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Lunatic abusive skills


mangasdeouf
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Hello,

As you can guess from the title, I've begun a Lunatic run. Well, Prologue is a real pain (in the ***), but it's manageable. Gamble and Focus are the only really annoying skills the ennemies have. Still, without the water trick, only Frederick can take down most of the ennemies. But when you face Counter users...well, they just reck you if you don't play full ranged attackers. The gae's balance is totally broken. Some classes aren't even useful. When you make a Griffon Rider, you only want it's skills, but you would really prefer a wyvern lord, which is much more cool-looking and has generations of FEs of existence. You would like to promote your fighter into a hero because hero has more reliable overall stats and sol? You won't before long, because you NEED that Couner skill if you want to hit back your opponents like they dare with you.

You nearly can't fight a Warrior at 1 range because you'll get severely wounded by the Counter. That skill was supposed to deal 30% of the damage back or not far from that, but in Awakening they decided that this skill would be cheated, and in Lunatic, as if the +13 HP to everybody, and the +5 HP skill to Fighters weren't enough, they also put Counter 100% activation and 100% damage returned. Even in the Exp DLC you face 1 luck/level shadows and the lv 30 have counter and some have counter + miracle...the ultimate skill abuse... It happened even in easy mode that I died from trying to kill them in close combat, just because the 2nd hit was returned thanks to damn miracle.

Galeforce i lower difficulties is a 3 turns/map skill, but in Lunatic it's just a hit and run skill. Because you can get really bad from one only fight.

I've bought Ashnard because he's so good, and I've used him in 2 or 3 chapters because the beginning of the game doesn't keep my attention, but even with his 29 res, he took 15 damage in one hit in the chapter where you defend the castle of Ylisse from Vallsomething. It means chapter 5 or something like that had a 44 magic damage unit outside of the boss (I think it was a wind magic, but even like that it means that you need 15 res and 30 HP to block it, and it let you with 1 HP).

Skills I would never want in an easy or even a hard mode run are totally worth or even OP in Lunatic, you really want them (for example, you would probably like a MU with anti-bows, anti-swords, anti-spears, anti-axes and anti-tomes, because basically you gain 50% accuracy and avoid against all of these annoying 40-60 Mt ennemies and it means you will mostly dodge everything, but also you won't be dodged by insane avoid ennemies).

Lunatic ennemies are so annoying. You see in the chapter where you recruit Cordelia, there is a lv5 Fighter with 32 HP (with HP+5), 16 strength and 11 speed. Then, WHY THE **** DOES MY VAIKE HAVE 6 SPD, 8 STRENGTH OR SO AND NOTHING ELSE? Seriously. I'm running lunatic only to see what the last chapters are like in Hell, but if not for curiosity, I would never run such a no-brain mode. It's not about you having to deal with more ennemies, or choose a little character pannel to go further, it's about EACH SINGLE ENNEMY HAVING MORE STATS THAN YOU + SKILLS! And that from the very beginning, where your Lord can't even 1v1 a little swordsman without taking 2 potions or dealing a critical hit! you get hit, even a potion doesn't heal enough for you to fully heal. Every single ennemy starts with A rank in every weapon, but you start E or D... Even Frederick's 14 base def let 5-9 damage pass through during the first 3 chapters, and then it's even worse since wyvern riders are even more abused with more strength, more mobility, much more def etc. than fighters and barbarians.

I think I'm really gonna put everything into Chrom until I get Lucina, then put Chrom in the support position and never use him ever again to avoid certain death!

What I intend to do: Chrom lv 20/15 Lord, then reclass into Great Knight/Bow Knight, take dual guard+/anti-bows then go for Bow Knight/Paladin and go for anti-bows/aegis, then the last one (I think I'll go for GN last because it gives +1 movement as a support character). Sumia 20/15 Dark flier, then GN/general, then the other one, and finish with war cleric/Valkyrie for bonus res to Lucina (the only stat which won't cap otherwise when you get her lv 10). This way I get Lucina maxed stats everywhere, with Galeforce Aether, promote her for Majesty, then switch for a more useful class, depending on what I'll need by then.

