FE4 Newbie-Rate my (Planned) pairings

Dwarfishh · September 15, 2018

Title says it all. Will be using the names from the translation patch I'm playing, with 1 or 2 exceptions. Apologies for any confusion.

I have no clue what I'm doing, with regards to FE4, beyond understanding that pursuit is OP. This is my first playthrough. How poorly did I do?

Ayra-Lex (Brave sword)
Aideen-Midir (Lazy+plot)
Lachesis-Claud (Leftover hold blood?)
Sylvia-Alec (Waifus)
Fury-Dew (Sol, I guess?)
Briggid-Jamke (Archer babies. Archers are great... Right?)
Tiltyu-Lewyn (Mages???)

Edited September 15, 2018 by Dwarfishh

Interdimensional Observer · September 15, 2018

1 hour ago, Dwarfishh said:

Ayra-Lex (Brave sword)

Ya can't go wrong with Ayra pairings, this one will work amazingly, but they're all good.

1 hour ago, Dwarfishh said:

Aideen-Midir (Lazy+plot)

One of the usual two, it'll be great.

1 hour ago, Dwarfishh said:

Lachesis-Claud (Leftover hold blood?)

No Pursuit, but throw Diarmuid the Pursuit Ring or a Brave Sword to fix that. Lachesis's Hezul Blood means they'll always have good Str, and Claud can give them some viable Mag, plus B Staffs on Nanna means she can use Reblow (aka Physics) for ranged healing. You can use Azelle instead for Pursuit and more Mag, but less Res and no B Staffs on Nanna.

1 hour ago, Dwarfishh said:

Fury-Dew (Sol, I guess?)

Sol won't work, it only works on Sword Infantry in this game. A rather eh pairing, Azelle or Claud would do both kids very well.

1 hour ago, Dwarfishh said:

Sylvia-Alec (Waifus)

Both children are utility units, they don't care too much about stats or skills, and hence not much about their father. Claud, Lewyn, or Lex are typically the best, but do whoever you want.

1 hour ago, Dwarfishh said:

Briggid-Jamke (Archer babies. Archers are great... Right?)

Febail inherits his weapons from his Brigid, not Jamke, his Skl will be low, not exactly the best thing when Bows have relatively low Hit. Patty will have no swords inherited, nor Pursuit, but Charge and Continue are good skills, and her growths should be decent.

Holyn/Chulainn or Dew are typically considered the better pairings for Brigid's kids. Febail is practically unscrewable with 50+ Atk minimum and Pursuit, your choice of father typically more affects whether Patty gets good combat unpromoted, or remains just a gold-stealing Thief.

1 hour ago, Dwarfishh said:

Tiltyu-Lewyn (Mages???)

Congrats, the 2nd Gen will be broken by Forseti as soon as Ganeshire is conquered. No Pursuit, but Arthur shouldn't need it, and Tine can take the Pursuit Ring and Tornado to pack the hurt as well.

SuperTroll Maxim Lapierre · September 15, 2018

Do JamkexAideen and give Lester the Pursuit Ring. Fun runs demand fun pairings.

Ertrick36 · September 15, 2018

Ayra-Lex (Brave sword): You're gonna make Ayra's kids extra OP, good choice. Make sure Lex kills Chagall in Chapter 3 so that Ulster gets the Silver Blade, just so he isn't left in the dust by Seliph, Oifaye, and Larcei's ruthless slaughter.
Aideen-Midir (Lazy+plot): Lester's best with either Jamke or Midir; just as long as he gets to inherit some good bows like the Killer or Hero bows. Midir will ensure he gets pursuit. Lana's magic stat will suffer, but you'll learn from playing this game that the magic stat isn't all that necessary for healers.
Lachesis-Claud (Leftover hold blood?): Delmud's gonna wind up being extra garbage with Claude as his father unless he gets some items to offset the lack of good inherited weapons and bad physical combatant stats. Nanna, however, will get to use the Warp staff immediately, which is a great boon for leveling her up.
Sylvia-Alec (Waifus): Coirpre will wind up being trash, but then again healers really don't need to be good to gain levels. At least Leen gets Pursuit? Sylvia's kids aren't great, tbh; some folks even consider not pairing Sylvia at all, partly because the subs are arguably better support units (Laylea has Charisma - a perfect skill for a support unit - and Charlot has the only Berserk staff in the entire game) and also because Sylvia's only 14 when she's recruited (two years pass by the end of Gen 1 since her recruitment, so at that point she's 16). But anyway, just keep in mind that Sylvia's kids (and their subs) are both better as support units, not as combat units.
Fury-Dew (Sol, I guess?): More like for Bargain. Sol's not that great for these units; that's better for Briggid's kid, particularly her daughter. Azelle's better for both of Fury's kids; he only passes down Pursuit, sure, but his stats will compliment both Fee - who can do just fine with a good magic stat, and benefits from better speed - and Ced - who suffers from strength-based fathers. Ced won't do terrible, as he has good enough base stats, but at the same time he will only inherit items from Dew, whereas Azelle will give him weapons as well. Claude's also good as a father, as they both eventually get to use staves.
Briggid-Jamke (Archer babies. Archers are great... Right?): The kid who gets affected by the father the most is actually not Febail but Patty, a thief who is probably the weakest character in the entire game and doesn't use bows at all. Patty needs a father who will give her good swords and possibly even good skills. As such, Dew, Beowulf, and Holyn are among the best options. Dew sees particular favor due to his closeness to Patty in unit likeness and also because Bargain is damn good for anyone who wants to use a holy weapon a lot and for thieves (who will be a crucial part of a lot of money exchanges)... though I'd be remiss if I listed Sylvia's age but not Dew's age, which is 12 at start.
Tiltyu-Lewyn (Mages???): Break the entire 2nd Generation with just one guy. Holy nuke from the very beginning, Arthur laughs at the idea of pursuit, especially if you weren't conservative with its usage in Gen 1 (no real reason to be; you got these ridiculous weapons that never break permanently, you might as well use them). Tine will be good too, as she gets B-rank wind magic, which is objectively the best anima magic type in the game even at magic triangle disadvantage.

