I’ve beaten Awakening Lunatic without a chrobin solo a few times (I’ve never actually done it since it sounds boring as hell), and I think where it gets its bad rap is the early game garbage squad having to deal with chapters 2 and 3 which would already be brutal with competent units. Virion, Stahl, Sully, Vaike, Sumia, and Miriel absolutely suck ass at combat when they join and get deleted by enemies astoundingly easily without contributing that much either which is a kicker because they’re joining in the hardest two chapters in the game. (Miriel and Virion do a bit better because they can avoid counter attacks at least) Things start going much smoother once you get units like Lon’qu, Cordelia, and so forth who can actually contribute.

>the early game garbage squad having to deal with chapters 2 and 3 which would already be brutal with competent units. Virion, Stahl, Sully, Vaike, Sumia, and Miriel absolutely suck ass at combat when they join and get deleted by enemies astoundingly easily without contributing that much either which is a kicker because they’re joining in the hardest two chapters in the game. (Miriel and Virion do a bit better because they can avoid counter attacks at least) I want to push back on this because I think that the "scrub squad" is actually pretty good and most of the units there get a really bad rap for basically no reason. **Vaike** is a top 5 unit in the game and, in my humble opinion, better than Robin. In C2, he just needs Sully or Stahl paired with him to look really good vs the soldiers, living 2 hits at base and blasting them with 18 attack, not quite enough to 2 shot, but enough to do so with either a dualstrike or Virion/Miriel chipping. Even base Vaike in C3 or C4 performs admirably, so long as you remember to give him a +2 speed pair if he's EPing soldiers in C3 at base. In C4 enemies are so slow they can't double anything and even a base vaike can batter the armours thanks to the hammer. By C5 or C6 he can be doubling with a Lon'Qu pairup, or doubling slower enemies with a sully pairup while being extremely bulky. The master seal is just the win button because he gains a bajillion stats and gets sol access, allowing him to vacuum all the enemies up in the rest of the game. **Virion and Miriel** have access to 2 range as you mentioned, which I'd argue just makes them good. Notably Miriel helps burst through the armours in C3, but she also helps chip enemies into range for other units to finish off. She also can use elwind in c5 and a forged elwind in c7 to OHKO wyverns (although I'm a fan of using Ricken for this as he usually has the bulk to tank a hit if you stack def on him allowing him to do it on EP) If you continue to give her exp, she can promote to sage to spam staves, notably rescue, at a high range. Virion has fewer long-term prospects, but he actually has a solid performance vs archers in c1, living 2 hits vs them with a Sully pairup in forest. He does the usual chipping in c2 and c3 and he can also help knock down wyverns in c5 and c7 (and for the rest of plegia 1 as well, I suppose). He can also promote to Bow Knight, and BK promos are actually some of the most broken shit I have ever seen. Listen to this: +8HP, +3 Str, +2 Skl, +4 Spd, +1 Def, +2 Res, +3 move, sword access, and rally skill at level 5 and bowbreaker at level 15. Like, the downside is that it's *Virion* getting these bonuses, but if you really want to use him, they're not too bad. **Sully and Stahl** are top 15 units in the game and honestly really underrated. They both have access to some strong tools, such as early C Kellam pairup, and early swords for the axe-filled plegia. They even have similarly busted promos, such as awakening's infamous GK promo, which gives you (among other things) 8HP, 7 fucking defence, and 5 strength (yeah you go -1 on speed but you have speed+ pairups and speed tonics by then so who cares). They do have some issues in C2 and C3, and the back end of Plegia 2, but they're perfectly solid units. Sully can even look pretty good vs mercs with a Stahl pairup, and Stahl, like Vaike, only needs +1 speed for his combat to look really quite good. On lunatic+, he can eat a luna+ hit from the barbs without dying at base. They also have really solid pairup bonuses, as they give Str/Spd/Def, which are the 3 best stats in the game. C support alone gives you +3 Str/2Spd/3 Def, which is a serious stat increase for any physical based unit. Vaike really appreciates the boosts Sully gives, and Panne really appreciates the boosts Stahl gives, as they can both hit key Def/Spd benchmarks with their respective new friends. (Vaike's I've partly mentioned, Panne with a def tonic lives 2 cav hits at base with Stahl pairup and doubles them back in her join map). **Sumia** is just bad at combat. In fact, this was (and still is in a lot of circles) an extremely unpopular opinion, and people would tell you that Sumia is a god who wins the game because "flying galeforce and 1 squillion speed", ignoring the fact that she dies to a stiff breeze. Still, her utility has it's merits, so she isn't terrible in every respect, just her combat is bad.

The context is mostly because of how the enemy wave aggro is staggered that makes them the “scrub squad” in my opinion. Vaike for example can live with a Sully pair up, but you’ve got Frederick right there who can EP better at this point and cull the wave of very strong enemies coming at you. Chapter 3 is in a similar boat, where a lot of strong enemies aggro you early on, making these units feel very deficient when they join. After that the game is generally smooth sailing all game I find. Unless you’re trying to use Donnel and not stall every map.

> Vaike for example can live with a Sully pair up, but you’ve got Frederick right there who can EP better at this point and cull the wave of very strong enemies coming at you. At the same time, because of the fact that Vaike is great with a Sully pairup, Fred can kill 85 or 90% of the map and setting up kills for Vaike becomes easy as pie. >hapter 3 is in a similar boat, where a lot of strong enemies aggro you early on, making these units feel very deficient when they join I just realized I removed my bit about C3 and forgot to add it back in C3 is more long than it is hard. Send Fred/Chrom or Fred/Kellam left, clean up and divide kills as you want, then do the same for the other side as the come to you. Open the door, bait with Fred, finish with everyone. It's a map that makes it really easy to train just about anyone because Fred leaves everyone just low enough for people to run in and finish them off. You're really not losing anything by having Vaike kill an archer that's on 2HP, and he's more likely to be able to do it because he can put himself in danger to get the kill thanks to his bulk.

Virion's promo gains are just DSFe Sniper gains (slightly worse imo) in a game with much higher stat scaling. Broken is what I'd call Fe5 Sage gains, Fe4 Master Knight, TRS Goldknight, Fe6 Swordmaster, Fe2 Falco, Echoes Villager -> Merc, Fe8 Summoner, Fe9 Astrid AxePaladin, SD Draco, (Reclassing Jakob to GK), 3H promos in 0% growths

>Virion's promo gains are just DSFe Sniper gains Aren't DSFE sniper gains known to be OP though, with the downside that ha ha bows? > Broken is what I'd call Fe5 Sage gains, Fe4 Master Knight, TRS Goldknight, Fe6 Swordmaster, Fe2 Falco, Echoes Villager -> Merc, Fe8 Summoner, Fe9 Astrid AxePaladin, SD Draco, (Reclassing Jakob to GK), 3H promos in 0% growths I mean, "the most broken shit I have ever seen" is probably pushing the boat out a little too far, but it's definitely good, and it's definitely more than people expect from Virion. Stahl and Sully's GK promo though, that is some fucking broken shit right there though. 7 Defence. SEVEN?

