things mentioned in the Pairing Thread. Read discussion here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=66.

[spoiler=One of the Best StreetPass Teams]The best Streetpass strat I've seen (and the one I'm currently using) is Airship Canon's Counter Aggression strategy (10 Generals/Heroes/Warriors/Wyvern +Str/-Def Avatars with LB/Agg/Ignis/Luna/Counter and +3/25 Braves), which at least insures the player dies if they can't manage a 1-turn route. Lethality doesn't even insure that, if you do get an attack in there's only a chance for the foe to die. The only other things you can do are troll teams based around being useless for non-combat purposes and troll teams based around game spoilers.

This one was mentioned by Czar_Yoshi here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=69. BUT the original author of this idea, Airship Canon, is here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=45791.

[spoiler=Apo-Oriented Classes]Typical Apo classes are Sage (highest Mag cap in the game, good Skl, good distribution), Dark Flier (like Sage with lower Mag but more Mov and +Spd instead of +Skl, good distribution), Berserker (high Str, good physical pairup boosts, good 2nd gen distribution), Hero (high Skl, no major flaws), Paladin (high Mov, good all around pairup bonuses, common Faires, good distribution), Assassin (very high Spd/Skl, good physical pairup boosts), Sniper (very high Skl, can use Longbows/Double Bow), Bride (good Ignis user, gives magical pairup boosts with a physical attack, good distribution), Warrior (high Str, doesn't have Berserker's Hit problems), Wyvern Lord (high Str/Mov), Valkyrie (good staffbot class, fastest Tome user), and Falcoknight (good staffbot/Rallybot class).

The only classes you really should stay away from are Great Knight, Griffon Rider, Swordmaster and Trickster. Those classes either have no redeeming qualities or flaws crippling enough to make them almost never worth it. Most of the classes I didn't mention are decent, but not top tier.

Your units can typically go in any of those classes they have provided the class matches up with their physical/magical orientation and they have a Faire for it.

This one is also from Czar_Yoshi here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=78.

[spoiler=Staffbots!]1st Post
Giving Staffbots supports just wastes units because they never see combat and don't need them- thus Staffbots are always best as Spotpass/DLC characters. Units who can support shouldn't be Staffbots except for aesthetic reasons. Logbook units can also get unlimited Boots, which all your Staffbots should have.

Generally, Staffbots are +Mag/-anything Valkyries with LB/TF/Mov+1/Acrobat/Anathema holding Valflame.

2 Post:
Staffbot skills: they don't actually need any. If you want to spend time grinding them, though, LB is a must, Mov+1 is pretty much always helpful, use Tomefaire for Valkyries and Lancefaire+Shockstick for Falcos, Mag+2 can be nice, Acrobat is good on Valkyries but doesn't do anything on Falcos, and Anathema can be used if you're confident (set the staffbot next to an enemy, kill enemy, rescue staffbot away) but only helps if you have a lot of staffbots.

Both posts from Czar_Yoshi. The 1st Post: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=72. The 2nd Post: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=77.

[spoiler=Vantage + Vengeance (V/V)]First off, about VV: it's only safe if you have 100% DS. Only. Otherwise, if a DS fails, you die, and it's almost impossible to get 100% DS on a Sage without DS+. So you're intentionally using a high-risk strategy by trying to use more than Lucina's husband as a VV unit (or Avatar x Chrom and Lucina x someone for two pairs) that has very little payoff (there's not much multiple VV units can do that one can't).

A better idea in general is to use Vengeance as an offensive proc over Luna. Intentionally take enough damage to keep its boost up, but never enough that you'll die if the RNG decides to be a troll, and use Galeforce instead of Vantage. In your case, that means giving Vantage to Severa isn't super important (though most of her good physical fathers pass it anyway), and Henry has better uses than Inigo. If you don't want to put him on Cynthia (Chrom!Cynthia is pretty good), he could work well on Brady, and also goes nicely on Gerome, though he won't get many opportunities to use Vengeance and mostly wants Berserker + Anathema.

As being someone who took a long break from FE:Awakening, I had no idea what V/V was until I read a lot of the thread and even then I didn't really understand it. But this nifty explanation from Czar_Yoshi helped me here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=65.

