PAIRINGS The Pairing Thread

[Bane]

There is one thing that changes with difficulty in Apo and it is so minor that it isn't worth noting.

Vascela has done a no dlc/no braves run and I think he planned a 100% perfectly replicateable plan for it, so people have done challenge runs before. It's just that no one has disregarded pairup.

I think you're breaking new ground with no pairup but I'd suggest starting with dlc and then pulling back on successive runs. If you've never done Apo before don't feel compelled to go straight to challenge runs, just play through and see if you want a tougher challenge.

[soly]

Oh yeah definitely start out with DLC. Agreed. This is a doozy of a challenge run, you won't get it if it's your first Apo run. Play the map a few times without restrictions first, or with easier restrictions. Then give it a shot with DLC, but without Pair-Up, because dropping Pair Up changes things like positioning, Rescue, and Rally. Then, when you're more confident with the map, try it.

Unless you know, like, exactly why you want to do VV, I wouldn't recommend it. Even if you do know, I wouldn't recommend it anyway. Especially for this run, I don't think it's a good idea.

What you're suggesting is a double VV pair. VV alone requires Vantage (Myrmidon), Vengeance (Dark Mage line), and (usually it's said) Tomefaire Sage (Cleric/Mage line). Setting aside Avatar and Morgan, the boys who can pull off VV are Libra!Inigo, Libra! or Henry!Owain, and Laurent with Myrmidon. The girls who can pull this off... Libra!Kjelle.

Don't forget that VV requires you to kill the attacker before you're counterattacked, which may be hard in the extreme challenge setup you're proposing. If you don't get Dual Strikes, this is nearly impossible. Gregor!Laurent and Lon'qu!Laurent can just about do it with a dedicated critbuild, but that requires marrying an Avatar-fathered daughter for Solidarity and losing +Skl from pair up basically stops its reliability in its tracks.

On to Lancebreaker. This page is important. The SF skills list is handy for a list of skills which affect Avoid (Ctrl+F Avoid, and don't forget Dual Support+).

The purpose of the Lancebreaker set is (primarily) to deal with Anna by dropping her displayed hit rate into the single digit range (or outright zero it). This is pretty important in challenge runs where one can't afford to invest in enough speed to prevent Anna from doubling (66 Spe). A proc or procstack, if one can afford to carry it, is also good for turn crunching. Anna's displayed Hit is 232.

What you want to do is to look for a unit/build (including combat partner) which can drop Anna's displayed hit to very low numbers, plus carry a proc to increase one's own damage. Luna is a good pick because if your Avoid fails you don't die instantly (as opposed to Vengeance) and you can step into melee range without dying to Counter, but sometimes you don't have a choice but to pick Vengeance. Aether/Luna procstack is probably the best but requires Lucina! or Chrom!Cynthia!Morgan-F (or Avatar!Lucina, Sully!Lucina, or Chrom!Kjelle. Don't do the latter two). Lancebreaker is required for the first step; you may need to pad out your skills list with other Avoid boosters like Avoid+10, Tantivy, Slow Burn (Slow Burn turns off at turn 16 so it's worthless), and adjacent units with Charm, Dual Support+ as well. It's most commonly seen on Severa, whose flagship builds already involve the Wyvern line. Obviously Morgan can do it; Kjelle probably has a good shot at it, too, with natural Avoid+10 and Lancebreaker. Aside from that, I've toyed with the idea of Lon'qu!Laurent, Henry!Gerome and Fred!Inigo, though all three units will require heavy support in the form of Troubadour-access girlfriends with Demoiselle and Dual Support+. You might find that your Lancebreaker is a highly specialised unit with a pretty deadweight skillset. Severa, Morgan, Kjelle probably won't be, but Laurent and Gerome might be; thankfully they're Hard Supports which can better afford the skill space (or turn them into staffbots). Inigo might not be, but Inigo's girlfriend might.

What I did was set up an excel table that let me put in the unit's Speed and Luck stats, plus the bonuses accrued from their 5 skills and their SO's 5 skills (and possible WTA), and it would spit out the unit's Avoid rating.

Edited May 19, 2018 by soly

[ZantaRay]

Seems like I've got a ton of planning cut out for me. I'm definately going to try and work something out though. I have done apo before, but several years ago, so I remember very little in great detail, but I recently got back into fire emblem in a big way, so I've been replaying a lot of the games. I'll do some brainstorming I guess and come back to the thread when I have some more concrete ideas then, cheers. 

[soly]

On 4/4/2018 at 12:47 PM, soly said:

when you split your units, you lose automatic Dual Strike, which means that you have to position your units with absolute precision next to each other to get the dual strike benefit. That basically immediately removes the utility of Double Galeforce pairs: they're going to struggle to position to Dual Strike with all four (split) attacks (though I think it's still doable if you have 1-2 range).

