The Lunatic Club

[Missile]

Too bad, strange that 2 years after the game release, no playthrough exists and FE12 got a lot of playthrough (easier to capture I guess). I was lucky for the chapter 18, 23 and 24 so I wonder how people managed to did this without the blessing of the RNG goddess.

Is there any playthrough but for Vanilla Lunatic ?

[Lyon's Dirge]

I've defeated all of the enemies of Prologue:The Verge of History except the boss, Garrick. I'm going to him after I heal up my team. Both Chrom and Link leveled up this level. As well as Lissa.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Lyon's Dirge

[Cat1803]

I've defeated all of the enemies of Prologue:The Verge of History except the boss, Garrick. I'm going to him after I heal up my team. Both Chrom and Link leveled up this level. As well as Lissa.

Please tell me Avatar leveled up more than once.

Also watch for Gamble crits on Garrick.

[Missile]

Yeah actually the Avatar can level up six times in the prologue if you do it well

[Cat1803]

There are opportunities to train Chrom later - any experience going to him in the Prologue is better off going to the Avatar. Then again Lunatic isn't as unforgiving as L+, so feeding him a bit of experience shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's just really important to get Avatar as many levels as possible. I've gotten Avatar to Level 8 before, but that's a little absurd.

The water trick is great for getting those early levels - after clearing out the bottom half, your only worry is the Elthunder Mage since he can reach you and has listed crit on you (made even more awful if he has Focus).

[Lyon's Dirge]

I'm doing this without using tricks and etc. Link leveled up two times.

[Cat1803]

Veteran should still allow Avatar to get the ball rolling Ch.1-2.

You could just Frederick Emblem it if you're using DLC when it unlocks, but I'd advise against it if not.

[T-Bone]

Are you high anyone worth their shit knows Gregor x Miriel is a strong pair.

Damn that's a harsh statement, I'm at C 19 on L+ with no grind/dlc/bonusbox/deaths and I had no idea about Miriel having any use.

Just from reading this thread I sorta feel like after C2 there are a ton of ways you can play the game. I haven't seen anyone mention using Vaike and reclassing him to Barb to get boatloads of gold from Despoil.

[Ownagepuffs]

Damn that's a harsh statement, I'm at C 19 on L+ with no grind/dlc/bonusbox/deaths and I had no idea about Miriel having any use.

Just from reading this thread I sorta feel like after C2 there are a ton of ways you can play the game. I haven't seen anyone mention using Vaike and reclassing him to Barb to get boatloads of gold from Despoil.

Don't take it to heart. I was just saying that to make a point that it's sorta common and not actually counter intuitive to someone who knows how pair up works. Merc's Spd/Skl/Def boosts help everyone including mages. Congrats on almost being finished with your run!

I imagine no one mentioned that Vaike use because that burns a valuable Second seal which is hard to come by early game, despoil's proc rate is unreliable, and Vaike is kinda meh as a unit in Lunatic and most likely *much* worse in L+. If Vaike had a higher base Spd he'd probably be pretty good to be honest. His growths are solid from my experience. Over 100% HP growth!

[T-Bone]

Yeah idk, I haven't messed around with other second seal options and originally I didn't think Vaike would be that useful outside of just making me gold but I think hes really good after using him. Going Barb gives him a bunch of speed and he has really good supports (Lonqu and Chrom both let him double).

Hand axes are also really sick. I have basically never at been at a point in the game I couldn't kill 1 round an enemy unit with hand axe paired with Chrom (Since Falchion eats early wyvrens) aside from enemy mercs. I can't really say that for Javelins, none of the characters that can use them have the str/speed combination to make it work, and some units just have to much Res for magic.

His ludicrous HP is really useful also. It's the only stat that counteracts the effects of counter (har har) and luna.

Maybe if I had used more archers I would see him being comparatively weaker. Would love to know what other people used their early second seal on.

Edited January 18, 2015 by T-Bone

[Czar_Yoshi]

Is it me or there are no complete Lunatic + playthrough on youtube (or another site) ? I'm really interested to see how people managed to make it without grinding especially in chapter 2, 18, 23 and 24 (the hardest for me).

