Concrete and easy question about Apotheosis

[Zelgius150]

Soo, I'm finally going to face that insane chapter, and I wanted to know if the turn count resets after every wave of enemies or if it keeps the same count for all of the mission. I'm asking to know if I can make good use of skills like Lucky 7. I'm going for a non-Limit Breaker Secret Path run so I think that boost would come in really handy in dealing with things like Anna or that monstrous berserker....

Thanks in advance ;)

[Light Strategist]

I'm going to guess not. But I really don't know.

[Zelgius150]

Thanks a lot! :) I'll use the Prescience skill in its place, then. I'm going to be using the same team I used during the adventure (with only 4 children), so I'll try to face Anna using Virion with Lancebreaker and Aggresor, paired up with a S-support Paladin Sully, also with Lancebreaker.

[Roflolxp54]

Yeah, Lucky 7, Quick Burn, and Slow Burn all suck with their expiration dates.

Celica's Gale and Brave Weapons are pretty much a must as well as some Regalia.

Galeforce is great.

Vantage + Vengeance can easily wreck havoc with Rallybot support and Rescue bot support. (With certain pairings and sufficient support, 1 single pair can wipe out the bulk of Apotheosis secret path with no other DLC).

Dual Strike+ is awesome on S-rank pairs.

Having Snipers on the team can be good since they can use the Double Bow to deal chip damage at 3 range and due to them having the highest Skill stat, Dual attacks come the easiest for them, especially in an S-rank pair-up (some people do run Sniper!Chrom and Sniper!Lucina).

Olivia and her Special Dance support is very much welcome.

If you have Roster Rescue and finished the normal path of Apotheosis, Palla and Katarina make excellent Rallybots due to them being able to learn every Rally skill in the game since they have Rally Strength at the start.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Roflolxp54

[Vascela]

Snipers with Long Bows solve most of your problems. As long as you have some composition including bots, you should be fine. Rally and Rescue bots are invaluable. If you can incorporate all three of those into your team, you should be good to go. Remember that you don't need a team of only fighters; there's value in non-combat related feats.

[Zelgius150]

Oh wow, I didn't expect someone would actually post here to help me with their advices as well, thanks!

So I'm going to take a little of my time to answer.

Yeah, Lucky 7, Quick Burn, and Slow Burn all suck with their expiration dates.

Well, maybe they do suck in Apotheosis, but I've been using Lucky 7 and QB+SW to good effect up until now, since I tend to play very aggresively, trying to clear chapters as fast as possible. I think I got used to this from my last playtrough of PoR and RD where I always went for max bonus experience. I've found the game rather easy till now, since I've not been playing lunatic but hard. This is my second playtrough for Awakening, though.

Celica's Gale and Brave Weapons are pretty much a must as well as some Regalia.

Yeah, I'll be using basically this :) All forged of course.

Galeforce is great.

I still have a bit of planning to do before facing Apotheosis, and right now I'm pretty busy to do so. But for now I think Galeforce won't be doing that much good to me, since the only characters of my team that do have it are Lissa, Maribelle, Lucina, Cynthia and Linfan. Up until now, I've always paired up Lissa+Maribelle and Lucina+Cynthia -no, I've no more maxed out children apart from Linfan-, and the first two don't even have offensive skills -Maribelle has Vengeance but...-, and it seems Lucina won't be doing enough damage most of the time -sometimes not even damage at all-. It's a pity, since she has both Aether and Luna with Rightful King, but since I won't be using Limit Breaker that's it.

Since all of my enemies will have Dragonskin and outrageous levels of power, I'll only go on the offensive if I can avoid their attacks with breaker skills (Lancebreaker, etc.) or if I can save the attacking units with Rescue staffs. I don't know if that'll be a good strategy or not yet.

Ah, about Linfan...?

Vantage + Vengeance can easily wreck havoc with Rallybot support and Rescue bot support. (With certain pairings and sufficient support, 1 single pair can wipe out the bulk of Apotheosis secret path with no other DLC).

There:

+Speed -Defence Male MU+Anna! Linfan (Sage)

47 Mag, 47 Skll, 47 Spd, 50 Lck, 28 Def, 40 Res

Skill set for Apotheosis: Rally Spectrum, Tomefaire, Axebreaker, Vantage, Vengeance

My precious little Linfan has always been my trump card, a "monster" no one could ever hope to beat apart from enemies with Aegis, Tomebreaker or long bows, and even then. She even didn't ever waste weapons thanks to her shining 50 Luck cap.