@ZantaRay

So I did a little bit more thinking about this Double Galepair thing. Basically, in Apotheosis, enemies tend to (but do not always) spawn in groups of 5 in an x-shape; think of the four corners of a tic-tac-toe board, plus the centre. As such, if one member of a double galepair (two S-support units, both with Galeforce) can attack at 2-range, and the other can attack at 1-range, it should be possible to position them in such a way that they are always adjacent to each other when attacking, so long as they are so positioned at the start of their turn. What that means is that one of the pair ('b', in the example given) has to be rescued precisely to their first location. An example of such exact positioning is as follows, though clearly the pair should be able to target any four units in the group:

Spoiler

The x's refer to enemy units; the Capital X is the unit attacked at this point in the turn. While 'a' and 'b' are your double galepair units, and the capital 'A' or 'B' indicates which is attacking. In this scenario, unit B has to be in position when unit A attacks, so the rescue bot should be one tile above unit B.

The unit in the centre is usually a boss or miniboss, so that should be kept in mind.

_b_  
XAx      BaX      b__      ___
_x_  ->  _x_  ->  Ax_  ->  aX_
x_x      x_x      X_x      B_x

 

Wave 0 generals, plus Invincisorc spawns in wave 3 and 5 have slightly different positioning, but the double galepair will still be able to hit all 3 invincisorcs (or any 4 of 5 generals). And even if one unit fails to kill their target (at any point in the gale-chain), the other can still position themselves adjacent to their partner to get their other attacks off.

So don't double galepair two units locked to 1-range (eg. 2 heroes, or Hero and Wyvern Lord). Sniper + melee is fine, any unit with range 1 and 2 (eg. Assassin, Warrior, Bow Knight, Tome users) can pair with either 1 range or 2 range units, but give the versatile-range unit the weaponfaire complementary to their partner (so if it's Assassin x Wyvern Lord, use Bowfaire (2 range) Assassin to complement the 1-range Wyvern Lord).

You'll want to follow that train of thought to its conclusion for Snipers, because Range 3 can mess up what I just told you. I'd suggest Sniper x Caster; when the Longbow is called for, the caster can go to 2-range, but if the Brave Bow is in play, the caster can go to 1 range.

And logbook boots Falcoknight your staffbots so that you have good Rescue positioning.

 

EDIT. Guess what I just realised. Since there are no pair-ups, the value of combat proc skills (Aether, Astra, Luna, Vengeance) just increased. The traditional "hard support" units are (quite clearly) perfectly capable of "leading" in a no pair-up run; one might even say better (though of course this is debatable) as they don't have the skill slot requirement of running Galeforce (or you can drop Galeforce from a Galeboy). That might add Gerome, Yarne, and Nah (but not Laurent, who has natural Vengeance) to the list of proc-seeking kids (Owain and Inigo). Stable proc dads, if you will recall, include Stahl, Fred, Kellam, and Ricken (Luna); and Libra and Henry (Vengeance).

Conversely, since you're still moving twice the number of units around with Rescue and Rally, the utility of Galeforce also goes up - so that the units you do have can move around more.

The more I think about this, the more interesting it gets.

Edited April 6, 2018 by soly

[ZantaRay]

Yeah I've been thinking about it a lot, and looking around. I *think*, though I'm not 100% sure, that a mag focused vv Morgan and another high mag vv kid, could function similarly to how vv Morgan clears work, though I need to run the numbers on it still. You need extra rescuebots, and the rescue/rallybots will need hex/anathema, and the positioning is going to be a nightmare, as well as a pain to setup vengeance on two seperate characters, but I think it's probably the best possiblity for a clear. I pm'd Vascela, and he gave some advice/suggestions that should be helpful. Gonna do some math soon to try and find two vv kids who can orko every enemy so long as they're standing together, probably something along the lines of Ricken!Severa + some magic focused 3rd gen Morgan, with +mag-def feMU. I think a more general clear will be too hard to do reliably. Do you guys know if there's a spreadsheet with all the apotheosis stats preentered? Obviously there's stats on here and the wiki, but it'd be much easier to work with if it started in a spreadsheet format. 

[ShinjiFan4ever]

Right now I have Sumia and Lissa as Darkfliers to give Cynthia and Owain Galeforce. Is Chrom a good parent for Inigo or should I set him up with Sumia? What's the best class(skills) to have M!MU pass to Morgan? This really isn't anything special like a challenge run or anything. Just a normal casual playthorugh.  

[Bane]

49 minutes ago, ShinjiFan4ever said:

Right now I have Sumia and Lissa as Darkfliers to give Cynthia and Owain Galeforce. Is Chrom a good parent for Inigo or should I set him up with Sumia? What's the best class(skills) to have M!MU pass to Morgan? This really isn't anything special like a challenge run or anything. Just a normal casual playthorugh.  

