Helping from pros is needed

[Blitze]

Hello serenesforest.net user, first I have to say thanks to Admins for creating a place where fire emblem fans can discuss stuff and talk.

I'm here to ask serious stuff about that guide http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/643003-fire-emblem-awakening/66145081?page=11

I bought the game 1 year ago and decided to start it and build my team like the guide on that site.

But a few people said on comment section that this guide isn't that great. And there are possiblitys to make awesome op stuff with ur characters. (making kallem into one of the Strongest assassin and some other stuff)

So I just wanted to know if that build just troll/bad or really worth to try out.

I know there is so much possiblitys but I found that guide yesterday and couldn't find another "good" / "bad" one so I seriously think that guide would fit.

(last question is there any uber range/archer in this game? Cuz I read that archers pretty meh compared to other classes bit I wanted to badly 1 epic bow char)

Edited December 6, 2014 by Blitze

[Shadow Mir]

I can't help you with archers, but the problem with that guide is that... it's outdated. You won't get any really good team building advice unless it's something recent. That being said, might I recommend looking at The Pairing Thread?

Edited December 6, 2014 by Levant Caprice

[Czar_Yoshi]

That guide is both terrible and outdated. The fact that it's partially based on aesthetics doesn't help.

That said, Awakening currently lacks a guide that's comprehensive, complete, up to date and actually useful. The best you're going to get is live help from folks, and The Pairing Thread here is the best place on the internet for that.

Whether or not Archers are good depends on what mode you're playing. Generally though they vary between the worst and best class in the game, with no middle ground.

Anyway, a few baseline questions for you: do you have DLC (if so, which ones?), what difficulty are you playing on, how many playthroughs have you completed and are you going for any specific goals besides winning?

Edited December 6, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[eclipse]

And to add to the post above, how much time are you willing to put into this game?

[isetrh]

People have said much smarter things between when I started writing and hit post, so ignore me. Sorry.

Glancing through that guide, it doesn't seem like there's any bad advice. It may be outdated, but he doesn't say to do anything stupid. There is no single best team plan though. The closest thing there is to one is Czar_Yoshi's 100% DS team, and iirc he doesn't consider it to be the best possible option. Each character has way more good options than what he includes, and the skills he suggests on each one are not the end-all-be-all best.

Edited December 6, 2014 by isetrh

[Czar_Yoshi]

Glancing through that guide, it doesn't seem like there's any bad advice.

Oh, it is so on. Spoilers for long post.

He says Paladin is the best physical support.

DLC enemies come with Rally on the Spirit Talisman maps if they're an Einherjar who would normally have that Rally as their special skill.

-2 isn't the lowest possible Lck cap, -7 is.

Galeforce doesn't activate from the back. He makes it sound like it does.

That Sorc video he linked to is utterly bogus. Lunatic RaR3 is not stronger than Lunatic+ Risen, and his Sorc would get flattened it it had to facecheck multiple 1-range Counters per turn with Luna+ and Aegis+ in the mix.

Sorcs have trouble against plenty of things in Apo, not just Anna (he didn't refer to her by name, but it's obvious that's who he's talking about).

Sages are not tankier than Sorcs (except in Avo).

He thinks Olivia is Chrom's best pairing, and refuses to give any reasoning. No really, he actively states that he won't explain it. Even if she were his best pairing, that would raise a ton of red flags.

There's that aesthetic bias towards Lissa. He should know that Avatar has better options really take other pairings into account and talk about the pros and cons of each.

Henry only has one more Mag than Chrom does. Without throwing out any thresholds that meets, his reasoning there is invalid (Henry x Sumia is a strong pair, but not for his reasons).

His reasoning for Libra x Maribelle only holds up under the assumption that the best way to pair up units is to give complete priority to some and then distribute the leftovers accordingly- basically, everyone on a first-come, first-serve basis. That method only works if you're deliberately making a small team.