After that, as always, rush to Yggdrasil map, finish it, and unlock Scolaris for grinding the units I want to use, and make an anti-everything MU and see if he needs it all the time or not, depending on the ennemies' cheatedness.

If you have more advice to give me, (assuming I'm using EXP DLC and gold DLC), don't hesitate. If you just want to dicuss about how Lunatic is really dumb as full of stats-cheaters and annoying skills, there you are! I made this topic for that, and you can also tell us what skills they possess that makes you COMPLETELY MAD MAWAHAHAHAHA!

See you!

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I've yet to try Awakeing's  Lunatic (not to mention Lunatic +) but the game seems unbalanced. I feel fates did a much better job with Lunatic balancing, and making counter less cheap. OH well, when I do try Awakening's Lunatic, I'm prepared for mental anguish and to reset the game a lot. :)

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Yep, and you should watch or read guides for at least the first 3 chapters (including prologue). If you don't mind it, go beginner's mode, since you will likely always loose 1 or 2 units per chapter. If I went classic, I would've gone mad already. Making MU and Chrom survive is hard enough to not have to worry about anyone else (Lissa and Frederick are also key units). Always look at the map, the number of ennemies, since lv1 ennemies have as much strength as your lv 13 ones on low average, and at their ******* skills like gamble (-5 acc, +10 crit, thanks for the 12% crit chance prologue barbarians against your average 5-6 luck MU and Chrom).

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For a nice game playthrough I've begun a hard mode run. After all, hard mode is normal mode, normal mode is baby mode and lunatic is cheated mode. Lunatic + is like...you see the skills you've taken 15 chapters to get? I have the same at level 1 with 100% activation rate while yo have 20% chance. GL HF. But in lunatic there are godly Cherche/Zelcher, Flavia, Basilio, Anna, any Xenologue character, correct Libra, good Tharja, and basically any unit recruited after chapter 7/8 and little boosts Gregor (nothing really making the difference at that stage of the game, since he only won't get doubled with his +1 speed from lunatic mode, really cheap bonus, while Cherche get +1 in every stat except mag and res in hard mode and +3 hp and +2 everywhere in lunatic mode, and Say'ri +2 hp and +1 everywhere except mag in hard, +4 hp, +3 spd and skl and +2 everywhere else except mag for lunatic, Flavia +5 hp, +4 spd and skl, +3 str and lck and +2 everything else, +1 mag in hard, +10 hp, +9 spd, +7 skl, +6 str and lck, +4 def, +3 res and +2 mag in lunatic, LOL the +9 spd compared to +1 Gregor XD LMAO).

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Hi, first time posting here. I've been grinding XP from the skirmishes which appear every 6 hours on the world map for many months. They are way harder to kill than anything lunatic has to offer in the main campaign, so any skills useful against them should be useful in the main campaign as well. At first I played using only Robin and Frederik because of Frederik's Dual Guard+ skill and high pair-up bonuses but it might have been a mistake. His high level caused skirmishes to reach the level and stat caps very quickly. Later I started using Robin as a support character and I paired him up with whoever I wanted to train. He is so strong that I sometimes let him stand on a fort and heal without attacking until all the enemies have broken their weapons and then I switch to the weak character to kill them all for maximum XP. Those are the skills I found useful in random order:

Sword/Lance/Axe/Bow/Tome-breaker: I never equip more than two at the same time. I used to combine them with other evasion skills for maximum effect. Enemies with Tomebreaker are very dangerous against your Nosferatu-tanks so use Tomebreaker to counter them.

Tomefaire: Useful against enemy War Monks. Sometimes they have the Renewal skill which heals them for 25 HP per turn. Thoron only does about 25 HP to them so if you let them break their weapons they become impossible to kill. Alternatively, just use Luna and hope it activates often enough to kill them.