No there aren't. Most of the LPers with capture cards moved on to the next big thing (Animal Crossing/XY) long before anyone knew anything about Lunatic+, and why would you have a capture card if you're not an LPer?

Using Vaike for Despoil isn't really a viable tactic when you've got an Avatar right there who can use Leif's Blades from Spotpass right off the bat, and will have much better Lck and killing potential. But using Avatar to get money is a thing- you won't get boatloads but you will get enough for maybe an extra forge or something else nice.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[T-Bone]

Ah yeah I guess you could use leifs? Not as much as Vaike gets though, especially since everyone has lower luck at the beginning of the game so you wont get as many procs. Also if you don't have 1500 renown (I had like 400 or whatever you get from doing lunatic).

2k per map seems average in the Valm arch, could get more but obviously a toss up between evening out experience. Most maps give you 5-10k so 20-40% more gold per chapter? Got 4k on the retarded Cervantes chapter but rng is rng.

I wouldn't say it's amazing or anything but its pretty good when combined with the fact that Vaike is a decent unit.

Anyways just throwing out ideas that worked for me, there are a lot of cool things I missed that I only found out about reading this thread so thought I'd chip in.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Leif's Blade has the same activation rate as Despoil. It'll only give you less gold than Vaike gets if your Lck is lower than his.

You can buy them from Spotpass Leif if you don't have enough Renown, but 1,500 is honestly not a lot and you should really consider spending 5 minutes to grind it out (just recruit Spotpass Wolt 30 times in a postgame file for 600 gold apiece, then beat Grima to save it).

[eclipse]

"I can stop playing Awakening any time I want" - me

Lunatic is DONE. On Chapter 25, I decided to let the first two waves of reinforcements come, since they spawn in back of me. On turn 5, I got Morgan/Avatar into range of the boss, and Avatar obliterated her (that sort of happens when you're a Dark Flier facing some nitwit with a Brave Bow).

Final was completed in one turn. I maxed Morgan's Magic, gave Lucina both Skill Books and five Goddess Icons, forged a Brave Bow (which I forgot to use), Celica's Gale, and a Brave Lance, then fed Morgan/Avatar/Lucina/Cynthia Skill, Luck, and the appropriate damage tonics. Then, I had Lissa, Libra, Basilio, Sumia, and Gregor use their respective Rallies (so it was Rally Magic/Resistance/Luck/Strength/Movement/Skill). I loaded Olivia onto Panne (Deliverer), then used a newly-promoted Owain (ferried by Frederick) to rescue Cynthia, so she could obliterate the Berserker in front of the boss. I moved Avatar/Morgan into range, and did a decent amount of chip, thanks to Luna and Anathema. Then, I had Cynthia/Lucina finish - Lucina landed three Parallel Falchion blows FTW. My oversight with the Brave Bow saved Cynthia's life - she was at 4 HP after Grima's attack (and would've been dead had I used the forge instead of a vanilla Brave Bow).

Stats (final boss killers, base stats):

Name       Class          Level    HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res

Avatar     Sniper          6.47    80  41   24   50   43   47   40   19
Morgan     Dark Flier      6.23    79  35   42   47   50   46   30   33
Cynthia    Falcoknight     3.38    65  32    9   33   42   35   27   19
Lucina     Great Lord     17.19    61  32    8   38   35   39   28   20

Class changes:

Avatar - Tactician (20) -> Cavalier (14) -> Great Knight (20) -> Bow Knight (15) -> Sniper (6)

Morgan - Tactician (14?) -> Grandmaster (5) -> Dark Mage (11?) -> Sorcerer (15) -> Dark Flier (6)

Cynthia - Pegasus Knight (10) -> Cavalier (10) -> Great Knight (15) -> Falcoknight (3)

Lucina - Lord (17) -> Great Lord (17)

Other than six trips or so to Golden Gaffe, and a single skirmish, the levels I got were from the maps themselves. I milked reinforcements in the later levels, and I used the Paralogues for free experience. Otherwise, it was an interesting experiment - even on Lunatic without over-grinding, Grima is plenty manageable.