Chrom is a decent father for Inigo (Stahl replicates what he does with some +1s shifting in max stats and losing rightful king, which is of questionable usefulness at full power) and an exceptional father for Cynthia (+5 speed, Aether and Sniper are amazing together).

M!Robin can pass any of the Barbarian/Fighter skills to F!Morgan (since they're unique) but they aren't irreplacable so maybe pass Axefaire or Despoil or get something convenient/useful from another class.

[TheSilentChloey]

So I am doing a HM Apo F!Robin team and have Chrom x Robin but I am at a loss as to who else to pair up.  I an thinking the following:

Lissa x Lon'qu or Lissa x Ricken

Sully x Donnel

Sumia x Henry

Miriel x Gregor

Maribelle x Libra

Cordelia x Virion

Nowi x Stahl or Nowi x Vaike

Tharja x Gaius

Olivia x Ricken or Olivia x Stahl

Cherche x Vaike or Cherche x Frederick (Benching Gerome so it doesn't matter)

 

[soly]

On 4/8/2018 at 4:48 AM, ShinjiFan4ever said:

Right now I have Sumia and Lissa as Darkfliers to give Cynthia and Owain Galeforce. Is Chrom a good parent for Inigo or should I set him up with Sumia? What's the best class(skills) to have M!MU pass to Morgan? This really isn't anything special like a challenge run or anything. Just a normal casual playthorugh.  

if you're doing a normal, casual playthrough (as in, up to Grima) then honestly, it doesn't matter much, but Cynthia's inherited base stats from Sumia are better than Inigo's from Olivia, and her paralogue is easier, so that's probably better.

if you're going up to Apotheosis in a casual sort of everything allowed way, both Lucina mothers still work. Chrom is still a good parent for Inigo, but he has a huge list of other good parents, while Cynthia's list is pretty much limited to Henry (Gaius is good too but you're usually better off giving Gaius to Kjelle or Noire).

[ChickenWings]

On 4/7/2018 at 11:08 PM, TheSilentChloey said:

So I am doing a HM Apo F!Robin team and have Chrom x Robin but I am at a loss as to who else to pair up.  I an thinking the following:

Lissa x Lon'qu or Lissa x Ricken

Sully x Donnel

Sumia x Henry

Miriel x Gregor

Maribelle x Libra

Cordelia x Virion

Nowi x Stahl or Nowi x Vaike

Tharja x Gaius

Olivia x Ricken or Olivia x Stahl

Cherche x Vaike or Cherche x Frederick (Benching Gerome so it doesn't matter)

 

Why not Ricken/Lissa, Nowi/Vaike, Stahl/Olivia, and Freddy/Cherche?

[Bane]

21 minutes ago, ChickenWings said:

Why not Ricken/Lissa, Nowi/Vaike, Stahl/Olivia, and Freddy/Cherche?

I'd even be willing to say Lon'qu/Cherche because it gets Gerome Swordfaire (which I value over dual guard+ or Luna on a hard support) to use with Hero, but that might not be as much strength as Warrior/Wyvern Lord so it depends on the child pairings I guess.

[ChickenWings]

2 hours ago, Bane said:

I'd even be willing to say Lon'qu/Cherche because it gets Gerome Swordfaire (which I value over dual guard+ or Luna on a hard support) to use with Hero, but that might not be as much strength as Warrior/Wyvern Lord so it depends on the child pairings I guess.

I say so because SilentCholey is benching Gerome.

[TheSilentChloey]

8 hours ago, ChickenWings said:

Why not Ricken/Lissa, Nowi/Vaike, Stahl/Olivia, and Freddy/Cherche?

I'd say in Lissa's case her supports with Lon'qu beat out Ricken's for me and I'm willing to have Owain be a fast swordmaster with Lon'qu as his father.  As for the other three I tend to get them then bench then fairly quickly because I don't really like Inigo that much, Nah is awkward to pair up and Gerome is too...batman for me.  I have never got them past the classes they come as in most cases

8 hours ago, Bane said:

I'd even be willing to say Lon'qu/Cherche because it gets Gerome Swordfaire (which I value over dual guard+ or Luna on a hard support) to use with Hero, but that might not be as much strength as Warrior/Wyvern Lord so it depends on the child pairings I guess.

I don't actually like Cherche's support as much as Lissa's with Lon'qu.  Though It's more personal preference at this point.  Also Gerome is likely not going to see any action what so ever so giving him Lonnie is a waste of a father since I might not even end up recruiting him.  His chapter is usually a Morgan/Lucina/Chrom training ground.

[Lau]

Anyone fancy judging my pairings?

Chrom x Village Maiden - Hahah,  I know, I know. It's just that I don't plan in investing too much in Lucina. Why can't male Robin marry Chrom, IS?

