Bonus Box Teams

[zeroarcanus]

So I'm still on my first playthrough at Awakening. Almost 40 hours into game.(Classic Hard Mode)

I've honestly recently discovered the SpotPass features. I got stuck on chapter 23 because all my units were extremely weak.

So you guys think it's okay to just grind using these teams? I kind of feel bad after grinding almost every character... Yet I still could barely finish the chapter with everyone surviving.

At some point before I discovered Bonus Box, I was buying reeking boxes just to grind some of my characters, now it's all free and on top of that I can recruit awesome characters too...

I hope it's okay to grind like this and it's the arena of Awakening.

Hell, bonux box even gave me some op as hell weapons as well as some gold.

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

TBH I find that bonus box teams 'an easy free EXP grinding experience IMO...'

[MCProductions]

Honestly, I wouldn't enjoy Awakening as much as I do if it wasn't for the bonus box

So, don't feel guilty about using it, I do all the time.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Whether or not grinding is OK is entirely up to you. It's your file and your fun, and you can decide at what point all the extra power infringes on that. But if you're having trouble, I think you'd see success faster from just focusing on one or two units, as the bigger your team is, the harder the game gets.

Just don't try Lunatic next and expect to get away with it there.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[Jason (4Star)]

if you love using the bonus box teams, then go right ahead man. i mean, i like to kick Arvis's butt every now and again.

Lunatic, though... you really don't want to rely on it. 1 EXP every unit defeated.

[zeroarcanus]

thanks for the answers, I've finished my first playthrough today and started lunatic. I noticed that prologue enemies do about five times the ones in hard mode.(tested via new games)

is this a warm welcome to lunatic or what? :)

Edited September 20, 2015 by zeroarcanus

[MCProductions]

^Yeah, NOTHING in the lower difficulties adequately prepares players for Loony mode's bullcrap.

To be fair tho, I still say Arvis gives a warmer welcome in FE4's chapter 5.

[Xenomata]

thanks for the answers, I've finished my first playthrough today and started lunatic. I noticed that prologue enemies do about five times the ones in hard mode.(tested via new games)

is this a warm welcome to lunatic or what? :)

Yes.

Bonus Box teams will not be good for training either (1 exp no matter what you do, even killing them), so you need to either have each unit grow stronger via scratching on enemies for a long time, or have Freddie do all the work til chapter 4 is completed, then spend the rest of your life (and also a little bit of cash if you haven't already) in EXPonential Growth. I recommend getting the entire Golden Pack as a single purchase if you haven't yet, because you will also get Golden Gaffe and Infinite Regalia as well as EXPonential Growth to maximize your army's ability to not die.

Lunatic reeking box visits are the absolute worst. Early on it will look impossible because all the risen will be pretty intimidating with their B rank weapons and high stats, but wait until Promoted Risen teams start showing up on your map.

MAX STATS. +8 MIGHT AND +20 ACCURACY FORGED WEAPONS. ANY NUMBER OF SKILLS FROM ALL CLASSES THAT THE UNIT'S OWN PROMOTED CLASS CAN BE PROMOTED FROM. THE ENEMY-EXCLUSIVE HIT RATE +10 SKILL.

I only recommend using Lunatic Tier Reeking Box battles for grinding if you have:

A) the unit in question at or near Max Stats themselves, even if not in their final class

B) the unit in question having at least a B rank in the weapons they wield, especially if it is Lance or Axe since Spears and Tomahawks can be equipped at B rank.

C) the highest level of Support they can get from a Pair Up (aka be paired up with their Husband, Wife, or Life Companion)

D) a Rally bot, a unit who wields a multitude of Rally skills, to follow behind at all times. Optional, but having one can be life saving.

E) a Staff user. It is easy to make one, just have Lissa spam Rescue Staves on Chrom in a Bonus Box team battle (EXP received from staves are not affected by the limit placed on EXP earned from attacking/killing in a Streetpass/Spotpass battle) (I recommend Mists because her army is fairly weak compared to Chrom by the time you can buy Rescue Staves in bulk, and all Mist the Cleric can do when her army is all gone is stand there doing nothing) until she is at max level/max stats in whatever class you need her to be in (all but one of her classes use Staves, and that one class can be/needs to be dealt with easily early on, since it possesses the skill that Owain needs to be good (Galeforce)).

Maribelle works in this scenario to, but she has the Dark Knight class to take from as well, which Lissa doesn't have, so you have slightly more to go through with Maribelle before you can begin Rescue Staff spamming with her. Plus Lissa has Healtouch for a little more potent healing. By the way, a staff user is optional to, but it always helps to have someone capable of heal you just over there since self-recovery from anything but a potion isn't something all units have.

F) The same level of tactics required for most story maps. Yeah in hard and lower you could relax a little since the enemy wasn't all that strong. WELCOME TO LUNATIC, TRY NOT TO KILL YOURSELF HANGING YOUR COAT UP, CAUSE THERE MIGHT BE A BAND OF BOW-WIELDING COUNTER WARRIOR WAITING FOR YOU. Pay attention to everything the enemy has to attack you with and prepare accordingly, otherwise you will be as good as dead before long.