Chrom was pretty good, Avatar was Avatar, Lucina/Cynthia did okay despite their mom, and Lissa was surprisingly good (staff spamming gave her plenty of levels). Biggest disappointment, by far, was Sumia - two Robes, two Energy Drops, and a Dracoshield later, and she was still in danger of being 3HKO'd as a Great Knight, and had problems damaging things without Luna (for illustration - she 3HKO'd Chapter 25 Generals using a Hammer). Panne was a glass cannon - she could dish out damage, and a lot of it, but died in two hits. Frederick served me fairly well, and after reclassing him to Griffon Knight, was able to serve as a ferry in the end. Cordelia was another disappointment - like Sumia, she had problems killing things (but they weren't as severe). Unlike Sumia, she had problems doubling, which sealed her fate. Gregor is pretty beastly as a Bow Knight, and Rally Skill was damn helpful at the end. Libra was a good secondary staffbot, and Rally Luck was also useful. Last mention is Morgan - I changed her to Dark Mage to cheese Nah's chapter, but Anathema wound up being useful all the way.

Oh, and whoever classed Basilio as the worst character. . .I shall have to respectfully disagree. Rally Strength was the reason why I won the final chapter.

Edited January 18, 2015 by eclipse

[Ownagepuffs]

I really should be milking some of the reinforcements since my team is somewhat starved for EXP >_>. My run is still on hiatus @ C16 since I don't have Awakening but yeah I've been focused on doing psuedo LTC for some reason. I mean, those Wyvern reinforcements in C9 are just begging to be fed to Chrom.

I'll take a page from eclipse and start milking some reinforcements in the later chapters if I can :P

[Interceptor]

Damn that's a harsh statement, I'm at C 19 on L+ with no grind/dlc/bonusbox/deaths and I had no idea about Miriel having any use.

Welcome to the Internet, where ToughGuys flexing e-muscles abound.

Honestly, when I used Miriel I basically stumbled upon her by accident. She's not even mentioned in my playlog's introduction manifesto, and if you look at my Ch3 write-up you'll see that I was basically training her on a lark to see if she'd be a good Troubadour. In reality, her offense turned out to be central to my strategies in both Ch5 and Ch6, two of the hardest earlygame L+ chapters, and her kid ended up breaking the post-Walhart game over his Sorcerer knee.

So there's something to be said about just dicking around and trying out weird things, like feeding a paper Mage seven levels of training in her second chapter, even though nobody thought she was any good.

Just from reading this thread I sorta feel like after C2 there are a ton of ways you can play the game. I haven't seen anyone mention using Vaike and reclassing him to Barb to get boatloads of gold from Despoil.

I did something like this on my very first L+ playthrough, although I used Gregor instead. Partly that was for Armsthrift/Patience purposes, and partly that was because a Second Seal hurts less at Ch7. Vaike is an interesting pick though, because his growths are just as good and he's even a bit stronger. It doesn't feel optimal, but he potentially has enough STR to put some OHKOs in play if you have the weapons for the job, and axes are great.

The money from Despoil was great, BTW. Maxed forges for everyone.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Interceptor

[Ownagepuffs]

Don't hate 'cuz my e-biceps are stylin' on you.

[Nobody]

So, while I've beaten Lunatic and Lunatic + plenty of times, all of them were just using Chrom, MU, Morgan and Lucina, with no one else, and I'd like to change that, using as many units as possible (without grinding, of course).

How many units do you generally use on Lunatic?

Which ones are good in it?

Do you also make the MU a powerhouse in the first few chapters rather than giving kills to everyone?

What would work the best as the asset? I'm thinking if SPD, since DEF is kind of boring. That said, I'm willing to use the later if it makes using other units easier

[eclipse]

I really should be milking some of the reinforcements since my team is somewhat starved for EXP >_>. My run is still on hiatus @ C16 since I don't have Awakening but yeah I've been focused on doing psuedo LTC for some reason. I mean, those Wyvern reinforcements in C9 are just begging to be fed to Chrom.

I'll take a page from eclipse and start milking some reinforcements in the later chapters if I can :P

I got those Wyvern reinforcements on Chapter 9 because I was too slow.

Lessee. . .here's what I remember in terms of reinforcements (you can find the turn counts on the wiki, under Lunatic enemy data):

16 - First wave comes from your starting position. I wouldn't stick around longer than that, because there's another wave that shows up from the sides - and those guys fly.