If I may ask, will your streams be uploaded on YouTube or saved as highlighted streams?

Eltosian Kadath · September 17, 2018

Ayra-Lex - Probably the best Lex pairing, and my favorite pairing for Ayra. The combination of double xp and the great physical growths this pair gives make for a powerful pair of sword fighters (yeah speed growth is a bit meh, but the sword fight bases are so high and sword weights so low that it hardly matters). One thing you might want to think about is trying to arrange the kill on Changall with Lex so that Ulster inherits something good, although this can be tricky due to weapon triangle disadvantage.TLDR Good choice

Aideen-Midir - This is an easy pairing that should result in a good Lester, just make sure one of the good bows (the Killer Bow or Hero Bow) reach Midir before inheritance. Don't worry too much about how Lana turns out, healers can always find a way to be relevant while a physical unit with a magic father takes a lot of work to be useful in any way (unless they wield swords...). Besides even with a physical pairing like this she will still have a higher magic growth (32%) than your planned Nanna pairing and have that vital pursuit skill in the event that she needs to fight after promoting. TLDR Good choice

Lachesis-Claude - Delmud is going to take a lot of work to be any good, a magic sword might work for him (This pairing is tied with Delmud's highest magic growth of 42%) depending on your luck with growths. The pursuit ring or brave sword are going to be needed to let him double, and the lack of any inheritable swords from Claud really hurts here. Additionally it means the legendary Staff is unusable 2nd Gen (although this honestly isn't that big of deal and very few Claud pairings even make it possible). Although worst comes to worst he can just use his charisma skill to support near by allies. That being said the extra staff rank really helps Nanna, and while her Magic growth is still embarrassingly bad (25%) this is technically her second highest magic growth possible. TLDR Delmund will need help to become a combat unit with this pairing

Sylvia-Alec - This pairing has clearly been done at the advice of someone who knows about a certain conversation between these two, so have fun with that; although I haven't seen the new translation's version so I would be interested in seeing it as well. As for how the children will turn out... not great but not many pairings help these children and honestly the roles they have makes it so any pairing will keep them somewhat relevant. Stats don't matter much on a dancer especially with how powerful dance is in this game, as long as you keep her protected, and honestly the only pairing that make the dancer better is no pairing at all, because the replacement is the only way to get more people with the Charisma skill, one of the best support skill in the game. The son has the issue of coming late to the game as a level one priest so the best way to help him is to make him more quickly level up; the unpaired has the double XP skill and access to the only Berserk Staff, while a Claud father gives him max Staff rank and inheritable staves which lets him spam powerful staves from safe distances for huge amounts of XP (plus access to the legendary staff). TLDR this pairing has a fun conversation but doesn't help the kids much

Fury-Dew - I haven't actually seen how this pairing would work out so be warned most of this is theory crafting. Ced will suffer without a magic father, although Dew is the least detrimental physical father, and the bargain skill will help him buy the tomes he needs due to lack of weapon inheritance. Sol, Luna, and Astra have strange restriction in this game where only unmounted sword locked units can have it, so neither of these children will inherit it. The physical father helps Fee the most, but unfortunately most of her growths come from her mother, and the Pegasus Knight promotion gains giving 0 str and 7 mag, which makes it hard to have a physical Fee work well. Dew in particular gives her very round 40-50% growth in all of her physical stats (literally tied for 2nd highest growths in everything but HP, her worst possible growth, and Magic), and Dew doesn't give any combat skills that might make a physical Fee more powerful. I fear this might lead to a hampered Ced and mediocre Fee that excels at nothing, but I am not entirely certain. A magic focused Fee can be made to work all right for two reasons, first she has the weapon ranks to wield magic swords, and second she gets staves on promotion. TLDR It is hard to make a physical Fee work, and the attempt will weaken Ced