[Czar_Yoshi]

thanks for the answers, I've finished my first playthrough today and started lunatic. I noticed that prologue enemies do about five times the ones in hard mode.(tested via new games)

is this a warm welcome to lunatic or what? :)

You could say that. Normal and Hard really do nothing to teach you how to fight Lunatic. Lunatic itself will try to teach you, but its method involves swiftly rendering your game nigh-unwinnable in one or two chapters should you make a poor tactical choice, and that's not a method of teaching most people respond well to.

That said, there are a few major pitfalls I should warn you about:

-Cht.0-4: Don't rely on Frederick. Yes, he looks incredible. Yes, he OHKOes those Prologue Myrms while taking 0 damage himself. Yes, he can actually take more than one hit before dying. But the moment a dude with a Hammer shows up (first in Cht.1, then in Cht.3, then again in Cht.7), he'll be facing a high-accuracy OHKO to the face, and you're dead. What you need to do is rely on him without feeding him kills- give your kills to Robin instead. Veteran is extremely powerful and due to the enemy forces' swelled ranks, it's not impossible for Robin to reach Lv.20 by the time Cht.4 is done (though usually you'll only be 19). A trained Robin has some major advantages over Frederick, starting with a ranged weapon, no Hammer weakness, and the ability to choose Sword or no weapon triangle, and extending to having Fred available either as a pairup for massive Def, or as a distraction to keep some enemies off his/her back. Robin also starts at a very convenient location in Cht.1.

-Once you get past Cht.4-6: mind your money. It's very temping and easy to spend your shiny new 15,000 G on those Statboosters Anna just spawned with, or a forged Rexcalibur for flattening Wyverns (from Spotpass. The shops there are pretty insane), or other such stuff. Don't do it. While it can give you a lot of power once you know how to budget your money, it's extremely possible for you to get an epic, overleveled team with stats 10+ points all around higher than the enemies, and then choke due to running out of Javelins or something. So be careful with that.

-Cht.13+: you may notice that every single chapter bar two from here on is Kill Boss, and all but one of those is very easy to reach the end of in one turn by using Rescue Staves. Don't do that either- Cht.23 and 24 are exceptionally brutal route chapters, and Grima's power spike is insane. He/she has 99/53/53 defenses, Dragonskin, 80% Pavise, 80% 90 damage Ignis, 45 Spd and 110 Avo, and if you can't kill it on the first turn of engagement, you're dead. So basically you need that exp and shouldn't skip it just because it's easier to do so. Do skip Cht.25, though, since it's generally more trouble than it's worth and your team should already be maxed by that point.

-Everywhere: fewer units is better. Unless you're extremely good at the game, your team will be as strong as its weakest link (because guess who the enemies are all going to go after on enemy phase). By keeping it small, you make everyone stronger and reduce the number of links that can be weak- if you bring it down to just Robin, Chrom, their spouses and kids, and maybe a really beefy staffbot, you'll do well.

-Pacing and difficulty spikes: Pro-Cht.3 are brutal, though they'll get markedly easier as you progress if Robin is getting properly strong. Cht.4 is a breather, and Cht.5/6 are hard again. After that, you have a long breath of fresh air through Cht.11, with favorable terrain and enemies with weaknesses and bad stats to train up your chosen team on. Once Cht.12 starts, promoted units will begin coming more rapidly, and the difficulty will ramp up until Cht.17, where all enemies will be promoted. Having flying units gives you a lot of advantages in these chapters, but there are also lots of forged Bows and Beastkillers so you'll need to keep them extra safe if you use them. Cht.19 and 20 are all about zerg rushes and will favor you if you bring high movement and means to retreat (Galeforce, Rescue). After that, enemies will begin coming mostly capped with their hackforges, and the game will be back to its hardest until the end, since your units will have hit the ceiling and the enemies will catch back up.

-Asset/flaw: +Def will give you the least headache on your way through, while +Spd will give you the most power (assuming you can use it). -Skl and -Lck are typically suitable flaws: one gives slightly worse Hit, one gives slightly worse Dge (crit avo), neither matter much in the long run. Though if you're planning on reclassing to Merc to pick up Armsthrift, -Lck isn't so appealing there.

I only recommend using Lunatic Tier Reeking Box battles for grinding if you have:

G: You just want to fight something with even faster level progression than Lunatic. I've done it. It was a doozy.

[Xenomata]

Before I respond to Czar_Yoshi, I might add that I like using Fort Steigar as a Reeking Box training ground, because it starts you off inside the room that the boss camped in in the original chapter, and the doorway allows for the unit you are training to block enemies lacking Pass from getting into the room you are in, ergo it keeps your Rallybot and Staffbots safe from everything, even Longbow Snipers (since enemies don't seem to wander into the room off to the left that has the chests in it)

I mean, I guess most Reeking Box Encounters do start you near where the boss appears in the original chapter, but I feel Fort Steigar does it best by placing your army inside a small room with a 1 unit entrance that can be blocked off with ease, meaning your bot units are kept safe, as opposed to running around looking for someplace your bot units are at a terrain advantage or unreachable by most units.