Renewal: Heals you faster than a fort. Very important for soloing the maps. Did I mention that the best strategy on lunatic is to solo the game with a Sorcerer paired up with Chrom?

Sol: Heals you as you deal damage. If you are swarmed by 50 maxed mounted units you can still solo them no problem with Sol. It is only half as effective as Nosferatu and has only half the activation rate but it works with any weapon.

Luna: Halves the incredibly high Def and Res the enemies have. This means about +20 damage per hit on you cheap Wind Tome or Bronze Sword. Unfortunately, Luna competes with Sol and Ignis and they prevent each other from activating.

Ignis: Same as Luna, especially if your weaker attack stat is higher than the enemy's defense or resistance. I never use it because the enemies are so strong on lunatic but Robin and Morgan would learn it eventually on their main class, so it's a good temporary solution for them.

Vengeance: A sorcerer with this skill and Nosferatu is almost invincible. It almost always activates unlike the skills above. It lets you heal more HP from Nosferatu if you start to lose the fight. Up to about +40. Who needs Sol or Luna if you can Nos-tank. It can backfire if your character is not currently a sorcerer, though. As you start to lose the fight you start killing everything in one hit so more enemies can reach you on enemy phase and finish you off.

Pavis/Aegis: Halves the damage rounded down. Better at breaking enemy weapons than the weapon-breaker skills if you sit on a fort with Renewal. Useful if the enemies are not too strong or if they are too accurate to use weapon-breakers against them effectively. Pavis protects against more weapon types but Aegis can sometimes protects you from higher numbers of enemies since archers and mages can swarm you with way higher numbers than normal soldiers.

Dual Guard+: Always use it on the paired up unit if possible. I use the dual guard mechanic to break the enemy weapons. It activates even if the enemy can't hit you which is convenient, because the weapon durability doesn't decrease if the enemy misses. Skirmishes only appear every 6 hours so I try to squeeze as much XP for my weaker units from them as possible. Anyway, it's one of the few skills which can activate on the paired up unit, unlike Luna, Sol or Vengeance so use it if you have it.

Veteran: The only way to get more than 10 XP per kill on higher levels.

Armsthrift: I never used it until recently because you have to survive 10 levels as Mercenary to get it but it is an amazing skill. Since your luck cap is 47 in any class, pairing up with another unit and maybe using a Luck Tonic is enough to make your weapons indestructible. Now instead of using cheap weapons like Wind and Bronze Sword against powerful enemies, you can use a Brave Sword paired with a Brave Axe with impunity and cut down anything in one turn for the low price of free. You can even forge your special weapons since you will never loose them.

Despoil: +500 gold per kill on player phase on average. If a skirmish battle lasts 4 turns you can end it with enough gold to buy a reeking box. Only needed if you don't use the pay-to-win DLC.

Lifetaker: If you can survive an enemy turn, kill an enemy to get +50% HP back. More powerful than Renewal if you can kill an enemy on player phase without getting a counter attack.

Galeforce: I play as male Robin (huge mistake) and I haven't married him off yet (or any of the other characters besides Chrom and Sumia) so the only use I get out of this skill is to train Olivia, Maribelle and Lissa. At the start of each turn I switch from Robin to the paired-up Galeforce unit, kill an enemy, get the XP and switch back to Robin. It is incredibly hard to train unpromoted units because they die in one attack so this speeds up the process tremendously.

Some other skill I've used are the various evasion skills like Quick Burn and Outdoor Fighter. Especially on maps without forts. I've also used the hit increasing skills like Hex and Anathema quite a bit since Nos-Tanks get them anyway and the Sorcerer's low hit rate is their only weakness. I've never used Vantage, Lethality or Counter but they might be good skills to try out.

In summary, lunatic mode can be very easy if you grind long enough. Only the beginning of the game is hard. Thanks to skills, weapons, tonics and the pair-up mechanic, your army will be way stronger than the enemy. I haven't played the third arc yet but I don't expect to encounter any problems when I decide to finish the game.