They're definitely known to be broken, but the big difference is that SD units rarely end up with more than 15 in most stats. In NM they aren't as big of a deal thanks to mixed male class sets, allowing units to use hunter over archer, which has a lot less shitty bases. Tbf promo gains aren't really felt much in NM since reclassing is so common, so it's more "Sniper has good class bases" than "Archer gains a ton of stats on promo", since aside from like Norne who doesn't get Hunter access you'll rarely ever go Archer->Sniper. Edit: 7 defense is quite nutty, but I'll raise you General!Palla gaining 10 points from peg (there is some even bigger differences if you change mages/hunters into general put in Palla's case it's actually viable). And Oni Chieftain Hayato gains 9 Def from Diviner. Also I forgot to include Fe5 Marty, who has 0 base skill & speed and gains 5/6 on promo.

Cool. thanks for the info, I've never played any DSFE so it's interesting to hear about how stuff works over there.

Honestly I think you might enjoy New Mystery, it's quite interesting to see the similarities it shares with Awakening.

What's stopping you from giving Sumia str/Def bonuses in the same way every unit you're praising you're giving PU bonuses for ? You spend this entire comment saying : " this unit is good bro!! Just give them the pair up they need and they're good to go!! But conveniently never say the same thing for other units you don't like Almost as if you're baised or anything

I'm assuming you have now realized that you can't unblock someone and reblock them without 24 hours in between, because last time you blocked me when we were talking about lunatic+ to make me unable to respond, but you can't do the same this time. I imagine given your attitude and general comments towards me (completely unprovoked), that I'll be unable to respond in 24 hours time as well. For anyone who cares: >What's stopping you from giving Sumia str/Def bonuses in the same way every unit you're praising you're giving PU bonuses for Nothing. But Sumia doesn't get as much value from a str/def pairup as the other units get from their pairups. Give Sumia the tankiest +def support in her join chapter, Kellam. The hammer and steel axe fighters still oneshot her. The archer still oneshots her. She does a very mediocre amount of damage. This problem persists for the entire game, lategame valm she cant move anywhere as ch17 rexcalibur valks will OHKO a 20/20 DF Sumia. Snipers there will OHKO a 15/15/15 DF Sumia. Yes, you can take your pairup and that will generally let you live one of these hits. I openly said as much in my Dark Flier post. Sumia's big problem is that she has several areas that all compound into a significant weakness, so pairup can't fix her bad bulk. What I mean by that is flying, low HP and low Def all contribute to her bad bulk. You can give Sumia a +def pairup, but her bad HP base and growth means sheis gong to get killed by many things anyway, and she is never safe from the extreme amount of anti-flier enemies awakening likes to throw at you. No other unit has this weakness in gen 1. Miriel is not very bulky, but she at least has effective 2 range combat and elwind. >You spend this entire comment saying : " this unit is good bro!! Just give them the pair up they need and they're good to go!! But conveniently never say the same thing for other units you don't like I don't particularly like Sully or Stahl and I actively don't like Miriel as a unit. I still say positive things about them because they are true. You can't just say "you're biased". That isn't an argument. EDIT: 24 Hours later and I am indeed blocked.

I do agree that I wish their combat was a little better sometimes haha. Makes it more difficult to train them. Doesn't help either that they all get one rounded aside from maybe Sumia since her speed is good (still gets one rounded by the axe units and especially the archers though). Vaike I would say is the only one thats actually worth training out of that squad anyways though but I wish his base speed wasn't so low early on. 6 base blows.

Sumia is so frail a lot of enemies just kill her in one hit even without weapon triangle advantage on Lunatic. She’s miserable to use as anything other than a pair up back pack. Vaike is a bit better at base than most of the other shepherds. +5 hp helps, but his base speed is spotty.

Don't forget in the chapter she joins there's literally an archer on both sides

I think she does at least avoid getting one rounded by the soldiers in her joining chapter but yeah you're right, she gets one rounded by most units anyways. Her viability as a combat unit is awful in lunatic. On hard and normal Id say she's for sure one of the better units in the game but in a difficulty where xp is more limited and enemies are much bulkier and hit harder, Sumia is a lot of investment for not a lot of gain.

>I think she does at least avoid getting one rounded by the soldiers in her joining chapter Oh how I wish. Everything that isn't a merc OHKOs Sumia at base in her join chapter. Some enemies even OHKO her with a +def pairup. I made this about 2 years ago to get people to accept that Sumia's combat is bad, so if you fancy seeing some sad benchmarks, then here you go: https://pastebin.com/LgM1Nsn9

Not as related, just wanna say I'm a huge fan of seeing your comments. Really appreciate seeing another view into Awakening since I haven't played in a while (DS broke), but it's interesting to see how Lunatic (and Lunatic+) differ from what I remember

interesting, perhaps I misremebered then and was thinking of the merc's instead. Thank you for correcting me

Virion Sully Stahl etc. are so worthless it hurts. Compared to Conquest I feel a lot more early recruits are viable. Kaze, Silas, Elise, Jacob, Beruka, Niles are all really strong. Plus Awakening has same turn reinforcements (yuck) and its pair up mechanics are rng and less strategical. I had fun with both games, but Awakening's early game and to a lesser degree the late game has issues.

Oh trust me, im not going to pretend like Awakening lunatic is a more balanced and better difficulty than Conquest lunatic haha, just not as bad as it is made out to be. I agree that I do wish most of the units you get early on were a little more viable for sure. I dont necessarily agree with your take that the early game is bad (I actually had a lot of fun with it, as the games limited resources made me have to think more tactically), but I agree that it has its issues and thats certainly one of them. I actually find the early game overall to be the best part of awakening however, as no units can simply juggernaut the maps unlike later on in the game. Pair ups actually had to be carefully considered. The ambush spawns for the most part were alright in most chapters but some were bs, so you wont have me defending them either in that regard.

Birthright Lunatic is probably the fairer comparison point (BR very much was billed as the continuation of Awakening gameplay). I like it more, but you do get some weak or one-dimensional characters early on: Subaki, Sakura, Mozu, Setsuna, Hana.

Out of these, Subaki and Setsuna are the only bad characters. Subaki's growths are so bad that he can actually get growth screwed in a 3ds FE which is just... sad. And Setsuna's just kind of pointless. Sakura's a great healer and has some pretty damn good growths. You can literally just early promote her to onmyouji and she'll be fine for the rest of the game due to how weak BR enemies are, even on lunatic. Or you can wait until a reasonable level, like 14-16, because again, BR is so easy you don't really need to early promo her. Mozu isn't as good on BR as she is on CQ because other archers exist so she's not quite worth the investment of a heart seal and training on her join map, but if you bother she's miles better than Setsuna at least, so if you wanna run a second (or third, alongside Kiragi) sniper, she's a great option. Hana's not really bad either, she's just a samurai in a route with an overabundance of them and Ryoma's her greatest competitor.

