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My plans for a FE13 min/maxing playthrough.
Note: Discussion here applies to difficulty Hard and upward. I'm sure optimizing Normal is very, very different.
EDIT 5/21/14: Please don't take this post too seriously, half of it's wrong. Here's what I ended up doing though.
For my Lunatic+ file I ended up going with:
Chrom/Sumia
m!Robin(+spd -str)/Tharja
Lissa/Henry
Maribelle/Libra
Olivia/Virion
Sully/Gaius
Nowi/Donnel
Cordelia/Lon'qu
Miriel/Ricken
Cherche/Frederick
Panne/Stahl
(Yeah, I wasted Gregor.)
Final Skills and classes (everyone has Limit Break):
Morgan - Dark Flier / Galeforce, Armsthrift, All Stats+2, Luna (I fiddle around with this a lot)
Noire - Sorcerer / Galeforce, Armsthrift, All Stats+2, Vantage
Severa - Wyvern Lord / Galeforce, Armsthrift, Pass, Iote's Shield (which I sometimes switch out depending on the map)
Nah - Falcon Knight / Galeforce, Armsthrift, All Stats+2, Lancefaire
Inigo - Sniper / Galeforce, Armsthrift, Aggressor, All Stats+2
Lucina - Great Lord / Galeforce, Aether, Lancefaire, All Stats+2
Owain - Sorcerer / Galeforce, Aggressor, Tomefaire, All Stats+2
Laurent - Sage / Aggressor, Tomefaire, All Stats+2, Magic+2 (this is because he ended up being a staff guy rather than arm candy -- he has Dual Support+ and Dual Guard+ available)
Cynthia - Bride / Galeforce, Aether, Lancefaire, All Stats+2
Brady - Sorcerer / Galeforce, Aggressor, Luna, All Stats+2
Kjelle - Paladin / Galeforce, Dual Guard+, Acrobat, Luna
Gerome - Paladin / Aggressor, All Stats+2, Dual Guard+, Dual Support+ (the first two skills DO count for damage from the back)
Yarne - Sniper / Aggressor, Bowfaire, Luna, Dual Support+ (turns out a tremendous hitting power at 2-3 range is good for something)
Pairings I did that work well: Kjelle/Inigo, Brady/Cynthia
The others I did I feel somewhat lukewarmly about for one reason or another. But those two I liked a lot.
First: Galeforce.
You might think that, given the difficulty of OHKOing enemies in Lunatic and above, this skill wouldn't be as broken as it sounds -- but it is. Being able to move again after defeating an enemy is never not an incredibly useful thing, even if it must be necessarily wasted sometimes because you need someone to chip damage an enemy first. Simply having the option is excellent. And it inherently separates characters who can get it from those who never can.
Second, children are generally highly superior characters, due to the fact that they inherit ridiculous base stats plus two skills (that can be from level 15 promoted).
So, the first task here is to optimize Galeforce for the second generation.
1. These kids can get Galeforce no matter what you do: Cynthia, Severa, F!Morgan
2. These kids must inherit Galeforce from mommy: Owain, Brady, Inigo, M!Morgan
3. These kids must have their mommy paired with either Gaius, Donnel, or MU: Kjelle, Nah, Noire
4. These kids can never get Galeforce: Laurent, Yarne, Gerome
Lucina can get Galeforce if her mother is Olivia, Maribelle, Sumia, or Robin. (Ie, anyone but Sully.)
First off: the obvious Best Move here is to have a Male MU, hands down. Aside from passing his amazing class set to two children (and not having to marry Chrom for it), this allows you to have one more child with Galeforce than you would have had otherwise (see 3).
From here on out I'm playing with more complex ideas that may not be optimal, but sound pretty good to me.
Format:
Mom/Dad -> Description Character - skill from mom / skill from dad / first skill to shoot for / second skill / third skill
Skills in paretheses are a matter of personal taste (and/or should be dropped as other skills come in) and may not be the best for the build depending on various factors.