Robin (+Magic -Luck I think) x Olivia

Gaius x Sumia

Frederick x Cherche

Lon'qu x Lissa

Henry x Maribelle

Libra x Miriel

Virion x Cordelia - I like Severa with blue hair.

Vaike x Sully

Donnel x Tharja

Ricken x Nowi

Gregor x Panne

[ChickenWings]

Chrom/Maiden is the best because she's a better wife than the others.

It would hurt a lot not to have Lucina. She's one of only 2 characters who can achieve 100% Dual Strike without a lot of effort and she gets a lot to work with if she has a mom that isn't maiden or Sully. (I have yet to see someone who has used Sully for Lucina's mom in post game stuff.... I don't think I've seen Maiden!Lucina recommended anywhere but in joke runs or where they can't stand Chrom and/or Lucina.... Why????)

If this is just a casual/personal pairings run or if you're going all out on Apotheosis, you're fine, but otherwise.... I don't see most of these pairings used for post game optimization.

Edited April 11, 2018 by ChickenWings

[Bane]

On 4/11/2018 at 7:40 AM, Lau said:

Anyone fancy judging my pairings?

Spoiler

 

Chrom x Village Maiden - Hahah,  I know, I know. It's just that I don't plan in investing too much in Lucina. Why can't male Robin marry Chrom, IS?

Robin (+Magic -Luck I think) x Olivia

Gaius x Sumia

Frederick x Cherche

Lon'qu x Lissa

Henry x Maribelle

Libra x Miriel

Virion x Cordelia - I like Severa with blue hair.

Vaike x Sully

Donnel x Tharja

Ricken x Nowi

Gregor x Panne

 

 

The first question is about Gaius. The opportunity cost of giving him to Sumia is immense, especially when Kjelle isn't set up to inherit Galeforce. If this is your true pair than leave it, but other wise strongly consider pairing Chrom with Sumia and passing Gaius to Sully.

Other things you should consider are A) getting Lissa a husband with Luna or Vengeance B) reconfiguring hard supports for better performance. For A you can swap Lon'qu and Henry and call it good with minimal intervention. For B You'd generally like Yarne to have a +hit skill or two (Hex/Anathema from Dark Mage or Hit +20 from Sniper) and Gerome should get a -faire (preferably Axefaire with +hit, but only Henry gives that so Gerome can settle for just a -faire). 

Virion x Cordelia is really good and I recommend you leave it be. Tharja's, Nowi's, and Miriel's pairs are alright for giving Galeforce or boosting stats to support with. Robin pair is Robin pair which makes it the best for his children.

tl;dr If you're intent on going Maiden!Lucina ignore all the following advice and play to your heart's content, otherwise pair ChromxSumia and shift Gaius to Sully. Swap Henry and Lon'qu, leave VirionxCordelia alone, reshuffle the pairs of your hard supports to get them some -faires or +hit skills then sit Nah on the bench and leave her there.

[ChickenWings]

I wanna try out the goodiness that are Snipers in Apotheosis. I finished a Lunatic run with a +Spd/ Def- Avatar who married Chrom. The other pairings who have married during the run are:

Stahl/Cordelia 

Gaius/Tharja 

Henry/Sumia

Libra/Olivia 

 I picked up Morgan and Cynthia (thankfully with GF), Severa, and Noire. Inigo hasnt been picked up yet.

Who should I marry Lucina off to? She'll be a Sniper. I want her to marry either Gregor!Laurent or Virion!Yarne, but I'll consider Libra!Inigo if one can make an argument for him.

Is Sniper/Sage better than Sniper/Berserker? This will help me decide how I want Morgan to be and who he'll marry. Though, I want it to be either Cynthia, Severa, or Noire.

Chrobin will be a Sniper/Sage couple y'all.

How many Snipers should come along to the map?

 

Will attempt the normal map first before tackling the secret path. I have all relevant DLC maps.

Edited April 26, 2018 by ChickenWings

[Bane]

On 4/26/2018 at 1:56 PM, ChickenWings said:

Spoiler

 

I wanna try out the goodiness that are Snipers in Apotheosis. I finished a Lunatic run with a +Spd/ Def- Avatar who married Chrom. The other pairings who have married during the run are:

Stahl/Cordelia 

Gaius/Tharja 

Henry/Sumia

Libra/Olivia 

 I picked up Morgan and Cynthia (thankfully with GF), Severa, and Noire. Inigo hasnt been picked up yet.

Who should I marry Lucina off to? She'll be a Sniper. I want her to marry either Gregor!Laurent or Virion!Yarne, but I'll consider Libra!Inigo if one can make an argument for him.

Is Sniper/Sage better than Sniper/Berserker? This will help me decide how I want Morgan to be and who he'll marry. Though, I want it to be either Cynthia, Severa, or Noire.

Chrobin will be a Sniper/Sage couple y'all.