Lon'qu x Cordelia is good, but he gives no reasons why other than "Severa is good and so is Lon'qu, so make him be her father."

He uses +7 Str as his only justification for Vaike x Cherche while completely ignoring mods in Donnel x Sully, which is contradictory and a bad way to make pairings anyway.

Stahl x Miriel uses the same reasoning as Libra x Maribelle.

His argument for Gaius x Tharja could be applied identically to Donnel x Tharja, with AT for Noire's Sorc. Given how much he's stressing AT+Nos, I have no clue how he dropped this.

Mods are also used as his only justification for Kellam x Nowi- and no, Kellam!Nah does not have any unique tanking abilities against Apo's bosses.

Aversa!Morgan is good, but he's not even close on the reasoning.

Stuff survives Vaike!Gerome!Morgan in Apo due to misses and failed DSes. He's strong, but not omnipotent without a very lot of careful threshold checks.

Kellam!Nah!Morgan is tanky, but she lacks the killing power to do anything with it, has two useless parents and is basically gimmick only.

Agg is not unique to Ricken!Laurent!Morgan.

He didn't even mention the Aether Morgans or Severa!Morgan, both of which are on par with and often better than those five (who were chosen only for one cap or SG).

Now, his "KO everything before it can touch you" video is all fine and good, except that a) that player takes damage plenty of times, b) there's at least one pair running on an A support, c) that has to be most boring team I've ever seen- just because Sage/DF is a good combo does not mean you should make every pair into one and drop all units who are physically oriented, d) isn't using Aether or DS+ on Lucina, which is slightly appalling, and e) the only Sorc present is Julius as a Rallybot (more bad planning- Rallybots should be 8 Mov flying classes)- so no, I can't see that Sorc Severa works just fine in Apo from that video.

Finally, there are no such things as optimal builds. In my N.Apo Chrom solo, I switched around my whole skillset no less than 3 times. Especially without context, it's not really possible to claim that a unit has one true set (except possibly the likes of Virion!Nah and Vaike!Yarne because their class sets are so small that they barely have five skills that have an effect when supporting, but even then they have multiple classes to run those sets on), so I'm not even going to bother going after all the stuff he said in that section.

No wait, I am. His current Lucina set is Olivia!Lucina@Paladin (LB/Faire/Aether/RK/GF), and there are so many things wrong with that that I don't even know where to start. One thing definitely sticks out, he's not using procstacks in any of his builds and that's just wrong.

And Inigo is running Astra with Defender but no Luna. And he wants a Berserker with no Hit+20 and Astra as Severa's sole proc and aaarrrgh...

At least his set for Luna Sages is good. It's pretty hard to mess that one up.

And he's running Sol/Vantage on Berserkers without Galeforce.

There's a mighty fine RNG-based Anna tanking build that won't do any significant damage either.

And there's a Berserker with AF but no Agg. And a variant trying to tank with Helswath.

AT on a Manakete, which has the second cheapest fully upgraded weapon in the game (behind Taguel thanks to Stones being unforgeable).

Ignis on a non-VV Sorc there.

Pavise on Chrom!Inigo, which he doesn't even have.

Edit- he gave no advice on child x child pairings either which are arguably more important that parent pairings. A Fred!Cynthia may be pretty bad as far as Cynthias go, but she's still way better than a no-GF-having Nah x Gerome.

No. No, it isn't on, I give up and am never reading that guide ever again. Or rewatching any part of those slow videos. *Shudders*

Edited December 6, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Shadow Mir]

Oh, it is so on. Spoilers for long post.

He says Paladin is the best physical support.

DLC enemies come with Rally on the Spirit Talisman maps if they're an Einherjar who would normally have that Rally as their special skill.

-2 isn't the lowest possible Lck cap, -7 is.

Galeforce doesn't activate from the back. He makes it sound like it does.