1. What do we do with the kids in (4)?
It seems to me that in any army, you're going to have a few slots for healers/support who may not ever actually be called upon to kill anything. Hence my proposals are:
Cherche/Ricken -> Arm Candy Gerome - Dual Support / Dual Guard / (Deliverer) / (Defender) / (Aegis)
Target class: Paladin
The goal here is obvious -- if he's going to be weakened as an independent character, we can let one of our more powerful characters wear him as a hat. A really nice hat. I chose the Paladin class because it gives class-related stat boosts in 4 different non-mov stats (the only such class outside of War Monk), and the support bonus +2 applies to all and only the areas with a class stat boost. Deliverer/Defender/Aegis are my skills of choice because they require very little reclassing to achieve, and also help him possibly act as a transport for a slower companion.
In my game I'm going to S support him with Severa, for reasons I will discuss when I get to her.
Panne/Lon'qu -> Fast Yarne (Run, bunny, run!) - ??? / All Stats +2
Target class: Taguel
Yarne is doubly disadvantaged: he can't get galeforce and he has a permanent Beast weakness which makes him situationally fragile. Still, despite the downsides of being the Taguel class (6 move and an attack range of only 1, forever) this is also possibly his only unique strength. One, as a Taguel he can be faster than anyone outside of MyUnit spawn: Lon'qu as a father donates a +3 to max speed (the highest boost outside of MyUnit) meaning that with Beaststone+, he'll have a max speed of 55. After maximal rallies, pair up, stat+ skills, and temporary +2 buffs, he can achieve a peak speed of 76, which is fast enough to literally double any enemy in the game, including the ultimate enemies in Katarina's DLC. (To hit said speed, he will need to be very good friends with an assassin or something, but that can be arranged.) With Limit Breaker that could be 86, which strikes me as grossly unnecessary, but I suspect that DLC won't be around for a few months. Also it can soften the requirements because hitting that peak speed is a lot of shenanigans.
EDIT: I should mention that keeping Yarne as a Taguel also allows him to exploit Beastfoe, one of his only other redeeming strengths.
Miriel/
Target class: Sage
Hey, you're going to need someone to wave staves around. Laurent gets plenty of magic so he can have an enormous range and otherwise do very well at the job.
EDIT: Armsthrift has (luck x 2)% activation, which means that when maxed out and supported by a rally, Laurent can brandish the Goddess Staff all he wants.
2. Chrom and Avatar (who we've decided is male) present some unique opportunites. What do we do there?
For Chrom, I favor Olivia. One, she bears a son. Why is this important? Because Chrom gives his daughters Aether and his boys Rightful King. Also, unlike Maribelle, Olivia passes down the Myrmidon class, which gives access to Lethality. Now, Rightful King gives a flat +10% activation rate. Lethality is based off an activation rate, but the lowest in the game -- skill/4% -- and so it receives the greatest proportional boon from Rightful King.
Hell, screw proportions, look: suppose your unit has 40 skill (which is not at all unreasonable for late-game with Rally and pair-up). With Rightful King that's a 20% activation rate, which means that if you hit an enemy twice, there's a (1 - (4/5)^2) = roughly 36% chance of instakill. If you hit an enemy four times (brave weapons, or perhaps pairing up Inigo and Lucina?) that goes way up to 59%. That's very nearly goddamn reliable -- and actually totally reliable for Lucina, who also has Aether, which will kill them if Lethality doesn't.
So anyway, here's my proposal.
Olivia/Chrom -> Well-rounded physical unit Lucina - Galeforce / Aether (fixed) / Rightful King / Aegis / Lethality
Target class: Up in the air. (Preferably a class with no beast/flying weaknesses.)
Lethality comes last because, 1: it conveniently comes at level 5 instead of 15, 2: its usefulness is much greater in the late game than the early game whereas Aegis is always useful, 3: defense skills are more important than unreliable kill skills (more on this later).
Olivia/Chrom -> Well-rounded physical unit Inigo - Galeforce / Rightful King (fixed) / Sol / Aegis / Lethality
Target class: Up in the air. (Preferably a class with no beast/flying weaknesses.)
Sol here is like the wimpy substitute for Aether.
About defense skills: On my earlier eugenics playthrough, I gave Lucina Aether and Astra and very quickly realized that this was unnecessary. If Aether activated, the enemy was probably dead. If they weren't, then that was because the enemies were fucking strong, and killing them tended to get Lucina swarmed and killed.