Edited by Azzara
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The point of Lunatic+ is to be so difficult that it exists solely to entertain the most hardcore of Awakening fans. (I for one enjoy the pain of soft resetting all the time.)

A common strategy is to use archers, since they won't get damaged by counter... otherwise you could try unequipping weapons of melee units to try and tank hits then use ranged units to take down the units that break against your wall. 

Edited by Raptok
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Quote

Hi, first time posting here. I've been grinding XP from the skirmishes which appear every 6 hours on the world map for many months. They are way harder to kill than anything lunatic has to offer in the main campaign, so any skills useful against them should be useful in the main campaign as well. At first I played using only Robin and Frederik because of Frederik's Dual Guard+ skill and high pair-up bonuses but it might have been a mistake. His high level caused skirmishes to reach the level and stat caps very quickly. Later I started using Robin as a support character and I paired him up with whoever I wanted to train. He is so strong that I sometimes let him stand on a fort and heal without attacking until all the enemies have broken their weapons and then I switch to the weak character to kill them all for maximum XP. Those are the skills I found useful in random order:

Sword/Lance/Axe/Bow/Tome-breaker: I never equip more than two at the same time. I used to combine them with other evasion skills for maximum effect. Enemies with Tomebreaker are very dangerous against your Nosferatu-tanks so use Tomebreaker to counter them.

Tomefaire: Useful against enemy War Monks. Sometimes they have the Renewal skill which heals them for 25 HP per turn. Thoron only does about 25 HP to them so if you let them break their weapons they become impossible to kill. Alternatively, just use Luna and hope it activates often enough to kill them.

Renewal: Heals you faster than a fort. Very important for soloing the maps. Did I mention that the best strategy on lunatic is to solo the game with a Sorcerer paired up with Chrom?

Sol: Heals you as you deal damage. If you are swarmed by 50 maxed mounted units you can still solo them no problem with Sol. It is only half as effective as Nosferatu and has only half the activation rate but it works with any weapon.

Luna: Halves the incredibly high Def and Res the enemies have. This means about +20 damage per hit on you cheap Wind Tome or Bronze Sword. Unfortunately, Luna competes with Sol and Ignis and they prevent each other from activating.

Ignis: Same as Luna, especially if your weaker attack stat is higher than the enemy's defense or resistance. I never use it because the enemies are so strong on lunatic but Robin and Morgan would learn it eventually on their main class, so it's a good temporary solution for them.

Vengeance: A sorcerer with this skill and Nosferatu is almost invincible. It almost always activates unlike the skills above. It lets you heal more HP from Nosferatu if you start to lose the fight. Up to about +40. Who needs Sol or Luna if you can Nos-tank. It can backfire if your character is not currently a sorcerer, though. As you start to lose the fight you start killing everything in one hit so more enemies can reach you on enemy phase and finish you off.

Pavis/Aegis: Halves the damage rounded down. Better at breaking enemy weapons than the weapon-breaker skills if you sit on a fort with Renewal. Useful if the enemies are not too strong or if they are too accurate to use weapon-breakers against them effectively. Pavis protects against more weapon types but Aegis can sometimes protects you from higher numbers of enemies since archers and mages can swarm you with way higher numbers than normal soldiers.

Dual Guard+: Always use it on the paired up unit if possible. I use the dual guard mechanic to break the enemy weapons. It activates even if the enemy can't hit you which is convenient, because the weapon durability doesn't decrease if the enemy misses. Skirmishes only appear every 6 hours so I try to squeeze as much XP for my weaker units from them as possible. Anyway, it's one of the few skills which can activate on the paired up unit, unlike Luna, Sol or Vengeance so use it if you have it.

Veteran: The only way to get more than 10 XP per kill on higher levels.

Armsthrift: I never used it until recently because you have to survive 10 levels as Mercenary to get it but it is an amazing skill. Since your luck cap is 47 in any class, pairing up with another unit and maybe using a Luck Tonic is enough to make your weapons indestructible. Now instead of using cheap weapons like Wind and Bronze Sword against powerful enemies, you can use a Brave Sword paired with a Brave Axe with impunity and cut down anything in one turn for the low price of free. You can even forge your special weapons since you will never loose them.