How many Snipers should come along to the map?

 

Will attempt the normal map first before tackling the secret path. I have all relevant DLC maps.

 

 

I say you pair Lucina with Yarne because she will be just fast enough to hit 75 speed with a Berserker support while all your other snipers will need to give up a lot of flexibility to reach that point. Although Gregor!Laurent is flexible enough to do both physical and magical support so if you're struggling to choose you can slap him with Lucina and make the decision right before you go into the map.

The big difference between Sniper/Sage and Sniper/Berserker is whether you need to deal more magic or physical damage. Usually enemies have lower resistance than defense so Sages hit harder, and they hit more frequently while holding Celica's Gale so the damage adds up. The downside is that Sage gives no speed, and Berserker buffs your offense by buffing strength and speed and Berserker is the hardest hitting physical class so the damage is still good. Just give the supporting Berserker Hit +20 or Hex/Anathema to patch up their hit problems.

You can bring as many Snipers as you want, the big problem is that you bring enough rallybots and staffusers. The important thing to have Snipers for is to soften up some of the bosses at 3 range without counterattacks so it's safer for other characters to go in, but you can also deploy all snipers if that's what you really want. If might be good to bring higher movement classes (IE Dark Flier) but you can make things work as they are.

[Ezrius]

Going to be doing some traveling for work and figure I’ll start bringing my 3DS and replay Awakening and Fates as we await more news on the FES front.  Planning on doing for-fun playthroughs, so no limits that should make anything but maybe Apotheosis much more than a cakewalk.  My only restriction is not to marry 2^nd gen for my Robin (just find it awkward AF).  I’ve always done +Spd Robins so I’m going to try something a bit different this time.  I’ll just list 20 for an assumed Apotheosis run (which surprisingly I’ve never actually done):

Robin (+Mag/-Def) / Lissa

Chrom / Sumia

Sumia!Lucina / Henry!Gerome

Virion!Severa / Stahl!Yarne

Donnel!Kjelle / Fredrick!Inigo

Chrom!Cynthia / Gregor!Laurent

Gaius!Noire / Robin!Owain

Lissa!Morgan / Lon’qu!Brady

Frederick / Olivia (w/Special Dance)

Katarina (Rally/Staffbot)

Palle (Rally/Staffbot)

 

I’m tempted to try some non-traditional classes, because I don’t want to just walk in there with all Sages.  A Trickster or two, for example.  Pretty open to fun suggestions, but Severa will probably be a Wyvern Lord and Gerome & Yarne will probably be Berserkers.  Not all the children pairings are set in stone either, I'm just bad at figuring all the math out quickly.  I don't really like Nah because she looks like she's 8, but she'll probably exist as Vaike!Nah just for completion's sake.

[soly]

21 hours ago, Ezrius said:

Going to be doing some traveling for work and figure I’ll start bringing my 3DS and replay Awakening and Fates as we await more news on the FES front.  Planning on doing for-fun playthroughs, so no limits that should make anything but maybe Apotheosis much more than a cakewalk.  My only restriction is not to marry 2^nd gen for my Robin (just find it awkward AF).  I’ve always done +Spd Robins so I’m going to try something a bit different this time.  I’ll just list 20 for an assumed Apotheosis run (which surprisingly I’ve never actually done):

Spoiler

if you Apo run without some kind of stat restrictions anyway (Limit Breaker is +10, Aggressor is +10, Rallies are +10) then Apo is still sorta easyish and you can do nearly whatever you want. +Spe Robins are recommended for almost all gen1 pairings. Not required, but recommended. Sumia is I think the only gen1 (mother) pairing which really favours +Mag (and has Proc + Galeforce + tomefaire to boot). You can maybe get away with +Str or +Skl on certain kids, but for gen1 marriage +Spe is king.

Owain can get away with +Mag because it still offers +2 Spe, but you might prefer +Spe for the abovementioned challenge runs.

I’m tempted to try some non-traditional classes, because I don’t want to just walk in there with all Sages.  A Trickster or two, for example.  Pretty open to fun suggestions, but Severa will probably be a Wyvern Lord and Gerome & Yarne will probably be Berserkers.  Not all the children pairings are set in stone either, I'm just bad at figuring all the math out quickly.  I don't really like Nah because she looks like she's 8, but she'll probably exist as Vaike!Nah just for completion's sake.

Spoiler

It's worth knowing your nontraditional options and what they do (or do not do) as opposed to standard sets... as well as which ones are just plain bad. Trickster is one of the latter ones, sporting really bad Str, subpar Mag, and being swordlocked for combat. If you're doing a challenge run with any kind of difficulty, stay away.

That said, it's worth knowing what, exactly, Tricksters offer you. Which is mostly a +Mag +Skl +Spe +Mov pair-up. So if you really must, dump this on one of the male units to get that +Spe on a Dark Flier.