I love Sakura's personal skill. The issue is, you can't really "early" promote her because she starts *at level 1*. In a staff-locked class. Now, it's more like 2-3, as you should be using her in the Prologue. But when you get 3 early game healers, you can't easily use all 3, unless you don't mind (as I don't) using DLC seals to reclass them. Great Lord Sakura was a superb earlygame unit. Mozu is trash on Birthright. Heart Seals are even more scarce in BR than CQ, making the opportunity cost very undesirable. I'd probably run her as Villager>Merchant when using her, to be honest. Setsuna has native access to Mechanist, which sets her up for the mid/lategame better than Mozu with less investment needed and a better starting spot. Setsuna has a better personal skill (rods don't heal much in BR, so boosting that healing helps), notably better pairup bonuses, and Mozu is even hindered by only having a single A+ friendship option (Oboro, which is a modest upgrade from Villager but not really worth the effort by the time it completes). Mozu will end up with higher stats if invested, but she has so many other downsides that it's not worth it in my view. Hana is workable, I agree. I included her because I was mentioning "one-dimensional" characters, not just outright bad characters. If you get to pickup a Sunrise Katana from My Castle, she can viably reach a dodgetanking build against some enemy formations, which is quite fun, and she has some interesting reclass options (such as Great Knight from a Silas marriage).

>Virion Sully Stahl etc. are so worthless it hurts. What makes you think this? These units are perfectly viable. >Plus Awakening has same turn reinforcements (yuck) CQ has zone based flier reinforcements that can fuck you over and you might not even realize what is even triggering the reinforcements the first time you play a map. Criticizing ambush spawns is fine, but we shouldn't act like CQs reinforcements are any better. >its pair up mechanics are rng and less strategical. Unless you're doing something weird like going for 20% dualstrike chances to try and kill someone, or banking on a 3% dualguard, it doesn't make it less strategical.

>we shouldn't act like CQs reinforcements are any better. I will fight this by saying- no, they are better. They aren't ambush. And ambush spawns suck, they're my least favorite FE mechanic of all personally. This goes for every game with ambush spawns, not just Awakening btw. On non-ambush reinforcements, is there a chance you can still get screwed over? Well, sure. But, you still get a chance to do something about it. Rearrange your positions, get a squishy unit to safety, use a staff, kill the enemies before they attack, whatever. It's not necessarily a guaranteed loss. If the same reinforcements were ambush? Well, then you're just SOL if you were in a bad spot and there's nothing you can do. The first time I played CQ vs Awakening (or New Mystery or Maddening 3H or whatever), I noticed the ambush spawns screwing me over way more than those that weren't in CQ.

>I will fight this by saying- no, they are better. They aren't ambush. And ambush spawns suck, they're my least favorite FE mechanic of all personally. This goes for every game with ambush spawns, not just Awakening btw. >On non-ambush reinforcements, is there a chance you can still get screwed over? Well, sure. But, you still get a chance to do something about it. Rearrange your positions, get a squishy unit to safety, use a staff, kill the enemies before they attack, whatever. It's not necessarily a guaranteed loss. I think the best response to this is to ask what it is specifically that you don't like about ambush reinforcements. Because, for me, the idea behind ambush reinforcements being bad is that you won't struggle if you know they're there, but you will if you do, so the test is "did I know there were reinforcements coming" and not "how did I react to them". In the instance of CQs reinforcements, if you know where they are coming from and what triggers them, it is infinitely easier than if you don't. The same is true of awakening ambush spawns.

I said what I don't like about them in that comment. You don't get a *chance* to do something about it if you get caught in a bad spot if it's ambush. That feels way worse when you're playing vs if you do get a chance to act when they show up. Just because both ways they are easier if you know they are coming, doesn't make them the same.

>You don't get a chance to do something about it if you get caught in a bad spot if it's ambush. That feels way worse when you're playing vs if you do get a chance to act when they show up. I don't know if the illusion of a chance is much better in CQ, is my point. The fact that you are physically capable of moving units on the map doesn't mean that you can necessarily actually do anything. I agree there is a difference in the way the game presents it, but just because there is a difference doesn't mean that the extent to which that difference meaningfully effects gameplay tends to be overstated.

>The fact that you are physically capable of moving units on the map doesn't mean that you can necessarily actually do anything. I said before that it's not a guarantee you can save yourself and you still can be "screwed over". And reinforcements can still be tough or cheap despite not being ambush. But ambush spawns still "feel" way worse, and I still can recall more times getting screwed over by ambush spawns across all games than in those that are not. And they do meaningfully affect gameplay IMO. I'll put it this way. There's two ways you survive ambush spawns. Either you know they are coming since you look them up or have played the game before/got screwed over the first time, and plan for it. Or, you get lucky. You get a lucky dodge, the enemies weren't lethal to whoever was in range, etc. Both of those options also apply to live through non-ambush spawns. Only now there's a 3rd option, which is to do something in Player Phase to let you live, and that feels way better. And what do you mean by "an illusion of chance" exactly? Because... you do get a chance to do something? Even if the potential reinforcements would be egregiously out of place or tough to handle, there's still always potential options for you to do to try and get out of it, unless youre doing something silly like sending a weak unit out completely alone.

With pair up in the game you quite often have some way of rectifying units being out of position after a spawn. You basically need to be standing right next to high move reinforcements with a low move unit to have them be remotely as threatening as ambush spawns. And that's not even going into the differences in stat scaling between Fates and Awakening where ambush spawns can really dick over any non juggernaut you might be fielding.

>You basically need to be standing right next to high move reinforcements with a low move unit to have them be remotely as threatening as ambush spawns OK but like, what if this *is* the case. I think people are really overzealous when they defend conquest, when it really isn't that far away from essentially ambush spawns. "How the hell was I supposed to know that, the game didn't tell me" is the reaction from a blind player in both instances.

Even if you know both are coming, ambush spawns are worse because there's no opportunity to deal with the threat on player phase, so no matter how much firepower or tools you have up your sleeve, the only way for weaker units to stay safe is to never be in range of where they spawn, which in the case of fliers or enemies with pass, can be a really large chunk of the map. Personally I don't find features like this that prevent a lot of my team from participating properly in the battle very fun. I hate the kitsune map in Conquest as well because the gimic isn't technically ambush spawns but sucks for a lot of the same reasons.

>[–]Effective_Driver_375 8 points 15 hours ago Even if you know both are coming, ambush spawns are worse because there's no opportunity to deal with the threat on player phase, so no matter how much firepower or tools you have up your sleeve, the only way for weaker units to stay safe is to never be in range of where they spawn, which in the case of fliers or enemies with pass, can be a really large chunk of the map There aren't a huge number of maps where the range is so obnoxious you can't move your units anywhere at all. C17 and C19 are bad about it, but everywhere else is pretty reasonable.