Despoil: +500 gold per kill on player phase on average. If a skirmish battle lasts 4 turns you can end it with enough gold to buy a reeking box. Only needed if you don't use the pay-to-win DLC.

Lifetaker: If you can survive an enemy turn, kill an enemy to get +50% HP back. More powerful than Renewal if you can kill an enemy on player phase without getting a counter attack.

Galeforce: I play as male Robin (huge mistake) and I haven't married him off yet (or any of the other characters besides Chrom and Sumia) so the only use I get out of this skill is to train Olivia, Maribelle and Lissa. At the start of each turn I switch from Robin to the paired-up Galeforce unit, kill an enemy, get the XP and switch back to Robin. It is incredibly hard to train unpromoted units because they die in one attack so this speeds up the process tremendously.

Some other skill I've used are the various evasion skills like Quick Burn and Outdoor Fighter. Especially on maps without forts. I've also used the hit increasing skills like Hex and Anathema quite a bit since Nos-Tanks get them anyway and the Sorcerer's low hit rate is their only weakness. I've never used Vantage, Lethality or Counter but they might be good skills to try out.

In summary, lunatic mode can be very easy if you grind long enough. Only the beginning of the game is hard. Thanks to skills, weapons, tonics and the pair-up mechanic, your army will be way stronger than the enemy. I haven't played the third arc yet but I don't expect to encounter any problems when I decide to finish the game.

Thanks for the tips. Awakening forums are not very active anymore on such subjects since the game has been released more than 4 years ago (was it in 2011, so 6 years ago?) and starting now a hell mode run is not very likely to be followed by forumers. So any help is greated. BTW I still prefer playing hard mode, and always the beginner's mode, since I don't want to restart for a little mistake that leads to the death of a weak unit before they can be called Kami-sama.

In Awakening, it's like in TSS but with more difference between each difficulty: normal is TSS's easy mode, hard is TSS's hard mode (the ennemies have about the same stats as your units at the same level), and Lunatic is probably worse than Radiant Dawn's Lunatic mode. That's why I prefer playing hard mode for casual playing, grind for good-looking units, optimize my favs but keeping some challenge, as opposed to normal mode with a 20+ stats difference when you grind even without DLC (past a certain level, DLC EXPonential growth doesn't bring you more exp than normal skirmishes).

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Ever played an MMO before? Lunatic and higher enemies are like the elite mobs from those in that they all have to be treated and pulled like mini-bosses. Aside from bows, physical damage dealers can get around Counter by lobbing Javelins and Hand Axes (Paladin and Hero are both really good for this) with Dual Strike help from their partners (DSs ignore Counter and protective skills like Pavise or Aegis).

A really good general build that only has to watch out for Counter is a Sorcerer with an inventory full of Nosferatu.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bet the full set of skill +50 acc +50 avoid against X weapon is the best for lunatic since it allows you to have less than 40% chance to get touched by anything, then a weapon with life drain (solar weapons or nosferatu) and you're good to go 1v MAP. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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It'd be quite powerful against mooks, yeah, though the practicality of building up all five breakers is pretty low. You gotta go through Hero, Griffon, Wyvern, Sorc and Bow Knight, which a looooooooot of levels—you could pretty much be done the game by that point. There's also the problem of the breakers not really helping against Grima. Granted, Dark Mage->Sorc does more or less provide enough tools if that's the first class set you go through to start your breaker build.

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Against Grima switch for Solar, Vengeance (is it the good word in English?), and whatever good skill you've gotten through your class path. Just with these you can pretty much kill everything not holding a normal weapon. Solar+Vengeance (sorcerer avenger skill)+Counter, no space between you and Grima, let it kill itself, you could also take the warmonk healing skill if really needed but with Nosferatu it should be enough already.