That Sorc video he linked to is utterly bogus. Lunatic RaR3 is not stronger than Lunatic+ Risen, and his Sorc would get flattened it it had to facecheck multiple 1-range Counters per turn with Luna+ and Aegis+ in the mix.

Sorcs have trouble against plenty of things in Apo, not just Anna (he didn't refer to her by name, but it's obvious that's who he's talking about).

Sages are not tankier than Sorcs (except in Avo).

He thinks Olivia is Chrom's best pairing, and refuses to give any reasoning. No really, he actively states that he won't explain it. Even if she were his best pairing, that would raise a ton of red flags.

There's that aesthetic bias towards Lissa. He should know that Avatar has better options really take other pairings into account and talk about the pros and cons of each.

Henry only has one more Mag than Chrom does. Without throwing out any thresholds that meets, his reasoning there is invalid (Henry x Sumia is a strong pair, but not for his reasons).

His reasoning for Libra x Maribelle only holds up under the assumption that the best way to pair up units is to give complete priority to some and then distribute the leftovers accordingly- basically, everyone on a first-come, first-serve basis. That method only works if you're deliberately making a small team.

Lon'qu x Cordelia is good, but he gives no reasons why other than "Severa is good and so is Lon'qu, so make him be her father."

He uses +7 Str as his only justification for Vaike x Cherche while completely ignoring mods in Donnel x Sully, which is contradictory and a bad way to make pairings anyway.

Stahl x Miriel uses the same reasoning as Libra x Maribelle.

His argument for Gaius x Tharja could be applied identically to Donnel x Tharja, with AT for Noire's Sorc. Given how much he's stressing AT+Nos, I have no clue how he dropped this.

Mods are also used as his only justification for Kellam x Nowi- and no, Kellam!Nah does not have any unique tanking abilities against Apo's bosses.

Aversa!Morgan is good, but he's not even close on the reasoning.

Stuff survives Vaike!Gerome!Morgan in Apo due to misses and failed DSes. He's strong, but not omnipotent without a very lot of careful threshold checks.

Kellam!Nah!Morgan is tanky, but she lacks the killing power to do anything with it, has two useless parents and is basically gimmick only.

Agg is not unique to Ricken!Laurent!Morgan.

He didn't even mention the Aether Morgans or Severa!Morgan, both of which are on par with and often better than those five (who were chosen only for one cap or SG).

Now, his "KO everything before it can touch you" video is all fine and good, except that a) that player takes damage plenty of times, b) there's at least one pair running on an A support, c) that has to be most boring team I've ever seen- just because Sage/DF is a good combo does not mean you should make every pair into one and drop all units who are physically oriented, d) isn't using Aether or DS+ on Lucina, which is slightly appalling, and e) the only Sorc present is Julius as a Rallybot (more bad planning- Rallybots should be 8 Mov flying classes)- so no, I can't see that Sorc Severa works just fine in Apo from that video.

Finally, there are no such things as optimal builds. In my N.Apo Chrom solo, I switched around my whole skillset no less than 3 times. Especially without context, it's not really possible to claim that a unit has one true set (except possibly the likes of Virion!Nah and Vaike!Yarne because their class sets are so small that they barely have five skills that have an effect when supporting, but even then they have multiple classes to run those sets on), so I'm not even going to bother going after all the stuff he said in that section.

No wait, I am. His current Lucina set is Olivia!Lucina@Paladin (LB/Faire/Aether/RK/GF), and there are so many things wrong with that that I don't even know where to start. One thing definitely sticks out, he's not using procstacks in any of his builds and that's just wrong.

And Inigo is running Astra with Defender but no Luna. And he wants a Berserker with no Hit+20 and Astra as Severa's sole proc and aaarrrgh...

At least his set for Luna Sages is good. It's pretty hard to mess that one up.

And he's running Sol/Vantage on Berserkers without Galeforce.

There's a mighty fine RNG-based Anna tanking build that won't do any significant damage either.

And there's a Berserker with AF but no Agg. And a variant trying to tank with Helswath.