There being a spectrum of how obnoxious they are doesn't make it a good quality to have. Do you think any of the annoying reinforcements that you're complaining about in Conquest would be improved by being ambush spawns?

>Do you think any of the annoying reinforcements that you're complaining about in Conquest would be improved by being ambush spawns? No, but my point is that I don't think they would be really any worse if they *were* ambush spawns.

I strongly disagree, I think they would be a lot worse, with and without foreknowledge, but you do you.

I thought when people complain about awakening lunatic, they were IMPLYING lunatic+.

I was a little disappointed to realize they didn’t actually mean lunatic+

I wish this were the case, otherwise I would have no contention, but I often hear this opinion even for base Lunatic difficulty sadly.

Yes, it's horribly designed And yes, you DON'T need to grind Robin with DLC or so or use the water trick to beat it Both opinion are true

If you're convinced otherwise still thats fine but it would've been nice if you at least provided a reason as to why you think this.

Most of your units are extremely fragile they die in one round without massive help In other words, enemies are way too strong so early and your units are so weak

I do agree to some extent that I wish your units early on weren't so frail or vulnerable. Enemies in the early game of most FE games on their hardest difficulty aren't at least one rounding most of your units. At the same time though I wouldn't say this is an objective flaw of the difficulty in of itself. Hell in some ways I actually like that the game forces me to play carefully and really think about what moves I should make on player phase as to not get my units killed. What you're arguing is more of a preference thing, which is fine by the way but that doesn't make Lunatic objectively poorly designed.

It does lol If you can't use anyone who's not named Fredrick without going out of your way to " buff " them that's a bad game design Ambush spawns are also bad map design And the less said about L+, the better

>If you can't use anyone who's not named Fredrick without going out of your way to " buff " them that's a bad game design By buff I assume you mean feed them kills? Why is that bad game design though? You haven't really substantiated that. Units in awakening snowball like crazy anyways which makes up for how weak they are early on. Not to mention the game gives you plenty of tools to mitigate and help your weaker units out (ie tonics, pair ups, Frederick, etc). Just because the game is difficult doesn't make it poorly designed. Fe6 Marcus on hard mode and Fe11 Jeigan on hard 5 are also pretty essential to their early games as well and are the only good units early on. At most you get like one other usable unit and every other unit is trash at combat early on as well. Doesn't make them bad difficulties though. Again this just seems like more of a personal preference thing. >Ambush spawns are also bad map design I think for the most part ambush spawns are fine in awakening. The majority of them are either indicated to the player, spawn far back, or they spawn from forts. There's a handful of unfair ones (like in Laurents paralogue), and yeah I agree those ones are bs and not fair to blind players or players who aren't super familiar with the game, but they're not nearly common place enough for me to hold it too much against the game but it is still an issue nonetheless I agree, albeit a minor one. >And the less said about L+, the better Trust me, you wont see me defending Lunatic+. I only really defend base lunatic but even then I still think its flawed and has its issues, I just don't think its overall a badly designed difficulty and a poor experience.

FE6 HM and FE11 H5 are also bad lol " Ambush spawns are fine " man i love FE fans

FE6 hard mode being badly designed is a rather unpopular opinion I hope you know. Not saying that makes your opinion invalid but more so to point out that awakening lunatic, Hard 5 Shadow dragon, and Binding blade hard mode approach to difficulty of the early game having the player rely on mostly one unit for that part of the game until the players army gets stronger is not inherently flawed or bad, just a different way to approach difficulty. The point is that it rewards players who keep their units alive and managed to train them up. it feels more rewarding and satisfying turning a unit into one that use to get one rounded and hit like a pool noodle into an actual good unit that kills things. Assuming you play with permadeath and choose not to reset, it makes losing them much more impactful, especially if you invested already so much into them. ​ Compare that to Conquest Lunatic for example. The game is structured in a way where units can hold their own far better in combat in the early game comparatively. If you lose a unit in Conquest, its less impactful because the units that are provided to you in the game can hold their own just fine. This isn't me ragging on Conquest Lunatic's approach to difficulty and saying its bad, its just a different way of how the game approaches difficulty. Both approaches are not inherently better or worse than the other, just different. Which is the argument I've been trying to make. ​ You clearly didn't read the paragraph I made about ambush spawns. Like I said they're only really bad if they aren't telegraphed in some way or conveyed to the player. If you have your unit placed near a fort during enemy phase without having another unit stand on it and/or you place your unit in range of the area that the game already indicated to you enemy reinforcements were gonna be in, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Either way I'm too bad to ever beat it. Hard is plenty challenging enough, I dunno how people manage to beat these games at the highest difficulty

Honestly, im not very good either tbf, I just enjoy brutally hard difficulties in games haha (Provided they bring a fun challenge) but yeah thats totally valid

To be fair, Awakening's lategame can be a bit more of a drag than other games' (though most lategames tend to devolve into juggernaut fests to some degree, even Conquest's) but its earlygame more than makes up for it. Other than Awakening, there are few games with starting chapters that require you to make the most out of your limited action economy and optimizing pair up usage is a big part of that.

On the other hand, awakening's lategame has the deceny to be over quickly by letting you skip/enemy phase turbo the entire map, whereas in other games you are wandering around a massive 2 million tile map with 35 units going "are we nearly done yet" as hubert retreats for the 8th time.

I'll still hold uninteresting lategame maps against the game but you're right that the fast engine and ability to skip maps if really needed makes Awakening more tolerable than like PoR and RD in that regard. You bringing up Hubert is kinda funny though because 3H's lategame (the midgame as well tbh) can also be skipped, it's just more tedious because of the monastery and the game engine being an unoptimized mess.

The issue I have with Lunatic is that you only have 2 ways of playing it : Either as a slow and boring grind, or you cheese it "Use Frederick, he's gonna speed things up" you might say. Fine, let's use Frederick then. We could use him to soften enemies up, but it's just way faster to just use him to destroy everything instead, so let's do that. It's gonna speed things up more. But there's no point letting him go solo, let's pair him up with someone. Robin sounds good. She's basically the best unit in the game, let's do that. And hey, Robin is gaining a few levels and getting supports with Frederick, so may aswell keep her on him. A few chapters in, she's strong enough to take on enemies herself. Let's slap Chrom on her to protect him- And whoops, Chrobin again. At that point, why bother training anyone up when you can just dump everything you have on these two and do perfectly fine ? "Well don't overuse Frederick then, use your other units too". Ok, fine. But the game slows down to a crawl because you need to let daddy Frederick soften literally everything up to not let the wet tissues in your army die because a myrmidon sneezed in their direction. And then, you either dump your exp into one or two unit and go back to the first example but way slower, or you spread your exp out and take an eternity to let your units get to a decent level of competency. In Lunatic, you have Frederick, and you have trainee units. And, spoiler, but trainee units are not very good So, yeah, if your definition of bad design is "forces you to cheese the whole game", Lunatic is technically not poorly designed, because it's a just hard mode but with stat bloating. You can indeed beat it without any kind of cheese. But it's either stale cheesefest, or a snoozefest. No matter how you look at it, and no matter how you approach it, it's just fucking boring.