Briggid-Jamke - In my experience this pairing looks a lot better on paper than it actually is. It gives a lot of great SKILLS on Faval, and his highest strength growth, but his skill stat has embarrassingly bad growths, and the legendary bow he gets has surprisingly bad accuracy so he needs all the skill he can get (which makes him a good candidate for the skill ring if you aren't using it to give one of Ayra's kids a stupidly high Astra activation rate). Patty tends to suffer without any good inherited weapons, and her starting equipment while good is a very specialized sword with the highest (non-broken) sword weight in the game (which hinders both the skills she inherits due to both having an activation rate based on attack speed), and while she gets pursuit and A rank swords on on promotion, reaching that level is difficult without help from her father. That being said I like to have Jamke paired up with someone for story reasons. Patty is the only child other than Ayra's children capable of inheriting one of the sword skills(Luna/Sol), and both Holyn and Dew give fairly significant benefits to both children. Holyn gives Faval the best possible skill growth and gives Patty the extra benefit of B rank swords on top of weapon inheritance, while Dew gives amazing growths and the bargain skill, which is incredibly useful on anyone with a legendary weapon. TLDR It may give the kids good skills, but also glaring weaknesses

Tiltyu-Lewyn - Well this breaks the 2nd Gen. Lewyn's legendary wind tome makes men Gods and getting it this early on in the 2nd gen trivializes a lot of the early game. While the kids lack pursuit, Lewyn gives skills that let them double in other ways, and they get the kind of stats to see those skills activate fairly often, and give them both better access to the best type of anima magic. I personally prefer Fury-Lewyn and Tiltyu-Azel, but it is hard to argue with any God of the wind. TLDR good job you broke it...Second Gen is broken, so have fun with any pairings you want

I just want to end this off with three ending notes. First do not worry too much if some of your pairing aren't perfect, some of the best 2nd Gen units aren't related to pairing at all, and you can get through the game even if you get stuck with all the replacement characters. Second you might want to consider pairing Azel with someone, because the ending with a living child of Azel includes the only mention of the Fire Emblem in all of Jugdral. Finally can you link to where you are streaming if/when you decide to.

𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 · September 17, 2018

i'm actually on the last chapter of the game as well, and this sure was a long ride( the maps in this game are huge ).

as i've played ~~Horse Emblem~~ Genealogy plenty of times already, i guess i can give you some advice if you're starting from 0.

the main, most important things you will need to consider are these:

- weapons inheritance;

- skills inheritance;

- Holy Blood inheritance(character growth rates basicly);

- character background( if you really care about their story and want to see special conversations for the sake of it ).

while the character background can be eventually overlooked if you don't really mind, the main difference comes from weapons, skills and holy blood.

now, if you don't want spoilers, you should probably just play the game as it is for the first time, and make your first pairings based on personal preferences, but if you do want to build up specific units for the end-game, then you'll have to take a look ahead to plan things properly.

basicly, by knowing what classes the children will be, you can come up with specific weapons/skills inheritance to suit them best in order to have improved units already by mid-game.

this helped me a lot when i was making character builds for the second generation, but in the end the choice is yours: https://serenesforest.net/genealogy-of-the-holy-war/characters/introduction/

another important thing to keep in mind is that usually when you reach 50 kills with a weapon, it starts to perform critical hits regardless of having the Critical skill or not on your character, so you should probably give priority to weapons inheritance before planning on skills.

having sisters/brothers and/or lovers nearby also gives you a chance of critical hit due to Holy Blood resonance and/or Love resonance, so attacking with specific formations is always a good idea.

as for battle formations, you will also need to consider if both units can keep up with each other( mounted or not ), and if you want to either just go all out most of the times, or use hit&run tactics with horseback units.

there's probably other details left to mention, but since i already said more than enough about some game mechanics, i would rather prefer not to spoil your game any further than this.

in any case, be prepared for a very long journey. it may be hard the first time, but once you've learned the basics, it will be a whole different story.

𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 · September 17, 2018

i couldn't edit my previous post, so i will add some missing stuff here( @moderators feel free to merge both posts if necessary ).

this is what i used for my recent game sessions. the main reasons will be written down below, but what drives me mostly are backgrounds and lore, so don't mind me too much:

[ Sigurd x Deirdre ]

» story locked

[ Cuan x Ethlin ]

» story locked

[ Jamka x Adean ]

» unique weapon inheritance( killer bow and brave bow );

» good staffs inheritance;

» decent amount of skills for both children;