AT on a Manakete, which has the second cheapest fully upgraded weapon in the game (behind Taguel thanks to Stones being unforgeable).

Ignis on a non-VV Sorc there.

Pavise on Chrom!Inigo, which he doesn't even have.

Edit- he gave no advice on child x child pairings either which are arguably more important that parent pairings. A Fred!Cynthia may be pretty bad as far as Cynthias go, but she's still way better than a no-GF-having Nah x Gerome.

No. No, it isn't on, I give up and am never reading that guide ever again. Or rewatching any part of those slow videos. *Shudders*

Yeesh... All I had to do was look at the time period to realize that guide reeked, but hot damn... *shudders*

[Carmine Sword]

Oh my gosh, I remember that thread. Such awful wonderful memories.

Don't listen to Endgame, his advice is generally outdated and his opinions on them are pretty unmalleable. Except for when I managed to convince him that Chrom x Sumia > Chrom x Olivia.

[Blitze]

No dlc, playing on hard, it's my first playground, my goal was not to make awful marriage instead the best most of it and wanted to spend something like 80 hours into it.

And sheeesh thanks for the response guy's

Edited December 6, 2014 by Blitze

[eclipse]

- First time: If this isn't your first FE game, Hard might be a bit rough. . .but it's doable, I promise~!

- No DLC: That's fine, it means stuff like Aggressor/Limit Break strategies are off-limits.

- "Best" marriage: There's a thread called the Pairings Thread; I'd read backwards, since opinions change over time. Since I don't know what your definition of "best" is, I can't really help you further than that.

- 80 hours: This game can be completed in well under that time, assuming you're not going for max stats on everyone. That means you've got time to grind for experience/gold, if you feel you absolutely need it.

Hope this helps~!

[Czar_Yoshi]

Yeesh... All I had to do was look at the time period to realize that guide reeked, but hot damn... *shudders*

For reference, this is the period before the GDL stuff that Airship is constantly bashing.

No dlc, playing on hard, it's my first playground, my goal was not to make awful marriage instead the best most of it and wanted to spend something like 80 hours into it.

And sheeesh thanks for the response guy's

It's almost impossible to make a pairing where the kid turns out worse than either of the parents, and there's nothing in the game (bar challenge runs) that can't be done with any pairings whatsoever, so if your only goal is to not back yourself into a corner then the only thing you really need to do is not play Lunatic (which is very punishing against bad long-term planning).

I'd just use whatever pairings aesthetically appeal to you. 80 hours is enough for two no DLC runs if you're going slow and enjoying the game, so you've got time to test things out and see what you like and what you don't. Don't focus on gameplay-oriented anything just yet.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Blitze]

Well I will use serenesforest calc and tips when I need them and just jump into the cold water and do what i think fits best. But it still hurts me when I think I will maybe screw up some pairings :(

[Thor Odinson]

There's no pair that's truly awful as far as no DLC runs go. It's better to just make sure the parents have reasonable bases so that the child unit has workable joining bases than trying to optimise pairings (which are usually meant for postgame DLC maps such as Apotheosis anyway) especially on your first run. Don't worry about it.

[Ownagepuffs]

5/9/13.

All of my yes.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Well I will use serenesforest calc and tips when I need them and just jump into the cold water and do what i think fits best. But it still hurts me when I think I will maybe screw up some pairings :(

Again, the only way to screw up your pairings on a first run is to use ones with really bad support convos. Without any prior experience, you literally won't be able to tell the difference between good and bad pairs from a gameplay perspective.

[eclipse]

Well I will use serenesforest calc and tips when I need them and just jump into the cold water and do what i think fits best. But it still hurts me when I think I will maybe screw up some pairings :(

Fully optimizing Hard isn't necessary. Hell, it can be done with only first-gen units, without too much grinding. I used my first run (which was on Hard) to get a feel for the story, characters, and mechanics.