...But as I've said, I won't be using Limit Breaker. And without it, even the almighty Linfan can't destroy some enemies if she's already damaged, since two hits of her Vengeance-powered forged Celica's Gale are not enought to bypass some enemies' Dragonskin :( Yes, even factoring Magic Tonic+Olivia's Dance+Rally Heart+Rally Magic

What she can do for sure is wiping out a lot of enemies incapable of killing her with one hit, since she'll be doubling a lot of them. In fact, she'll be using an HP tonic to be more difficult to kill without renouncing even a tiny bit of Vengeance power, and with that -and Olivia's help-, she'll be able to face that monstrous beserker boss paired up with her father using Aggresor.

Dual Strike+ is awesome on S-rank pairs.

Well, Lucina is not "married", but Chrom is -with Sumia-. Maybe I should consider dropping Rightful King for Dual Strike+ on both of them. Specially for Chrom, since he has the Aggesor skill (all of my male units have it).

Having Snipers on the team can be good since they can use the Double Bow to deal chip damage at 3 range and due to them having the highest Skill stat, Dual attacks come the easiest for them, especially in an S-rank pair-up (some people do run Sniper!Chrom and Sniper!Lucina).

That's something to consider, I can do that :) Maybe I will.

Olivia and her Special Dance support is very much welcome.

If you have Roster Rescue and finished the normal path of Apotheosis, Palla and Katarina make excellent Rallybots due to them being able to learn every Rally skill in the game since they have Rally Strength at the start.

As you already now, I'll be using Olivia, Maribelle and Lissa. I don't plan on bringing more units like Palla, partly because she's not trained and I don't plan on doing it for now. Since I also use Anna, Priam and Linfan, I can cover Rally Stength, Magic, Skill, Speed, Luck, Resistance, Heart and Spectrum. Linfan, Lissa, Maribelle and Anna (she's a Bride) can all use Goddess and Rescue staffs (among others), and Lissa and Maribelle can alternate in Rally and Rescue duties.

I need to study my strategy more carrefully, but I suppose I've have to stick all or almost all of my units together and assault one group of enemies a time. That way they'll all be in Rally and Rescue range.

Remember that you don't need a team of only fighters; there's value in non-combat related feats.

I noticed that as soon as I saw what type of enemies await me, haha.

Thanks a lot! :)

EDIT: I forgot an important question. When do enemies in a throne recover HP? I hope they don't recover it at the start of the enemy phase, or I'll have SERIOUS problems with that Berserker and Anna...

Edited April 3, 2016 by Zelgius150

[Zelgius150]

I was using it on Nowi so she could have a constant +15 boost to hit. She doesn't have many other options anyway :D But of course, I wouldn't use the combo in characters with better skillpool.

[Vascela]

Slow burn goes to 0 after turn 15. Thrones do heal at the start of turn for the user (so you heal from it on your turn, enemies heal on their turn).

Also, there's no reason to include rallies on the unit who wants rallies applied to. Throw rally spectrum on an actual spotpass rally bot. For hit, breakers really aren't that good compared to HR+20 or Hexnathema (the latter can be stacked on every rescue bot and/or support unit to reap benefits for the entire team).

[Zelgius150]

Slow burn goes to 0 after turn 15

Yeah, I know, wasn't planning to use it on Apotheosis anyway.

Thrones do heal at the start of turn for the user (so you heal from it on your turn, enemies heal on their turn).

That's actually... quite problematic. I don't know if I'll ever be able to beat Anna because of this... Thanks for such important piece of info.

Also, there's no reason to include rallies on the unit who wants rallies applied to.

Well, Linfan won't be the only unit battling at all, and it's an invaluable Rally to have, specially since I don't want to be training new units at this point, and my male MU doesn't have room for it.

For hit, breakers really aren't that good compared to HR+20 or Hexnathema (the latter can be stacked on every rescue bot and/or support unit to reap benefits for the entire team).

I'm not looking at breakers only for hit, but also for avoid. For example, a single Aether-powered attack from Anna just obliterates any of my units. That's why I'm planning to bring specific breakers (axebreaker to hit (not avoid) the dreaded Beserker, lancebreaker for Anna, Tomebreaker for those pesky zombie sorcerers, Bowbreaker for the annoying groups of snipers, etc.). I didn't think of using Hex and Anathema in support units though, I'll check if I've room for it, thanks :)

Just keep in mind I'm not using Limit Breaker. That Berserker would be all but impossible to reliably hit without axebreaker.

That's cool kid, that +15 boost disappears on turn 16, assuming you ever get to turn 15 to enjoy the benefits for it to disappear on turn 16.