Depending on personal taste, it could possibly very possibly be a better idea to give these kids Pavise (or at least Lucina, for whom Aether is already a damage-increasing skill) instead of Lethality, but that requires running around in a suit of armor for 15 levels. Gross.
Now for the Avatar.
I doubt this is actually optimal, but I'm going to try Nowi/Robin, and here's why.
Fact 1: Rallywhores are great.
Fact 2: Our Galeforce allocation means Robin will father either Kjelle, Nah, or Noire.
Fact 3: Nah is a fucking dragon.
-- Fact 3 is a double-edged sword. One side of this sword is a wyvernslayer. The other is that she otherwise has some of the best defenses in the game.
The issue I had with rallywhore Cynthia in my previous playthrough is that she was extremely squishy. It was often problematic if even one or two enemies could get to her, because while she let everyone else float around with gigantic +8 speed/def/res bonuses, she was hanging out with none. On the other hand, dragons with a dragonstone+ have the highest well-balanced def and res in the game, so I suspect a Nah with Dragonstone+ is a Rallywhore who can take care of herself -- oh, and maybe galeforce-kill something before she waves her pom-poms around.
The only downside to this arrangement is that the only Rally skill Nowi can pass down is Rally Magic, which is fairly suboptimal. (It could be worse. It could be Rally Skill.)
Nowi/Robin -> Rallywhore Nah - Rally Magic / Rally Def / Rally Spectrum / Rally Movement (& obtain Galeforce) / Rally Speed
Target class: Manakete
Second Seal Nah immediately into a Tactician, as Veteran will help her level through the immense amounts of reclassing necessary to reach her full potential. (She'll have to do two second-tier reclasses, which will make her climb through Falcoknight nigh unbearable -- you can definitely forget Lancefaire and make her a Manakete for good once she hits 10, though. If you're a masochist, you can add in a climb through Valkyrie for Rally Res.) Also, you may wish to keep Galeforce in play instead of Rally Magic, especially since rallying doesn't leave Nah much time for gaining exp otherwise.
If you're interested in turning that Rally Magic disappointment into a boon, you could have daddy Robin pass on Rally Str (inheritance is the only way Nah can get Rally Str in fact) and you can plan around her rallies being offensive in nature rather than defensive. However, it is generally the case that defense matters more, for fairly long-winded reasons I will go into if you disagree and care to ask me.
[Note: After the Eirika DLC comes out, sticking Rally Love on Nah will make her incredible.]
As for Morgan...
Nowi/Robin -> Well-rounded mage Morgan - Lifetaker / Pavise / Ignis (& Rally Spectrum) / Galeforce / All Stats +2
Target class: Some magical foot soldier class of your choosing.
As with Chrom's kids, I have here a defensive skill and a kill skill. Rally Spectrum can be interchanged with All Stats +2 or Lifetaker when you want a backup Rally user.
Okay, now here's a funny little thought experiment.
Cordelia/Virion -> Breaker Severa - (Galeforce) / Swordbreaker / Bowbreaker / Tomebreaker / Lancebreaker / Axebreaker
Target Class: Hero?
From my experience with bowbreaker!fliers, the breaker skills are not actually good enough to make fliers invulnerable to arrows. However, as a thought experiment, I wonder how a unit would be if they were wearing a constant +50 hit/avoid bonus against everyone?
In Lunatic and above, you need a damn lot of avoid to do it consistently, but when you've got 50% fluttering around against everyone I suspect the law of averages makes that kind of more or less consistent, except against snipers with their goddamn +20 hit and through-the-roof skill mutter mutter.
I recommend pairing her with Arm Candy Gerome, because a complete lack of kill skills seriously reduces her offensive potency. Gerome gets a very nice strength stat thanks to Mom, and his toilet paper res won't mean a thing when he's just hiding behind Severa and whacking things with his enormous attack.
And with S support? He will. Oh, he will.
(As a back-of-the-envelope calculation: supposing both of them have 30 skill after bonuses, they have a 75% chance to dual strike with S support. If Severa hits something twice, that's a one in sixteen chance that Gerome will fail to dual strike at least once.)