17 - If you want to be a complete and utter nutcase, you can attempt to have an overleveled Avater tank them in the entrance to the boss room; otherwise, you're better off rushing this chapter after grabbing the boots. The reinforcements are pretty fast, and they hurt!

18 - You'll be too busy eating roasted griffon.

19 - Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the exact pattern, but it's waves from the forts. I'd stick around for maybe the first two or so, then book it out of there (the first wave, IIRC, starts from the forts furthest from you).

20 - First wave comes from the bottom of the map. Again, I didn't stick around to see when the guys from the side showed up.

21 - Screw this chapter.

22 - Uh, grab all the droppables?

23 - I have yet to find a way to beat this chapter without Nosfertanking. Either way, have someone on a pillar down south, while everyone else runs north.

24 - I blocked half the forts, but from the three I didn't block, the wyverns spawn from the two forts furthest from you, and a paladin shows up from the fort in the middle of the forest.

25 - First wave shows up from the bottom. Second wave shows up from the bottom, with the four fliers appearing from the southern mountains. Third wave shows up from the sides (just north of the southern mountains). Fourth wave also shows up from the sides, but the fliers spawn in a really inconvenient spot. I'd get out before the fourth wave.

Final - You should be OP enough to one-turn it.

So, while I've beaten Lunatic and Lunatic + plenty of times, all of them were just using Chrom, MU, Morgan and Lucina, with no one else, and I'd like to change that, using as many units as possible (without grinding, of course).

How many units do you generally use on Lunatic?

Which ones are good in it?

Do you also make the MU a powerhouse in the first few chapters rather than giving kills to everyone?

What would work the best as the asset? I'm thinking if SPD, since DEF is kind of boring. That said, I'm willing to use the later if it makes using other units easier

I fielded twelve total - Avatar, Chrom, Sumia (note: don't force this if she's being a pain in the ass), Frederick, Cordelia, Nowi, Gaius, Lissa, Libra, Panne, Gregor, and Olivia were from the first generation. From there, I worked in Lucina, Cynthia, and Morgan (booted Frederick/Cordelia for Lucina/Cynthia). You can definitely find a way to get Miriel/Sully and their husbands in, if you want to use them. I heard from a certain awesome someone that Cherche is also workable, if you don't mind a bit of prep beforehand.

I went +Spd/-Res; makes the Prologue painful, but the subsequent chapters a lot easier. I gave Avatar/Frederick the majority of the kills in the early chapters. Frederick consistently gained Speed for me, which is why I used him as late as I did (dropped him somewhere around Chapter 20, IIRC, and this was more Cordelia's fault).

Edited January 18, 2015 by eclipse

[Czar_Yoshi]

Do you also make the MU a powerhouse in the first few chapters rather than giving kills to everyone?

Yes. The difficulty goes down a bit during Cht.7-11 and you really want to have a really strong unit for running interference and walling and the like to aid in feeding exp to the rest of your team in the way you want. You can (and really should) train 1-2 other units from earlier (not counting Lissa because she doesn't need kills) but don't go overboard.

I consider 5 pairs to be the highest you can go without seeing a significant difficulty increase around Cht.12-17. This includes children, though it's perfectly viable to bench a parent pair or two to make room for the kids.

Nowi and Panne are really great for vanilla Lunatic, but fall off a bit in Lunatic+. Sumia and Cordelia have high potential for both, but are slightly more vulnerable to being RNG screwed. Miriel is valuable earlygame and gives a very good child, though what she has to bring to the table is generally more useful on Lunatic+. Lissa and Maribelle don't take combat exp to train and you should definitely use at least one of them.

Chrom is force deployed so you'll obviously want to at least keep him viable. If you're going for high deployment I'd advise using Avatar-M because there are a lot more good females than good males in Lunatic(+). Vaike has interesting potential but is an earlygame unit who would be competing for exp with several others. Fred remains relevant long enough to easily build up an S support, and Gregor comes strong enough to get going without too much effort. Libra also has staves for easy training/support building, I like dropping him on Lissa.

[Ownagepuffs]

Sheesh, update time.