I'm repeating myself, but oh well... As I've already said, I won't be using Quickburn+Slowburn on Apotheosis. The only thing I said is that it worked for me for the rest of the game, since I never take so much turns to complete a chapter. And Nowi doesn't have many useful skills anyway. I prefer Lucky 7, of course, since I almost never took more than 7 turns.

[Vascela]

You can use a lancebreaker avo build for Anna (one being with Lon'qu!Severa along with Avo+10). Due note the enemies with Hawkeye.

For Anna, you can also use the Long Bow to poke down her HP. If her HP is below max after her throne heal, she can/will leave the throne to spear if able. You can use a unit with Vantage to trump her Vantage+ on her phase and go for the ORKO. Or, you could just solely poke her with Long Bows without any retaliation until her inevitable death (depends on the stats/weapons you ban to be turn efficient).

And you don't need axebreaker to hit them. Between HR+20 and hexnathema, you have skills contributing +45 hit (nothing to sneeze at). If you need to squeeze more hit, you can always fall back on Charm and Dual Supports (those can contribute +5 each, excluding the +15 you already get from DuSu).

While it's true your Linfan won't be the only one attacking, MUs are among the strongest units on the field with their skill pool and mods. Why would you rally a weaker unit with Linfan when a bot could rally your stronger unit and the unit Linfan was going to rally? Because that bot will also have rally spectrum (spotpass gets all classes bar genders and specials [outside of Tiki who gets Manakete]). The whole point of a rally bot is to run rallies so your actual fighters never have to do it. The same reason why Sages--although they do have a staff rank--are not your primary rescue users (who might use it once the entire map). Bots are invaluable, and multiple people should bot. Because you don't want to train units? The map was designed to be the final challenge. Sure, you can run some intended challenges, but laziness isn't a challenge; it's foolish. You have the opportunity to have as many braves, long bows, rescues, and units you need. If you fail to complete this run easily because you didn't properly manage your team beforehand, then there isn't any room to complain about your team not being good enough. You have the option to make your team great.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Vascela

[Roflolxp54]

Linfan doesn't need Rally Spectrum if she's going to be battling at all. Make an actual dedicated Rallybot have the skill and give Linfan something actually useful like Galeforce, Magic +2, Miracle, Dual Support+, or even Armsthrift if you don't want her to be breaking her weapons at all.

Example of a Rallybot:

DLC Palla (Falcon Knight) equipped with:

Equipment: Rescue (2x?), Fortify, Physic, Catharsis

Equipped skills: Rally Spectrum, Rally Heart, Rally Speed, Rally Skill, Rally Strength/Magic

Her job: Rally as many of your units as possible during Player Phase. Can Rescue/heal if needed but that's secondary since a Rescue/Healbot should be the ones doing that (usually Falcon Knights with skills like Magic +2, All Stats +2, Movement +1 whose role is to just Rescue and heal allies)

These bots don't really need training though they'd certainly want at least decent magic so they can provide sufficient heals as well as use staves at needed distances. Heck, many Rallybots and Rescue/healbots go unarmed and just have their inventories loaded with nothing but staves! Even Dancer Olivia can sometimes be seen with no weapons at all!

[Zelgius150]

Well yeah, maybe I was being too stuborn :) But it's not exactly laziness but the fact that I'm a bit busy right now, but I wanted to clear the chapter soon because I want to move on to other games already. I'll look into all you've said.

Really, thanks, since I didn't ask for that kind of advice at first but you advised me anyway :)

By the way... Can the Berserker boss and Anna on the throne move then?? Do you know the different exact circumstances in which that would happen for sure? Since that would GREATLY help me. I'm talking about possibly making the chapter even a little easy (I think).

[Vascela]

The berzerker boss cannot move off the throne. You can tell because his movement is locked (unlike Anna). Since he has Aegis+, Dragonskin, and throne... it does take quite a beating from afar. Since he can't move, all you need to do is consider a turn budget to see how many turns you can squeeze in for attacks.

[shadowofchaos]

I believe Anna moves after being initiated in a battle, if she can kill someone. Otherwise, I don't think she is an aggressor and prefers to stay on her throne.

[Vascela]

She shouldn't move if you plant a v/v-er in spear range at max health. She might move if she can KO someone who can't fight back?

[Zelgius150]

Soo the berserker doesn't move, ok... Interesting, thanks :(

Maybe Anna will move if I put Linfan on her attack range and unequipped, but... I don't want to do be doing all the effort to get to her only to waste turns this way, meh...