(Also if it turns out you don't like stacking breaker skills, Severa will have plenty of other useful skills to swap in instead, with one perfectly viable alternate set being Galeforce / Patience or Vengeance / Sol / Deliverer / Stats +2.)
Note that Severa is the only unit outside of Avatar and his spawn who can get all the Breaker skills, as it requires having Dark Mage, Wyvern Rider, and Mercenary all on one character. Their co-occurrence is very rare -- only Cordelia has two of the three (Dark Mage and Mercenary). Frederick, Virion, and Lon'qu are potential fathers to give the last remaining class necessary, Wyvern Rider.
So one of my greatest disappointments with my team last time was that Acrobat wasn't as good as I thought it was, especially on Yarne. There aren't that many mountains, deserts, and thick forests in late-game, and Acrobat is a pain in the ass to get (level 15 trickster) for something that, for most units, rarely ever makes a difference.
What I did appreciate very much was Acrobat on horseback units, because sparse forests are everywhere, and Acrobat often made the difference between being able to jump into a bush and grab that terrain bonus, and standing right next to it so the enemy grabs it instead.
So, because it's nice to have a few large-movement units that don't fear arrows, here's a pair of acrobatic mounted units.
Lissa/Henry -> Owain - Galeforce / Acrobat / Vantage / Pass / All Stats +2
Target class: Dark Knight
Lethality and Lifetaker are also candidates to be switched around with Vantage/Stats+2 as you please. My argument against Lethality is that it's very unreliable on your average unit.
By the way, as a tip for getting Acrobat off Henry, he's much more bearable as a Trickster if you immediately second seal him to Thief.
Maribelle/Kellam -> Brady - Galeforce / Acrobat / Luna / Dual Guard / Aegis
Target class: Paladin
It is most efficient exp-wise to second seal him immediately into a cavalier, since this will give him an internal level of +5 rather than +15 if you reclass him at second class 10, or +18 after his first second class skill, though you're only going to have to run him through two second classes so it's not too bad either way. If you're feeling funny, you can have Brady reclass to Thief and grab Mov +1 and Pass before continuing on this course, but let me tell you, leveling with an internal level of over 30 really, really sucks and it will be a long time before you get Aegis if you do that.
Also for the record Kellam is a very agreeable Trickster.
Fliers!
Fliers are complicated because there are some tasks impossible in this game without them, but this game is also absolutely swarming with bow dudes. Until the Iote's Shield DLC item comes out, they're best relegated to being paired-up delivery people most of the time, and strong-hitting not-necessarily-buff units otherwise -- both because this will help them travel farther via galeforce, and because killing things is useful.
Sumia/Frederick -> Cynthia - Galeforce / Luna / Miracle / Tomefaire / All Stats +2
Target class: Dark Flier
I wanted a Dark Flier that actually specialized in the magic part, because a flying magic attacker sounds dandy. Immediate reclass into Cleric and then promote into Sage -- she can use all the early help with her mag stat that she can get.
In keeping with the "paired-up delivery people" idea, you could substitute in Dual Support+ for Luna if you pick Henry or Avatar as her mate, but imo they're better off doing other things, and having a kill skill (Luna) is not bad at all. (Avatar, in particular, is a profound waste of Galeforce.) It's possible to free up Henry with some shuffling, though I warn you that shuffling can often be very difficult when you have certain things you've already decided you want to do. (In particular, daddies with a thief class in their class set are hard to come by, especially since Gaius is already dedicated to Galeforce maximization. You could free up Lon'qu and live with a slightly less speedy Yarne, of course.)
(Have I mentioned yet that I think it's hilarious that Henry's entire class reel are the "I'm evil/amoral!" classes?)
Anyway.
Sully/Donnel - Kjelle -> Aegis / (Aptitude) / Luna / Dual Guard / Deliverer
Target class: Wyvern lord
Pretty straightforward. Aegis, as well as aptitude, should help with her somewhat lacking resistance. Swap in All Stats +2 for Aptitude after she's done leveling.
In principle she's just fine as a Griffin Rider, but Beast Killers are somewhat more widespread than Wyrmslayers, and it's nice to have a second weapon type besides. Still, there's no hurry to get to Wyvern Lord.
