Can someone help me understand pair up tactically in Awakening?

[Avioncore]

So in Awakening, I'm not really sure how to utilize pair up properly. It seems to me that having a unit become a backpack all the time is just gonna be detrimental to that unit in the long run because of lack of experience. What do you do? Do you just switch the pair up around evenly throughout battle so both units get kills? Or do you genuinely deploy and attach a bad, un-premoted unit just to be a backpack for stat boosts and/or movement? How does it work? What's the proper way to approach the mechanic? Thanks.

[Jotari]

The most tactically effective thing in Awakening is to make Chrom the permanent backpack of Robin and then just have Robin solo the game...but that's not really a huge amount of fun so I typically mix it up with who is backpack and who is frontpack. Leaving units as dedicated backpacks shouldn't injure you that much though, they will continue to gain some exp via dual strikes and you can cycle them out as later promoted units join the army.

[Shadow Mir]

I switch it up according to the situation. If my lead unit is either about to die or getting close to an enemy using an effective weapon, I swap to the other unit. For the record, what @Jotari said about dual strikes does NOT apply in Fates, as pair up was nerfed.

[Alastor15243]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

For the record, what @Jotari said about dual strikes does NOT apply in Fates, as pair up was nerfed.

This, though I wouldn't say nerfed exactly. It can't do both attacking and guarding at once anymore, but now that the enemy can dual strike too, negating the enemy's dual strikes is if anything even more valuable than making dual strikes of your own. Plus, dual guarding is far more predictable and can be made to negate every other attack like clockwork if you know what you're doing.

[Jotari]

42 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

This, though I wouldn't say nerfed exactly. It can't do both attacking and guarding at once anymore, but now that the enemy can dual strike too, negating the enemy's dual strikes is if anything even more valuable than making dual strikes of your own. Plus, dual guarding is far more predictable and can be made to negate every other attack like clockwork if you know what you're doing.

Not only is dual guarding more predictable, but so is dual strikes. It's not a %chance any more but guaranteed based on position. So, not really more useful, but more tactical. In the same way a skill like hit+20 is better than astra in most games. But this was specifically an Awakening thread so I didn't see much need to get into the weeds of Fates in my initial comment.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

pair up...tactically...that is a tough one. Well Awakening is very sandbox-ey in the sense that there aren't really bad plays regarding this mechanic. Pair up units you really want to support, Pair Up units that have already supported, Pair Up units that really need the bonuses to gain exp, Pair Up units that are already good and can steam roll the map even better. Just pair up everyone. 

I remember wanting my healers and dancers paired up with high mov units to swap to and increase the range that they can support.

6 hours ago, Avioncore said:

Or do you genuinely deploy and attach a bad, un-premoted unit just to be a backpack for stat boosts and/or movement? 

Promote that bad unit backpack and they can get you even more stats.

[Bartozio]

I don't think there's really a wrong way to use pair up, but using some units purely as a backpack is very viable. Often times in Fire Emblem, having a few amazing combat units is more valuable than having an army of decent combat units, and backpacks help those few units be even more amazing. As mentioned though, you will likely want to promote those units eventually just to get a bigger bonus. They should be able to reach level 10 from purely backpacking anyway.

Of course, raising a balanced team can be a lot more fun to some people and there's advantages to being able to swap to your backup unit for a bit as well. It really depends on how you prefer playing the game.

 

[Shadow Mir]

Another thing to note: the stats a unit gives in a pair up are dependent on the class of the unit. For example, a mage mostly gives magic, while a knight mostly gives defense.

[Parrhesia]

Moved to the Awakening subforum.