Other nontraditional classes which don't suck? Paladin is borderline traditional. Dark Knight and Grandmaster are interesting (but mostly outclassed by Dark Flier and Sage). Bow Knight is cute in that your stats are bland, but you have mobility, a bow, and a pointy stick for diverse targeting options (Aegis? Poke him with your stick. Counter? Shoot him). Warrior lead is like Bow Knight, but with a big axe, no horse, and no girls. Griffon Rider is in an awkward position of never having Griffon, Galeforce, a proc, Axefaire, and good mods at the same time. Exception: Fred!Inigo bird rider. So you can do that. General has bad mobility and speed but if you can fix that (eg. with a paladin pairup) you're golden.

Robin (+Mag/-Def) / Lissa is fine

Chrom / Sumia best Chrom marriage

Sumia!Lucina / Henry!Gerome Lucina's Sniper and Dark Flier can get Berserker and Sage respectively, they're fine. Great Lord exists.

Virion!Severa / Stahl!Yarne Severa's magic Sage/Dark Flier sets don't appreciate Yarne, but her physical Wyvern Lord/Sniper sets do. Is fine if you don't go magic Sev

Donnel!Kjelle / Fredrick!Inigo they're fine basically no matter what. You can try General + Paladin here if you want, or Griffon.

Chrom!Cynthia / Gregor!Laurent exactly like Lucina, except her boyfriend has more Mag than Str and Great Lord doesn't exist.

Gaius!Noire / Robin!Owain Robin!Owain (+Mag) wants a dark flier girlfriend and to go Sage. The problem is that Noire doesn't have Tomefaire as a DF. You can try Dark Knight/Grandmaster but same issues. I would say to try to swap pairings around to get someone with Tomefaire for Owain. But your Tomefaire girls are Lucina and Cynthia. Which is sorta weird since they're cousins. Maybe Severa?

Lissa!Morgan / Lon’qu!Brady is fine

Frederick / Olivia (w/Special Dance) you're better off leaving freddy on the bench and bringing a staffbot. Actually, you should strongly consider bringing more than one staffbot.

Katarina (Rally/Staffbot)Palle (Rally/Staffbot)

 

[Ezrius]

41 minutes ago, soly said:

 

I took a long look at it and also realized that many of the pairing outside of Robin / Lissa were... basically the same pairings I always do.  So I have shuffled it a bit.  Having Robin marry Lissa is slightly problematic when matching up 2nd gen supports thanks to the Lucina / Owain / Cynthia creep factor.  If it comes down to it, though, this is a feudal setting and, well, just look at Game of Thrones.  Anyway, here are some edits with a few parents rotated around:

Robin (+Mag/-Def) / Lissa  I could consider changing it to (+Spd/-Def), but again that's always been my go-to and I wanted to be a little different this time.  I'm not very far in yet (Chpt 5, I think), so it's negotiable.

Chrom / Sumia  As you noted.  Nothing wrong here.

Sumia!Lucina / Henry!Gerome  Presently thinking Sniper / Berserker

Vaike!Severa / Stahl!Yarne  I've done Virion!Severa eleventy billion times.  Vaike gives more Str with just -1 Spd and gives her Axefaire and Luna.  Probably Hero / Berserker?

Virion!Inigo / Gaius!Noire  I like Virion, and I vaguely remember Virion / Cordelia being a good support?  Assassin / Sniper, probably.  I was thinking a couple snipers, but it's debatable.

Chrom!Cynthia / Ricken/Gregor!Laurent  You'll notice 3 physical leaning pairs of kids and 3 magical.  Side effect of marrying 1st gen is you always feel like you're wasting another good father.  Ricken would make Laurent hit harder as a support (and normally I'd have given him to Owain), Gregor... gives Armsthrift, I guess.  I'm not planning on having Laurent up front so not sure if he needs Gregor as much.  It's up for debate.

Robin!Owain / Donnel!Kjelle  Probably Sage / Bride?  Owain was someone I was considering for Trickster, but it's definitely an awkward class and better suited as a support (somewhat nice pair-up bonuses).  I ended up with one female child that may be more suited as a physical unit probably needing to pair with a magic user, so I thought Kjelle on Bride was better if I wanted Noire to be my Sniper.

Lon'qu!Brady / Lissa!Morgan  These two are probably just silly when it comes to power level.  Not concerned.

Olivia  Special Dance.

Katarina  Falcon Knight.  Rally Str, Rally Spd, Rally Move, Rally Heart, Rally Spectrum.  Equipped with staves to heal/rescue.

Palle  Falcon Knight.  Rally Mag, Rally Spd, Rally Move, Rally Heart, Rally Spectrum.  Equipped with staves to heal/rescue.