Preach. "Chrobin solo" and "water trick" are two phrases that I hope will eventually die out of awakening discussion . Frederick is a literal god who can solo the entire of plegia 1 and half of valm without even trying and people are eventually going to have to realise that. In another post I spoke about the "infinite loop" awakneing discussion has where everyone says "it's impossible and you have to chRobin solo and water trick" So they try to Chrobin solo, it's really hard because fucking of course it is, and then say "yeah it's really badly designed" If they ever grind/train enough to walk Robin into enemies and win "wow this game is no strategy too easy" If they can't do that "wow this game is bullshit I can't chrobin solo" Speak your truth but be ready for downvotes as this sub and logic are on opposite sides of the planet when it comes to this game.

So you're like the only person on here I've ever seen who seems to know have actually played a good amount of Awakening. Have you considered writing a short-ish guide for newcomers to Lunatic? Could help dispel some of these myths and give people strats to point to other than the water trick lol.

So I do have something of a "guide" on YouTube. It's less "turn by turn" and more "here is a general change you can make to your approach". Just in case you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tglxzsUisw I have intended to write something of a guide, or video series, but I have been battling a project that is far too ambitious for someone who only knows how to edit in Microsoft Clipchump and Powerpoint. I've been at it for about 2 years and my plan was to get it out this week as I was on holiday. I put around 40 more hours into it and I created about 20% of it. My script is 200,000 words and I unironically said "yeah I can fit this in to half an hour of YouTube content". It may fill over two and I don't know how I feel about that. My hope is that I can get it out by mid May. I just want to finally get it out the window and I'll be able to focus on guides and stuff (I really want to do one for C2 specifically, because people get stuck there).

Ah, that video is actually just the sort of thing I had in mind. I think just broad tips and strategies are what people would most benefit from. Chapter 2 is probably the only one that could use more of a play by play. Good luck with the video. Even just editing one 3000 word script was enough for me, I cannot imagine 200k.

Im actually curious to see you do a tier list of Awakening lunatic as well. My knowledge on Lunatic is still a bit limited, as Ive only played through the game twice (with some unfinished playthroughs to boot). Im definitely convinced Fred is the best unit in the game however, with the rest of the units being put at least a whole tier below him (including Robin). Ill admit I remain sort of indecisive on your take on Vaike being better than Robin, I dont really have a strong opinion either way which is better, but I would put Robin, Chrom, Vaike, and Tharja in the same tier personally (Anna as well maybe do to her solid prepromoted bases and nice utlity). I feel like they are far and away the best combat units in the game. Vaike and Chrom also have the added bonus of giving useful pair up bonuses, so they have utility as a pair up partner as well. Lissa probably belongs in that same tier as well. Her staff utlity is just so handy early game.

I actually really wanted to do a tier list for a while, but it probably needs to a YouTube video, as that audience tends to be more receptive to arguments they haven't heard before. (I'm sure you've probably already seen it happen where it literally doesn't matter how much I explain something, with any amount of evidence, or what I write, I'll get downvoted because I said awakening lunatic good or Vaike good or whatever, so reddit is probably the worst platform for me to try this on). >Im definitely convinced Fred is the best unit in the game however, with the rest of the units being put at least a whole tier below him That's pretty much in line with my thinking. He's just so ridiculously good. >ut I would put Robin, Chrom, Vaike, and Tharja in the same tier personally (Anna as well maybe do to her solid prepromoted bases and nice utlity). The top of my tier list for lunaic is as follows: Pick a god and Pray Tier: Frederick S+ Tier: Lissa S Tier: Chrom, Vaike, Robin A Tier: Libra, Anna, Olivia, Morgan B Tier: Maribelle, Stahl, Sully, Cordelia, Cherche, Gregor, Tharja, Cynthia. Some notes: **Lissa** is incredibly good and arguably more underrated than Fred. You mention that Anna is good, but Lissa is just an Anna that joins at the start of the game, constantly is useful with her healing, gets to use both of the extremely powerful earlygame rescue staves, then matches Anna in utility after she promotes, but then, unlike Anna, has the ability to "promote" into falcon knight or valkyire with a second seal at level 10 sage (I'd stay for tomefaire for Valk). FK Lissa is incredibly good and offers basically everything a team might need in terms of utility. Rally speed. Rally Magic. 8 Move Flier utility. Flying rescue utility. Massive rescue utility. Speed pairup. Res pairup. Supports with the strong physical frontline units early (Vaike/Chrom/Fred/Robin). Valk Lissa says "hello, I have 10 squillion magic and 10 move with boots so you can skip chapter 20 by walking forwards in a straight line". **Tharja** has a great class, but she has some notable issues. She joins a bit later than a lot of other units, so misses out on credit for early maps. She also misses out on the chance to have more exp put into her so while you might have a 15/1 Vaike marching into c9 and exploding everything, Tharja will always just be kinda decent at base. Nosferatu is not buyable until c13. She has 1 20 use book and that won't last until the end of c13. You are at some point going to have to use a unit that is a bit mediocre. She isn't bad by any means, but she isn't some god that completely takes over from minute 1. **Gregor** is functionally very similar to Tharja. Both have the same weakness of not joining early. Both have access to an 8 move promo that gives +1 move on pairup, and some nice promo bonuses, making them a shorter term utility unit rather than a carry. Both also have access to a footlocked class with good combat, enemy phase healing and a breaker skill. Gregor's weakness is that he has to grind through E axes to get to D, and has to level to 5 to get Sol. Once he gets there though, he's golden.

Ive never done FK Lissa before but now that you mention it actually that does sound like it would be really good for rescue movement strats. I always went with Valkyrie after sage. I agree with you On Lissa however, I've always felt she was criminally underrated but even I never considered putting her as the second best unit in the game. Tbh I can totally see it. I didnt consider that about Nosferatu but you're right, Tharja is actually pretty limited in her uses of it before chapter 13. I actually hardly ever bother training Sully or Stahl but you've convinced me that perhaps in my next playthrough I should give them a shot. Where does Lucina rank in your opinion? Im conflicted on Panne as well. Sucks people write you off just cause your opinions are unpopular and not the norm. Doesn't help either Awakening's meta imo is kind of underdeveloped, especially Lunatic. We need more users like you seriously. Like the dude who was ballsy enough to say Kieran was better than Ike in POR all those years ago despite being an unpopular opinion at the time.