[Vascela]

There's not really much difference between going for an all-in when she's on or off the throne. It's an awkward situation where there isn't much point. If she's going to leave the throne to attack you, then you might as well KO her through vantage or simply that fight. You are being turn inefficient for little reason. It would be one thing where you don't have the option to get hit, but the reality: hit is extremely easy to generate. Hell, you don't need to run +5/+15 forges; nothing wrong (and sometimes necessary to for 100% displayed) to run +3/+25 forges.

You should also have some sort of skeleton of a turn count (since there is a limit). Is there enough wiggle room to take an additional turn against Anna in the first place?

[Zelgius150]

Now I've a bit more of time, so yesterday I started to write down all the paired up and powered up stats of all of my units to start to seriously plan. But I don't think I can destroy Anna in one turn. And I don't want her to ve recovering 20 HP...

Yeah, I've a powerful Vantage+Vengeance Sage Linfan, but she has that damn Dragonskin and an outrageous 57 resistance in her throne.

Anyway, I alreay started training rallybots. Est is already maxed out and with all possible rallies. Next are Elincia and Palla. Maribelle, Lissa and Olivia will also contribute. Even Linfan and Anna can heal/rescue whenever possible, even if they fight (I mean my Anna, haha).

Ah, and I'll use Goddess Staves. I won't use Limit Breaker, that's all.

[Zelgius150]

Excuse me for the double post, but I've found something interesting! :D

It just happens that I made Linfan inherit the Wrath skill. So with the right setup, I can ORKO Anna with a critical hit of 52-58%. Chrom, Virion and Lucina will probably change to sniper class in the middle of the mission to face both the Berserker boss and Anna (since Dual Strikes activate with a Double Bow user as the main attacker, right?). Little by little, it seems I'm getting closer to achieving it. And I'm not even finished writing down all the powered-up stats of all my paired up characters! I've still lots of skills, strategies and possibilities to check out!

[Vascela]

Dual Strikes do occur when the lead attacks with a double/long bow. Three range magical dual strikes is a lovely damage mesh. It's also the cornerstone to my FeMU x Chrom run.

Also, your Avatar can't "inherit" wrath, so I don't really know what you're aiming with that. I think there's a Laurent build that reaches a high crit rate, but I don't know if it is dependent on DLC like LB. That might be more appealing than ~50-60% luck based event in the last few turns of the entire map. That's not a fun way to lose a run imo.

Second sealing midfight is pretty nifty. Personally, I seal based around Def values to make 1 HP vengeance setups easier. To each their own I suppose.

[Roflolxp54]

Chrom, Virion and Lucina will probably change to sniper class in the middle of the mission to face both the Berserker boss and Anna (since Dual Strikes activate with a Double Bow user as the main attacker, right?).

Just make sure that they have A rank in bow proficiency before starting the mission (in addition to being level 10+ in whatever promoted/special class they're in at the start of the mission). Nothing awkward than changing classes only to find that Double Bows can't be used at all.

It just happens that I made Linfan inherit the Wrath skill. So with the right setup, I can ORKO Anna with a critical hit of 52-58%.

Crits are nice but aren't really to be relied upon unless you can get guaranteed critical hits (100% listed critical hit rate). And some enemies can't be hit by critical hits (ie. the Nosferatanks with 99 Luck and Miracle)

[Zelgius150]

Aaah, sorry. I used the european name for "Morgan", which is Linfan. And don't worry, I won't risk my whole fight to a 63% of critical, it's just another asset to use against Anna and against all other enemies in the map.

My Morgan has a horrible defence stat as a Sage, more so because both her mother (Anna) and MU have negative modifiers in that stat, so that way I take full advantage of her Vantage+Vengeance combo. But that strategy of yours around Vengeance is great, I'll take it into account for my second Apotheosis run.

As always, thank you.

Edit: Just saw the new post. All my units have all weapons maxed out :)

Edited April 7, 2016 by Zelgius150

[Vascela]

Having a lower def stat doesn't mean you can take full advantage of vengeance. Having a def stat you know that can reach 1 HP quickly is better than having a lower def stat.

Sometimes it's better to have higher def if it means a better setup.

[Zelgius150]

Mmm, yeah, you're right. Anyway, for the moment I don't think I'll need to complicate things with Morgan, but thanks!

[Zelgius150]

Okay... My question now is also pretty simple: I've been assuming that all enemies have the same forge bonus than Anna (+8 Mt, +20 Hit). I'm assuming it right? Cause I've doing all of my calculations based on that.

Now my most feared enemies are the two snipers with Brave Bow and both Pavise+ and Aegis+. WTF. I can't think of anything but to surround him by his four sides and start pummeling him with all my might. Hopefully he'll fall in only one turn if I just focus my attacks on him. What on earth were they thinking...?