Flex Spot  Is a third Rally / Staffbot necessary?  This was the spot Frederick occupied, more as a DualGuard+/protector for Olivia than anything else.  How useful would an independent, non-dancer unit be.  Virion would be a sitting duck, right?

[soly]

5 hours ago, Ezrius said:

I took a long look at it and also realized that many of the pairing outside of Robin / Lissa were... basically the same pairings I always do.  So I have shuffled it a bit.  Having Robin marry Lissa is slightly problematic when matching up 2nd gen supports thanks to the Lucina / Owain / Cynthia creep factor.  If it comes down to it, though, this is a feudal setting and, well, just look at Game of Thrones.  Anyway, here are some edits with a few parents rotated around: (removed all the unimportant kids)

 

Spoiler

Robin (+Mag/-Def) / Lissa  again, unless you're doing challenge runs, +Mag is fine on Owain. Go ahead!

Vaike!Severa / Stahl!Yarne  Vaike!Severa is a bit of a one-trick pony. It's a super strong trick named "hit like a truck with axe". It does what it sounds like, but isn't very versatile. Especially since she can get Pavise/Counter walled. She can pull off General if you give her a galeboy with a horse like Paladin Inigo (who hits harder due to giving Severa +Str pairup) or Bow Knight Inigo (sacrifices the +Str for +Mov) or even just Rescue her everywhere. Cares less if she's going Hero.

Virion!Inigo / Gaius!Noire  Inigo wants a stable combat proc if you're taking him into Apotheosis. That limits him to dads with Luna and Vengeance. Chrom, Stahl, Ricken, Libra, Henry, Fred, and even Kellam. Snipers do better paired up with Berserkers or hard support Sages, they don't really pair that well with other snipers unless you're doing 100% dual strike setups, and even then if you can sneak in one more point of Skl you can go Axefaire Hero for more damage.

Chrom!Cynthia / Ricken/Gregor!Laurent  The big draw of Gregor!Laurent is that he's good both ingame and postgame. Ingame, good availability plus a relatively easy paralogue plus Armsthrift make him good. Postgame, Gregor!Laurent is versatile and can do almost every good hard support set you need or want, which lets him support basically anyone. Dark Flier girl wants a Sage? Laurent got this. Sniper girl wants a Berserker? Nerdzerker got this. Ricken!Laurent is a better Sage, but if Cynthia decides to run a Sniper set, the ability to go Nerdzerker might be valuable.

Robin!Owain / Donnel!Kjelle see below spoiler

Katarina, Palle You'll usually be firing Rally every turn, it's a +10 to stats which is incredibly powerful. The usual build for solo rally is (Str or Mag)/Skl/Spe/Heart/Spectrum. People carry three or even four rallybots sometimes.

Flex Spot  More staffbots are always better. TBH you can probably get away with swapping Robin and Lissa to staffbot duty. It's a bit of a waste of Robin's support potential, but Lissa's combat potential is not massive anyway.

Regarding Owain and his girlfriend:

Spoiler

Thing is, there are 7 female children; Robin!Owain is related to Cynthia, Lucina, and Morgan-F, and Nah is warming the bench. This narrows his options to Kjelle, Noire, and Severa. Kjelle is always physical, Noire can't get Tomefaire and Galeforce together, and Severa is almost always physical. +Mag Robin!Owain is always magical.

So here are your options. You can do Ricken!Severa. People don't usually recommend her because she has mod clash and wastes Severa's often important speed potential, but Ricken!Severa is actually surprisingly good and versatile in the vein of Stahl!Owain, offering Sage, Dark Flier, Paladin, Sniper, Bow Knight, and Dark Knight, the faires to use them all, plus Hero if you drop the weaponfaire. (The reason you see Stahl!Owain get recommended while usually not Ricken!Sever, even though they're ostensibly similar performers, is simply because Owain has less potential to waste.)

You can set Owain and his girlfriend up with stat-neutral sets. Robin!Owain can go Grandmaster, which offers +Str, +Mag, +Skl, +Spe. It's not used frequently because it's Avatar-locked and has somewhat middling stats, but it's fine. Meanwhile, Kjelle or Severa can go Hero for +Skl and +Spe. Or she can pick a class with +Str to balance out Owain's lower physical scores and let him stab things decently.

(You don't see Grandmaster getting used that often because it's sort of a middling class of middlingness. Swords and Magic together is nice, but specialising is usually better. It's not outright bad, though, so if you want to use classes which don't see much Apo representation, this is one of them.)

Or you can go Bride, which benefits from Grandmaster's +Str Skl Spe, and passes +Mag Spe of her own back to magic Owain. Actually, strongly consider doing that. Gaius!Noire can work here, sporting her choice of weaponfaires. Severa is a little wasted as a Bride. Donnel!Kjelle works too.