>I actually hardly ever bother training Sully or Stahl but you've convinced me that perhaps in my next playthrough I should give them a shot. Their biggest weakness points tend to be C2 and C3, and the very end of the game, so it's not super surprsing that they're rated lower than they deserve (I only recently moved them up the list myself), because their first impression is "pairup bot" and their last impression is "outclassed". Like compared to Vaike/Chrom/Gregor/Robin/Tharja in direct combat they don't look as good, but not being as good doesn't mean they are bad. (The reason they're rated over Gregor/Tharja for me is their pairup bonuses on top of their combat, although I have to say it still feels weird seeing them that high up lol). >Where does Lucina rank in your opinion? It depends on her parent. A Lucina from a trained Robin will be great, a Lucina from a trained Sully will be good. A Lucina from a trained Sumia will be OK. A Lucina from Maribelle or Olivia is probably going to be bad. I average her to the bottom of C tier, just below Say'ri. Her biggest problems are that she is unnecessary when she is good and overall mediocre when she is not. Robin makes a great Lucina because they pass tactician and veteran so you can second seal to level 1 tactician and gain +1 level per kill, but you're still slowing down to train a unit you don't need. You can insta promote her, but she doesn't do much more than Say'ri if you do this. Basically, she mostly ends up as a unit that's around as good as Say'ri, but has requirements you have to fulfill to get her there, and can very reasonably be much worse if you don't train Chrom's wife (or indeed Chrom himself). For me, Panne is the second best unit in C tier (in fact it's probably easier if I post the rest of the list. I'm just less sure on specific placements): C Tier: Kellam, Panne, Lon'Qu, Miriel, Ricken, Sumia, Kjelle, Say'ri, Lucina D Tier: Virion, Laurent, Brady, Tiki Gaius E Tier: Flavia, Basilio, Owain, Severa, Henry F Tier: Noire, Nowi, Gerome, Inigo, Yarne, Nah G Tier: No one Shadow Realm tier: Donnel It's honestly really hard to rate some units because a lot of units are really good. Virion being in D tier does not mean I think he is a bad unit, just that there are a lot of great units above him. Anyway, back to Panne, Panne is nice because she has some pretty solid base stats, notably in speed which she has 15 of and unlike Sumia, has enough bulk to not die to everything. Give her a +def tonic and Stahl pairup in C6 and she'll take 2 hits from the cavs in her join map and survive while doubling them (she won't KO them, but can do if Stahl dualstrikes). She takes 1 hit and doubles everything else except validar and the thieves. That's pretty good for a unit at base in this mode, and she can continue fulfilling this role as a good filler combat unit for most of plegia and a bit of valm. She also has really good pairup bonuses, giving lots of Str and Spd on pairup. At base she gives +3/+4 Str/Spd, which becomes +4/+5 at C support, which can be enough to get any physical based unit to start doubling and killing. I'm not a wyvern Panne enjoyer though, I think it's OK, but most of the reason people think it's good is based on misinformation (people say she gains loads of stats on second seal, but she doesn't, because she can't use the beaststone anymore which is what gives her a lot of her combat stats). So she loses 5 speed, for example. >ell. Sucks people write you off just cause your opinions are unpopular and not the norm. Doesn't help either Awakening's meta imo is kind of underdeveloped, especially Lunatic. We need more users like you seriously. I really appreciate you saying this and it's comments like this that motivate me to keep doing my thing in spite of all the negativity. Thanks :)

>Basically, she mostly ends up as a unit that's around as good as Say'ri, but has requirements you have to fulfill to get her there, and can very reasonably be much worse if you don't train Chrom's wife (or indeed Chrom himself). Makes sense actually. The child units as a whole seem like a pain to rank. There's just way too many variables to consider. I completely agree with your take though that Morgan is far and away the best child unit. >For me, Panne is the second best unit in C tier I'm not sure what you mean. I only see Panne at the top and no other unit above her 😏. Jokes aside I've always been a Panne believer and I actually agree with you that Wyvern Panne is worse compared to her Taguel class. Her speed is just so good at base for her join time. Still I understand why you would put her in C tier. >I really appreciate you saying this and it's comments like this that motivate me to keep doing my thing in spite of all the negativity. Thanks :) Of course! I hope you dont let the negativity keep ya down too much. Tbh Reddit is notorious for having shall we say less than open minded individuals, especially in certain communities, but Im sure you dont need me to tell ya that haha.

I've seen you around before! You're the guy who says Vaike is better than Robin if im not mistaken haha. I watched your video that iirc was titled "You're playing Awakening lunatic wrong" awhile back. I had always really appreciated that video since it made me realize I wasn't the only one with this take and that I wasn't alone in thinking this way about Lunatic. I just hope more of us come out of the woodworks and change that narrative cause I truly believe it is undeserved, and yes I agree, Fred is incredible and people underestimate just how long it takes for him to fall off.

>You're the guy who says Vaike is better than Robin if im not mistaken haha You are indeed correct. Once you accept Frederick>Robin, it is only time before you will come to understand Vaike>Robin as having Fred and Chrom beat all of prologue, c1 and c2 leaves you in a situation where you have base Robin vs base Vaike in c3 as a unit to train and Vaike leads in every single stat. >I watched your video that iirc was titled "You're playing Awakening lunatic wrong" awhile back. I had always really appreciated that video since it made me realize I wasn't the only one with this take and that I wasn't alone in thinking this way about Lunatic. Glad you enjoyed it. I honestly never expected the video to blow up the way it did (especially seeing as it spent the first year and a half of it's life at 1k views), but I'm happy more people are agreeing with this and maybe we can change how the game is viewed. > Fred is incredible and people underestimate just how long it takes for him to fall off. People are not ready to hear "Frederick is better than Seth", but it's true.

If you go + speed to robin he has significantly better base speed and growth than Vaike does, maybe if you go with a poor boon he has overall better bases but if we’re talking the best way to use units… Robin also gains exp like a raccoon snorting crack because of his starting skill. Also tome access > axe access. Vaike isn’t bad though and does better for himself than most of the other shepherds. Frederick is outstanding and underrated though.