Go for all 3-4 Manakete obtainable if you want a quite easy playthrough, with dragonstone + they kind of break the game. Am I wrong?

Edited by mangasdeouf
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OMG chapter 5 skirmish the ennemies have about 65-80 damage each with some super effective weapons (wyrmslayer, silver bow, etc.) oh my please Intelligent System don't screw with us! How do you want a player to kill a 30 def 20 res 80 damage 65+ hp machine? and a map full of that? they even have skills! what would be a chapter 22 skirmish then? all ennemies all stats capped and all skill slots full? OMG please we want difficulty, not no brain full cheat ennemies!

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On 9/29/2017 at 2:08 AM, mangasdeouf said:

Against Grima switch for Solar, Vengeance (is it the good word in English?), and whatever good skill you've gotten through your class path. Just with these you can pretty much kill everything not holding a normal weapon. Solar+Vengeance (sorcerer avenger skill)+Counter, no space between you and Grima, let it kill itself, you could also take the warmonk healing skill if really needed but with Nosferatu it should be enough already.

Go for all 3-4 Manakete obtainable if you want a quite easy playthrough, with dragonstone + they kind of break the game. Am I wrong?

Sol and Vengeance together tend to conflict. I've run it before, but it runs into consistency issues where Sol will proc when Vengeance would be better and then Sol's healing lessens Vengeance's impact when it does hit. Vengeance + Nosferatu without Sol is probably better just because even though Nos still counteracts Vengeance, it has a certain consistent tempo that makes it more reliable.

Counter is a super awful skill for the player. It's great for enemies who suicide bomb into player units with high HP, but low Def and Res, but that's also what makes it bad for the player. Player units want to actually have existent bulk, which neuters Counter's damage output. It becomes either a huge risk or a waste of a slot. And pretty much any significant enemies that do have the stats to force capped player units to take heavy damage bring Dragonskin (including Grima), which makes Counter worthless. Also, trying to out-tank Grima without support is an exercise in futility. Mooks will spawn infinitely and a notable chunk of them bring high-range Physic staves that can easily heal for around 40 HP per enemy healer. Unless you bring other units to pick off the healers, a non-burst Robin and Chrom will just get stalemated forever at best. For a Venge build, this pretty much means running Waste/Celica's or Ruin, hoping to get hit by Ignis, then hoping Chrom lands enough DSs to supplement the damage output. Ruin goes even more RNG and needs to hope for at least one crit on top of Chrom cooperating. There is a more reliable way to do it, but it involves training other characters.

As far as Manakete go, yes, they're pretty strong. They have a very easy time with most mooks. Their caps aren't really optimal for fighting Grima, though, so you'd still need to have a game plan for killing Grima.

 

On 9/29/2017 at 5:20 AM, mangasdeouf said:

OMG chapter 5 skirmish the ennemies have about 65-80 damage each with some super effective weapons (wyrmslayer, silver bow, etc.) oh my please Intelligent System don't screw with us! How do you want a player to kill a 30 def 20 res 80 damage 65+ hp machine? and a map full of that? they even have skills! what would be a chapter 22 skirmish then? all ennemies all stats capped and all skill slots full? OMG please we want difficulty, not no brain full cheat ennemies!

You're really not supposed to. Lunatic skirmishes are that way to discourage grinding. Enemy stats grow depending on the amount of battles you've completed—including any DLC maps, such as EXPonential. This makes them very strong, very quickly. They're manageable for a very short time near the beginning of the game, but they'll easily outrun everyone aside from Robin starting with the completion of the 8th or 9th map.

That said, those enemies are very much killable, even once they start pushing into promoted classes, but it requires very specific strategies and builds until the enemies hit their ceiling, allowing any player units to catch up in power. In other words, this is more of an additional challenge mode than a means to grind.

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Thanks for the information. I never finished the game, not even in easy mode (well, I'm more interested in charater optimization than in the story, so I tend to get bored of farming before I end the game and I get rest for weeks or even months before going back to it and never end the story).

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