Since it's only one chapter ahead of when you gain access to Second Seals without jumping into one of the Child Character Paralogues who's armories stock Seals, you have a chance to train up units (if you haven't banned the utility of EXPonential Growth) before jumping into the chapter to make it easier.

-Asset/flaw: +Def will give you the least headache on your way through, while +Spd will give you the most power (assuming you can use it). -Skl and -Lck are typically suitable flaws: one gives slightly worse Hit, one gives slightly worse Dge (crit avo), neither matter much in the long run. Though if you're planning on reclassing to Merc to pick up Armsthrift, -Lck isn't so appealing there.

I myself run a Speed Asset, Luck Flaw avatar with Armsthrift, and I don't have all that many problems with Armsthrift working. At Max Stat, luck is at a -1 modifier, aka 44.

Tonics provide a +2 boost, and the avatar being in the lead of a pair-up that doesn't give luck provides him with +3 luck when with a unit who has 30 or more Luck, so we are already at 49 Luck (98% activation chance of Armsthrift). All it would take is one Rally Spectrum/Luck/Bond, one All Stat +2 skill, or a simple Pair-Up unit switch to a class that provides Luck (Griffon Rider, Great Lord, Swordmaster as examples I tend to use) for that one final push. The unit doesn't even need to be at A rank support level, but all the better, amiright?

I know that early on these numbers won't mean much, but Armsthrift's activation chance will only be at like 15%-40% on a Luck Flaw avatar anyways, and I personally feel that Armsthrift doesn't really have much early game use anyways since A) Armsthrift on an unpromoted unit can't activate often enough to keep your weapons, especially Event Tile weapons, at a high enough Durability level for whatever safety or mental reassurance reasons you may have, and B) there isn't much of anything early on that is of such value that it would call for Armsthrift, at least assuming the game doesn't throw you a good Legacy Weapon early on like Katarina's Bolt (ironically, it did in my file, but it was a Leif's Blade)

...god I can't wait for Fates to come to America so that I don't have to worry about this Durability nonsense for everything but Staffs/Batons...

[zeroarcanus]

I have recruited Yarne on my Hard Mode playthrough today. After I changed him into barbarian he gained despoil, would it be smart to get recruit him as early as possible at lunatic and change him into barbarian, then simply grind for small bullions? using cheap weapons i can keep him as a barbarian and farm spotpass teams, with 20% luck it seems that it could be quite useful considering a single bronze axe can keep him up for two fights if he's maxed out.

i'm currently on chapter 3 at lunatic and it feels like it's going to be extremely important to keep up with gold, so i suppose this could be the solution.

Edited September 21, 2015 by zeroarcanus

[Czar_Yoshi]

Armsthrift on an unpromoted unit can't activate often enough to keep your weapons, especially Event Tile weapons, at a high enough Durability level for whatever safety or mental reassurance reasons you may have

It's not about keeping weapons safe indefinitely, it's about generally extending their lifespan. 50% AT will roughly double the usage you get out of your weapons, and that goes quite a long way on something like a forged Bronze (something you'll want to reuse a lot) or the Renown Levin Sword (assuming you're not using Spotpass, AT goes a long way toward making it last you until the next one in Cht.11).

I have recruited Yarne on my Hard Mode playthrough today. After I changed him into barbarian he gained despoil, would it be smart to get recruit him as early as possible at lunatic and change him into barbarian, then simply grind for small bullions?

You'd have the same effect for much less cost (Barbarians aren't very good) if you used Leif's Blades (buy them from Spotpass Leif, or get one from Renown). They cost about 2000 G, so you'll want to have a unit with decent Lck use them and save them for player phase whenever possible, but they're very good weapons (D rank with 30 crit) so using them won't hamper you much.

[zeroarcanus]

I thank Jesus Christ for his work on giving me Eirika's Blade at Prologue.

Edited September 21, 2015 by zeroarcanus

[Czar_Yoshi]

Yeah those C rank Braves are really nice. If you want more later you can buy them from Spotpass Eirika.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

A quick note to make is that forging a Rexcalibur for C7 would be gross overkill. They only have 36 HP and 1 Res. At A Tomes, Robin only needs 5 Mag to one-shot the Wyvs. Gangrel's goons in C11 only get up to 43/1, which means 12 Mag is enough (and all of these Mag counts would be far below the average Mag of even a non-reclassed Tactician 20 Robin). Rexcalibur is a good Spotpass shop alternative to having to forge up the lesser Wind tomes, because it's not only way cheaper than a fully-forged Elwind, but its base damage is even 1 better than the full forge. Of course, if you're dipping into that stuff, you could also just pull out the Bonus Box Forseti or Book of Naga.

[zeroarcanus]

I feel like a scumbag for minmaxing my characters after reaching chapter 5 but I swear I'll play lunatic+ without grinding.