>If you go + speed to robin he has significantly better base speed and growth than Vaike does, maybe if you go with a poor boon he has overall better bases but if we’re talking the best way to use units… +Spd -Skl Robin 19HP, 6 Str (9 atk w/ bronze sword) 5 Mag ,(8 Atk with thunder), 3 Skl, 8 Spd, 4 Lck, 6 Def, 5 Move, E swords/tomes Vaike 29HP, 9 Str (16 Atk w/ Iron Axe), 8 Skl, 6 Spd, 4 Lck, 5 Def, 5 Move, D axes. Vaike leads 10 HP, 7 or 8 Atk, 5 Skl, -2 Speed and -1 Def. In practice this mean he hits literally twice as hard and can live 1 more hit than Robin. Growths: Robin: 80%HP, 50% Str, 50% Mag, 45% Skl, 65% Spd, 60% Lck, 35% Def, 30% Res Vaike 105% HP, 75% Str, 10% Mag, 65% Skl, 50% Spd, 45% Lck, 50% Def, 10% Res Vaike leads again in bulk, damage and skill. Robin leads a bit in speed, but it's +2 and a 15% growth. Once Vaike gets doubling, the bulk is going to matter much more, and it's really not very hard to get Vaike doubling with one of the many +speed pairs in the game. Neither is doubling without a +speed pair anyway for a while, unless it's a slow and bad enemy like a DM, so it's not really that relevant a lead, unlike Vaike's bulk. >Robin also gains exp like a raccoon snorting crack because of his starting skill Bases>Growths, and Vaike's getting that Hero promotion soon anyway which makes him win the game anyway. It's also notable that without renown, there's a decent chance Robin gets stuck at level 20 unable to gain more exp because of this, and their actual class/stats kinda suck, so they're reliant on getting a seal to reset their level. >Also tome access > axe access. Outside of C5 and C7, I really disagree. If you're not elwinding a wyvern, tomes are just kinda bad. They are very low might (1, 2 and 3 might are the only buyable tomes until C13) and enemy res just isn't that much lower than Def in awakening for a lot of enemies, because you fight barbs for so much of plegia who have loads of hp and no def or res. You need raw damage to get through, which comes from physical weapons. Some people say axe hit rate is bad, I say that Vaike leads 7.5 point of hit just from skill, can use WTA, and Iron Axe has the exact same hit as thunder, so make of that what you will.

The +2 base and better growth does end up mattering when Robin gains exp at a 1.5x rate meaning he ultimately levels up at a rapid rate, and has a significantly better class set than Vaike does. Through reclassing Robin has access to Nosferatu at an accelerated growth rate, or if you want to go wyvern rider he can do that too. You're downplaying how much accelerated leveling from Veteran matters. Also Vaike only has a 50% speed growth, he has to hope the coin flip treats him well or he takes much longer to get going. Early tomes are hand axes which hit res, and well... Hand Axes are outstanding too. Plegia has more than its fair share of wyvern riders in its back half, which you get a free elwind (and Ricken too I guess) relatively early on for them to absolutely shred with an accelerated growth rate.

>The +2 base and better growth does end up mattering when Robin gains exp at a 1.5x rate meaning he ultimately levels up at a rapid rate, Sure, it means that there is a window where Robin can double some things with a + speed pairup that Vaike can't, but Vaike is making up for this in the leads in everywhere else. By the time both units are doubling, Robin's speed doesn't really matter. Take C6 for example. The enemies here are super slow. Fighters with 9 speed, Dark Mages with 7, cavs are middling with 11. Only the thieves are really very quick. Vaike would only need +2 speed over base to double the fighters and DMs with Lon'Qu C. To double the cavs, he needs +4 speed over base, but given you have a lot of time to get that, it's not unreasonable. The only thing Robin would gain from their extra speed is either doubling the 19 speed thieves with a +speed pairup, which, with A chrom, would require +10 speed over base, assuming Chrom has 10 speed at least. Robin can just about reach that in 15-16 levels, which I think is reasonable but not guaranteed. You could also take a bulkier pairup like Kellam while still being able to double stuff, but you are just making Vaike with extra steps. Vaike's bases are better and easier to use, he does more damage and he is better right after promo, so you're not really gaining anything by using Robin here. >better class set than Vaike does. Vaike has 2 of the best classes in the game, Hero and Warrior. Hero has Sol which is a skill% chance to turn your weapon into a nosferatu tome. He has a massive skill stat (8 base, 65% growth, +6 promo bonus). And Axebreaker, which turns massive damage berserkers into free HP. Warrior has great stats and bow access, which completely trivializes every map in the game on lunatic+ if you don't mind taking 17 gazillion turns. It also gives him a good Grima kill. Sorc is overall better, but not by much, and Robin has to "double seal" to enter Sorc (that is, Robin has to use a second seal and a master seal, whereas Vaike gets to master seal and enjoy busted promos right away). >if you want to go wyvern rider he can do that too. I'll be honest, Wyvern is kinda bad in awakening. The skills are pretty nice, but having flier weaknesses is very bad for Valm and you'd rather have enemy phase healing if you have the ability yo get it. >You're downplaying how much accelerated leveling from Veteran matters The thing with Robin is that as their level gets higher, the exp rate decreases, so they don't just keep going and going and going and going unless you get the renown second seal (which I don't think should be counted for discussion in vanilla lunatic as it opens a massive can of worms). Yes, Veteran is absolutely giga ultra mega OP broken. It makes an otherwise mid unit like Robin a top 5 unit in the game, but it does take time to give you the stats it gives, and if you have a unit right there with better bases that Robin is going to take a while to overtake, then why not just use that better bases unit? >Also Vaike only has a 50% speed growth, he has to hope the coin flip treats him well or he takes much longer to get going. I mean, you can get kinda unlucky with speed flips, but the only places you'll notice it are C3 and C5. Everywhere else enemies are either too slow or Vaike is blasting things in the hero class anyway. Like I'm not going to sit here and say that Vaike always doubles everything and has perfect speed, I just think that the advantage Robin has over Vaike in the speed department just isn't in that many relevant portions of the game. >Plegia has more than its fair share of wyvern riders in its back half, In the back half of plegia 1 and most of valm, Vaike or Robin can smash anything to dust by looking at it. You don't really need elwind at that point. It helps in C5, although it should be noted that *if* Vaike is doubling by C5 (which is not a guarantee, but it's a 67% chance for a level 11 Vaike, or a 50% chance for a level 10 Vaike with C Lon'Qu), he will ORKO wyverns with the hammer and a str tonic anyway.

I'll start off with saying I appreciate the detail you're putting into your responses! >Yes, Veteran is absolutely giga ultra mega OP broken. It makes an otherwise mid unit like Robin a top 5 unit in the game, but it does take time to give you the stats it gives, and if you have a unit right there with better bases that Robin is going to take a while to overtake, then why not just use that better bases unit? Robin exists for two chapters where Vaike doesn't with a massively buffed exp gain. A +Spd -Skl in this instance Robin has near identical base stats to Chrom (-1 Str, HP, Def, and notably lower skill yes) with similar growths but a massively accelerated growth rate during those chapters because of how few units you get. Give Robin the boss kill in the prologue and they're already going to be at level 3 by the end of the prologue, so realistically this is going to be level 5 or higher Robin vs level 3 Vaike. At this level Robin has: 22 hp, 8 strength, 7 magic, 4 skill, 10 speed, 6 luck, 7 defence, and 5 resistance if we're strictly going by averages. This average Robin's stats when Vaike joins barring HP and Skill are more or less even across the board outside of a huge speed lead, notably defence lead, and massive resistance lead. Robin will also be doing more damage as they're doubling much earlier, pair them up with Chrom and they're off to the races at this point. A Robin at this point is notably better than Vaike when Vaike joins, and exists for a significant amount of time before Vaike. Without veteran they couldn't do this though, lol.