You can also just do Sage x Bride straight off. Sage Owain will hit harder both in front and behind (he gains +6 Mag going up to Sage from Grandmaster), but his girlfriend won't hit quite as hard in front because her physical lance/bow attacks aren't getting +Str boosts (she drops +4 Str going from Grandmaster to Sage). Up to you if you're fine with this.

War Cleric is War Cleric. Could be fun/funny somehow.

One thing you always need to be aware of is that Apotheosis is nothing like the rest of the game; what is good and what works in Apo is nothing like what works elsewhere. Which is why you see Snipers getting recommended in Apo while Sorcerors are one of the lesser classes - Dark Magic doesn't bring that much to the table in Apo; at most you see niche Gregor! or Lon'qu!Laurent critbuilds. In regular Awakening, Enemy Phase combat is super important, which is why Sol Nosferatu Pavise Aegis were popular when the game came out. In Apo, if two enemies attack one of your units in Enemy Phase, they're probably dead.

Staffbots (or just Staff Users in general) are important. Fortify is Fortify, but the big winner here is Rescue, which lets you traverse the map much more quickly and crunch a lot of time. More importantly, if you attack and fail to get a kill and are in danger of getting swarmed by the enemy, Rescue lets you pull out of danger and try again next turn. This is why people have recommended bringing only 4-6 combat pairs to Apo (8-12 attackers) and filling the rest with staffbots and rallybots. Bring too many fighters, and some of them will be stuck moving around doing nothing. Combat pairs including a Sage or Valkyrie (or Bride) can pull double duty as fighters and healers.

[Ezrius]

I think I like the idea of keeping Owain and Kjelle together and trying the Grandmaster / Bride duo.  It feeds my hunger for an interesting combo enough to be fun.  I sometimes forget that Ignis could be a thing for Owain, too.

It sounds like it may be best to swap Yarne and Inigo, with Inigo and Severa paired as well as Noire and Yarne.  This will give Noire as a sniper a solid Zerker support and Severa and Inigo could be very flexible.  I could go back to Virion!Severa and Frederick!Inigo, or stick with Vaike!Severa and Virion!Inigo if I’m willing to live with the lack of a reasonable proc (it was bothering me but I was trying to find an excuse to keep Virion worked in).  I could also leave poor Virion stag and do Vaike!Severa and Frederick!Inigo for the full-power, Luna, dumb brute couple.

Gregor!Laurent makes more sense to me now.  It’s easy to focus on Apotheosis too much and lose sight of the main game.

I really appreciate your replies.  I’m looking forward to this run and feel a lot more confident in my team now.

[soly]

If using Virion is desired, you can do Virion!Yarne which is effectively the same as Stahl!Yarne, then do Stahl!Inigo, which is effectively a straight upgrade to Fred!Inigo in Apo (but without Griffon Rider). Or you can give Virion to Severa, but it sounds like you want a change for her; or Brady, who doesn't really mind losing 1 point of speed.

Edited May 19, 2018 by soly

[Bane]

18 hours ago, Ezrius said:

I really appreciate your replies.  I’m looking forward to this run and feel a lot more confident in my team now.

I'm going to echo the idea that you should use a bunch of staffbots. I frequently run 6 combat pairs, 2 rallybots, Olivia, and 5 staffbots. Having a resuce staff for each combat pair is really good, and Olivia gives some flexibility for your staffbots and rallybots (or a combat pair if she's close enough).

I'm also sorry for only skimming things, but I'm gonna suggest some things you can take or leave. You've probably moved away from the first thing you posted, but I think you should consolidate on 4 child pairs to field.

You should bring Chrom/Sumia, Robin's pair (looks like Lissa, which is fine. She has galeforce which helps), and 4 children pairs. Lucina's pair and Morgan's pair are near guaranteed to be brought, and then you pick from Severa, Noire, Cynthia, or Kjelle's pairs. Lon'qu!Severa is really cool and lets you run Wyvern Lord as a lead with a supporting Berserker and hit 75 speed, then you pick the final pair that gives you something unique. It'll probably look like:

Bow Knight Chrom/ Dark Flier Sumia
Grandmaster Robin / Dark Flier Lissa
Wyvern Lord Severa / Berserker Yarne (just make sure he gets some +hit. Libra, Henry, Ricken, Stahl, and Virion give it in some form)
Valkyrie Morgan / Dark Knight or Sage Brady (I'm a fan of mobility and you have enough pairs to fight bosses, but it's up to you. This pair will just sweep mooks and maybe let Morgan fight bosses.)
Sniper Lucina / Berserker Gerome (Anathema helps, good job putting Henry as the father)
final pair???

I saw that you're looking to get a trickster in there and I'd suggest Noire as the trickster with Owain supporting her, but it's up to you. Levin Sword is great for chipping away at Thronezerker because his resistance is low and Aegis only blocks tomes, and I think Gaius!Noire hits a good speed number to make it work.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Bane