C16 done in 4 turns. I was thinking of letting the turn 4 reinforcements come along so I could milk them for Exp but I wasn't sure where they spawned so I didn't risk it and just cleared it on turn 4.

The best part about this is how the enemies moved in waves so I could pick them off at my leisure until turn 5 Falco trolls come along.

On turn 1 I had to rig a 19% Killing Edge crit to insta kill a 59 HP Hero. Heroes are such a pain. Hella durable, hella fast, hella strong. Anyway, Lucina moves up to kill the first fighter on the right. She gets a level up to Spd Str and Skl (who says Sumia!Lucina doesn't have a good Str growth?). With Galeforce she moves and switches to Morgan to KO the second fighter and Morgan gets a beautiful level up to everything but Mag and Res. Sumia's no longer the untouchable goddess she was in the first half of the game but she is still invaluable because her x Chrom is my most reliable pair. They take out some key targets like the Warrior and thief. Cherche doubles the fighter because the fighter is a chump. Cordelia x Vaike kills the beast killer Peg. Henry Mire'd a Warrior and got a level up to Spd lol. Blah blah blah EP happens and nothing really happens. Cordy pulls a warrior, chips it and Nah gets the kill and competes with her sister by getting a level up to every stat except magic and something else.

Eventually MaMU pulls that Falco that's hanging around the top, damages it and Cherche pulls the Hero that's hanging around. Cherche's durability is just amazing. Cherche kills the wounded Falco and levels up Str Spd Skl and Def like a champion~. She hits level 5 and gets quick burn. +15 hit and avo is nothing to scoff at, and since I'm finishing these maps so quickly the penalty won't really affect me. Robin kills the weakened hero and gets a fantastic level (everything except luck). Nice. Sumia kills the speedwings thief and galeforce moves back to a safe spot on turn 3. Lucina moves up to prepare to grab a kill on turn 4. Turn 4, Lucina kills the last fighter and levels up again. There's nothing for Morgan to kill so she chips something for veteran chip exp. Sumia x Chrom moves up, kills the sniper and uses the galeforce movement to move up to Cervantes, switch to Chrom and Chrom x Sumia does an all out brave assault (Eirika's blade x Celica's gale) to kill the boss and end the chapter.

I've got roughly 25k gold and two streetpass shops with all boosters. I'll see what to buy.

C17 at a glance: Lmfao. Fuck. Everything is promoted. Everything has hit +10 (the snipers have hit +10 and hit +20). Sumia's dodge tanking days are over. Everything also has massive HP pools OMG. Whatever shall I dooo~? Well this is the boots chapter so yay. Gonna just have to slug it out. It's kill boss so it should be over quickly. More to come.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[Czar_Yoshi]

It's not going to go back down (unless your team has a serious problem with magic... This chapter has one of the highest concentrations of Tomes in the game). If you want to train, get your training in here. There are only two more chapters that aren't Kill Boss, so you could just start rushing, I guess.

[Ownagepuffs]

Thanks for the tip. Everyone is spread out at the start which sucks. Does the enemy mass aggro or can I pull them I'm groups? Guess I'll find out soon enough.

[eclipse]

They. . .sort of mass aggro? The first wave are the guys you see up front. After that, you'll pull them in bits and pieces.

If you want to farm them for experience, disarm Avatar, and have her run to the boss room, and stand in the doorway (after you kill the generic guys in there, of course). Have everyone else book it to the Boots room, and clear them out. This is the strategy that I used, and since my Avatar was a Bow Knight, I had him hold a bow, and basically prune all the 2-range enemies (used the walls of the treasure room to pull the Longbow guys, and kill them). Once the rush was over, pulling an enemy or two off of the inevitable dogpile wasn't too hard!

[Czar_Yoshi]

It's also possible to take advantage of the natural circles in the map for kiting stuff if you manage to wait out the reinforcements.

You've got considerable room for kiting at the start, too- if you focus your heavy hitters on the left side and clear everything there out on turn 1, and then have the other two sides aggro their enemies and then book it left, you can fight the dudes chasing them split into two waves with your whole team per wave. Then run up the LHS as fast as you can to stop the Thief (you've actually got a good amount of time, and can intercept him at the halfway point if you like).