[spoiler=Sol + Luna vs. Astra + Sol]I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I noticed something interesting about procstacks the other day. Occasionally I see people putting Sol and Luna together to make a "pseudo-Aether", but since Sol has priority over Luna, triggering Sol becomes very common and Luna becomes very rare (the highest possible Luna proc rate is 25%, when you have exactly 50 Skl). This is fine if you want healing with a side of damage, but not so fine if you want damage with a side of healing, or both in even amounts.

Anyway, what I did was swap Luna for Astra. Since Astra has priority over Sol, at 50 Skl your chances of activating an offensive proc are still 25%, but once you go over 50 Skl your chances go up instead of down (your Sol rate will be a lot lower though). It's not -too- hard to get a lead unit to 80 Skl with all boosts applied, which gives 40% Astra and 48% Sol- which is a lot more balanced than 80% Sol and 16% Luna.

A quick damage comparison between Astra and Luna. Target is the Nightmare Sniper, who has PavGis+ and 70 Def (using a physical weapon here).

I'll use a generic unit with 45 base Str (class cap + mods), and LB/Faire, a Brave Sword/Lance/Bow and a Str+2 pairup. Most Apo leads should be able to manage at least this, and could have Agg as well.

Atk: 45(base+mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +5(Faire) +7(pairup) +2(tonic) +17(weapon) =96. Damage against NS will be 6. Luna damage will be 15. Astra damage will be... Also 15. So yeah, against the highest Def enemy in the game with a reasonable setup, Luna only holds its own with Astra, and the more you prepare (or the weaker your foe is), the stronger Astra will be. This is before taking into account that Astra's proc rate will be 2.5 times that of Luna...

Counter isn't a problem (outside of Lunatic+, where it's a problem whether you use Astra or not) because you can never be killed by Counter damage alone if you enter a fight at full HP unless it's supplemented by enemy attack damage, and you should never be in such a situation in the first place (and extra damage from Luna can troll you against Counter too). Unless you're talking about EXPg, in which you don't want any procs...

But I digress, this strategy isn't even intended for Apo, it's intended as a superior version of Luna/Sol and probably works better on the likes of RaR3 anyway. In Apo you most likely shouldn't even be using Sol, and 40% just isn't reliable. And outside of Apo, bulk is pretty nonexistent.

I thought this was an interesting read, mostly because I left the game thinking that Sol + Luna was a great combo. Czar_Yoshi and others discuss about it here: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=42247&page=70.

This is pretty much what I got from the thread and will be posting in it soon to get my team looked over, but that's for another time, perhaps tomorrow. ^_^ If anyone will be so kind as to let me know if anything is out of date I'll edit it out. Also, will get around to re-searching the thread so I can properly credit the posters, my brain is a little dead at the moment, which leads me to apologizing for any mistakes.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Alureiath

[Czar_Yoshi]

Hehe. Pretty much all this is mine except for a bit from AC, and he's no longer active. I really need to write a concise guide sometime.

Just a word of warning, that thread is a year old, and the metagame does change over a year. If there's any contradictions in there somewhere, the new stuff is right.

Take out that bit in Standard Marriage Guide about using Avatar x Nowi as a base, I included it because I was talking to someone who had already decided on Avatar x Nowi.

The last bit (about Lon'qu!Severa) is still relevant, but for some reason people have stopped trying to do no LB/Agg/Rally Apo runs (probably also because AC is gone, and he was big on those). Also Virion!Severa hits exactly the same benchmarks as Lon'qu!Severa for Wyvern, so that's not something that's 100% exclusive to Lon'qu.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Alureiath]

Thanks for letting me know about the marriage guide and Lonqu!Severa, I'll take it out. I was a little tired last night and didn't properly double check like I should have, haha. I'm sad that AC is no longer active, I really enjoyed watching his youtube videos and reading about some of his ideas. My goal for tonight is to look back at some of the older stuff I took from the thread and probably put a warning on how old it is + properly credit people.

Oh! If you ever do write a guide just let me know and I'll take down the stuff I posted since a majority of the postings is yours. ^_^ Just wanted to help people out from searching all the older pages.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Alureiath