And at last, one more thought experiment (my favorite thought experiment) for the road.
Tharja/Gaius -> Vengeance Noire - (Anathema?) / Vantage / Hit +20% / Galeforce / Vengeance / All Stats +2
Target class: Sorcerer
Okay, so this is based off the observation that Vengeance has an activation rate of fucking Skill x2. Skill. Times. Two. Do you know what the Skill cap is?! With this setup, it's 40 for Noire. Throw in a pair up or a rally or a skill tonic or something and you can very easily achieve 50 skill, which means Vengeance will always activate and we're practically in Jugdral again where we have 100%-wrath/ambush, except this time it's with a unit who has destructive attack potential.
The children tend to have incredibly high HP, and by the time Noire has Vengeance you can easily expect her to have nearly capped-80 hp. Give her a normal, unforged Waste tome, and when she's falling over at single-digit hp, she will be blasting things with up to 98 magic attack power... twice. (capped magic 47 + vengeance bonus 39 + waste tome 10 + All stats+2) This can be higher with rallies, stat boosts, forging, etc, though this strikes me as grossly unnecessary most of the time as enemies outside of the Katarina DLC almost never have more than 45ish res, and (98-45)x2 = 106, waaaay over the hp cap. So I think it's a fair assertion to say that outside of the Katarina DLC, as long as she doesn't miss, this Noire can kill anything before it touches her last remaining HP point.
Oh, except watch out for the longbows.
(The highest-res enemy in the game has 64 res. You can OHKO this with Vengeance Noire too if you can eke out a mere 6 extra points of magic attack, which is not difficult at all.)
Note: I'm not sure what's best to inherit from Tharja. Nothing from her actually seems useful to me, unless perhaps you want to pass on Vengeance so Noire can enjoy the combo from the very start (though it won't protect her unless she's wielding something with a 1~2 range). Pavise and Dual Guard are conceivably good back-ups in case something does hit little weak Noire, but this entire thesis is based around the point that nothing will survive to hit Noire. Anathema helps her hit things by 10% I guess.... That's about the most uninspiring skill inheritance ever. Also, you should replace Anathema with All Stats +2 when her skills fill up, because All Stats +2 indirectly gives 8% more hit anyway, and a whole lot of other benefits.
I suspect you could attach (Dual Supporting) Laurent to Noire and, as long as you were careful about how she lost her HP, have her "solo" the entire Katarina DLC.
EDIT: She has exactly two weaknesses: Longbows/siege magic, and things that will make her miss (eg enemies with Tomefaire). The latter issue can be countered by having the Tomefaire ability active on Noire as well, which will cancel it out.
So if you were playing with a team of only the children, your team altogether would look like this:
Speedy taguel bait, rallywhore dragon, pair-up 1-support (paladin), staff guy, physical well-rounded x2, magical well-rounded, high-defense paladin (w/acrobat), dark knight (w/acrobat), physical flier, magical flier, quirky physical thing that dodges everyone, quirky vengeance thing that kills everything
That's 8 physical units (with 5 being good attackers), 6 magical units (with 5 being good attackers), and I feel like all the other traits were also pretty well-balanced and considered in the construction of this team.
You can also supplement some of the Galeforce moms as necessary. Olivia is always potentially useful. The other moms tend to fall behind in terms of statline and skills, but at the very least they're a unit who can pair up and give bonuses to their child, while also providing an extra move via Galeforce.
no subject
also a small thing i've noticed in my own dicking-around playthrough: passing down so much galeforce means everyone is a dark flier for a decent chunk of time which fucking sucks with so many bow users around
—also I did not know about this internal leveling thing NOW I KNOW WHY LEVELING SOME OF MY UNITS SUCKS /lazyunderstandingofmechanics
I'm curious to hear how useful your Breaker Severa ends up being, and the Vengeance Noire idea is pretty lulz.
—dude i can't wait for my next run now
no subject
You do get a lot of Dark Fliers, but I think it's not too bad to pace them so you only have two~three at a time. Three of the kids have to get it from mommy, but the rest can get it at their own pace, though in several cases (read: nearly all of them) it's faster if they do get it from mommy.