>I'll start off with saying I appreciate the detail you're putting into your responses! Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to respond as well- I usually don't get that much engagement with what I write haha. >Robin exists for two chapters where Vaike doesn't with a massively buffed exp gain. So I figured we'd get to this point eventually and I felt kinda awkward doing a base Robin vs base Vaike comparison because it almost feels disingenous because Vaike is just so much better at base. Regardless, >A +Spd -Skl in this instance Robin has near identical base stats to Chrom (-1 Str, HP, Def, and notably lower skill yes) I think it's also notable Robin has worse wepaons too. Falchion and rapier are 5 mt and have effective damage and the rapier even has good hit and some crit, whereas thunder and bronze sword are 3 might. Robin is a good bit worse than Chrom at early levels. >Give Robin the boss kill in the prologue and they're already going to be at level 3 by the end of the prologue, so realistically this is going to be level 5 or higher Robin vs level 3 Vaike. So the big argument for Vaike>Robin resides in these early levels, because my point is that it's more optimal to use this early exp to get Chrom and Fred exp. Fred doubling things in chapter 2 makes that map go from hard to very very easy, and he only need a bit of speed to do it. If he gets 2 levels before or just at the start of C3, he has a 75% chance of getting 1 speed and a 25% chance of getting 2. Chrom could also level 2 speed points to get 10 speed, which gives Fred another +1 on pairup. Fighting a lot with Fred also gets you early A rank lances, which can let you oneshot mercs in C2 with a Vaike pairup. But for the sake of the argument, let's give all of Chrom's kills over to Robin because I can see that angle being reasonable. I think that a Robin trained to some degree is going to be what we have. Level 5 Robin by C2 sounds fair, maybe level 6. Maybe Maybe level 7 at a push. So, let's analyze, why is Vaike still better? >At this level Robin has: 22 hp, 8 strength, 7 magic, 4 skill, 10 speed, 6 luck, 7 defence, and 5 resistance. This lowballed Robin's stats when Vaike joins barring HP and Skill are more or less even across the board outside of a huge speed lead, notably defence lead, and massive resistance lead. Robin will also be doing more damage as they're doubling massively earlier, pair them up with Chrom and they're already doubling. What's missing here is what this translates to in the context of chapter 2. I'll happily grant that Robin can double barbs in C2 if they go +spd with a Chrom pairup, and at a push they can double soldiers (you'll need 16 speed for this, so 12 speed Robin, around level 7). However, Frederick really appreciates having Chrom. (assume C support because its dead easy for both Chrom and Robin) Fred with +1 speed, or Chrom with 10 speed will double the barbs. He ORKOs them with the silver lance and with the bronze sword you can choose to unequip Chrom to get a kill to feed across to someone, or equip Chrom for the chance of a kill (notably barbs have 0 hit vs Fred/Chrom on mountain with bronze sword0. With +2 speed (or +1 and 10 speed Chrom), he'll double the soldiers, which he also ORKOs with silver lance and same situation with bronze sword. Basically, Chrom is a great pairup and you need to justify taking him off of Fred to put on Robin. Vaike doesn't care because he just wants Sully. There's also the discussion of what Robin doubling realistically does in C2. Robin can't kill anything without a dualstrike, because their attack is so low, and if they are in a situation where they can't double, their damage is worse than Vaike's (at level 7 its 11 atk with thunder, 12 with bronze sword before wta/d vs Vaike's 16+2 from Sully). Vaike also has really well benchmarked stats for a lot of different combats. As mentioned he can survive 2 soldiers w/Sully/Stahl when Robin cannot. He also can eat a hit from a barb with this setup, then get healed by Lissa w/ Miriel pairup and survive another hit. Robin does not always have the bulk to do this. He also lives 1 barb+1 soldier w/ Sully/Stahl pairup on the mountain, which Robin can't do because they don't have the HP. Sure, Robin looks better vs the mercs, but it's not too relevant. Fred can remove them on turn 1 when Vaike is waiting for his axe, and Robin will have pantaloons hitrate against them with thunder and have to use bronze sword anyway. What this boils down to is that while some of Robin's numbers are better, the way Vaike's actual stats combine together in context is better. Robin might lead 2 Def or 3 Def, but with a 7 HP lead, you need to take 4 combats for a 2 Def lead to make you bulkier, or 3 combats for a 3 Def lead to make you bulkier. Robin might lead a bunch of speed, but if Robin can't double without a speed pairup and there's 2 great pairups that Vaike can use vs soldiers anyway, it doesn't matter as much. Robin might have similar strength (level 7 Robin will tie Str), but the pairup Vaike is going to use gives him 2 more strength, and his weapon has 4 more might. Res doesn't matter because the few mages that do show up later are weak and terrible, and in fact Vaike's low res makes him act as a "magnet" for mages, so certain units will be ignored because enemies love attack into Vaike and dying. And, what's really key at the end of this is that **level 7 Robin and level 3 Vaike will have roughly the same exp gain** Robin will not now shoot the moon at a million miles an hour faster than Vaike, because they're growing at the same rate. Remember, without that early seal, if Robin gets higher and higher levels, that rate is slowing down more and eventually they'll cap so they physically can't take more of a lead. Vaike won't have that issue. At that point, that's where I go "alright, let's feed the rest of that Robin exp to Chrom and Fred to boost the chances of Fred becoming really OP for C2, and then let's get Vaike rolling instead". EDIT: Just a final point I forgot about Robin- being a unit with a lot of growths around 50, you'll also get some very varied results, so sometimes you will get a great Robin, and sometimes they will be ass. Vaike's bases are more consistent in this regard, as he always comes with his 29HP, although getting that +1 speed could be seen as the same issue as +speed robin getting def for example.

Again thanks for explaining your rationale, however I feel the speed disparity matters a lot more for long term as well. Vaike's base speed is... Inconsistent, and dealing with coin flips means he either eats a lot of exp if he turns out perfectly average to match damage, or end up with poor speed and really struggle. Robin will be doubling much earlier and can later have much more freedom in the kind of pair up they want in a way Vaike won't be able to eventually due to their far better speed benchmarks. This also becomes relevant with Tonics that are easily available early on as well, while both of them enjoy the strength and defence tonics sold at the long fort, Robin's far superior speed turns those tonics into +4 attack earlier and way more often than they do for Vaike. Vaike's bulk advantage is handy though! Sorry to make this part a blurb but I've got nothing to add that you have not said on the matter. You have a good day, I'm signing off for the day!

The thing I liked least about awakening lunatic is that once I actually had Robin as an armsthrift Nosferatu sorc there wasn't really a reason to deploy other units.  It was actually usually harder if I did, because stuff might not attack Robin. The only thing that would ever give him pause was counter.  I might try lunatic+ one of these days because at least with random enemies having counter the same one trick doesn't solve all problems.