Fire Emblem: Awakening — Resetless Lunatic+ Chapter 2

Interceptor Strat, Low Attack/Barb Has Gamble Variation

-A shout-out to Terrador here for making me go back to re-examine the standard strat long enough to find this.

-This is based on the optimized version of Interceptor’s strat, but has a very slightly lower chance of being successful, by virtue of not being able to get a freak Fred Dual Strike that half-murders the Barbarian. It does, however, allow for as low as 11 Attack and cancels out that 8% chance for Stahl to be inta-blicked in the event of a Gamble Barb (without needing Solidarity). Note that this is a bit less flexible in terms of facing enemy skill combos, so some improvised movements may be required for Fred on turn 2.

-While not strictly necessary, this strat prefers Robin to have a C support with Lissa.

Turn 1

-Pair Virion to Robin. Move 2 tiles below the Merc, swap to Virion and shoot the Merc.

-Move Fred to the left of the Merc and kill him.

-Move Lissa 1 tile down, 1 tile left of Virion and wait. If she has a C with Robin, this should provide an additional 5 Hit.

-Move Chrom left of Virion, take Robin, then switch to her. She should be getting +15 Hit from Chrom C, Lissa C and Virion unranked. With 11 Attack, Robin will do 2×8. Chrom needs to Dual Strike once to bring the total damage up to 23. Alternatively, with 12 Attack, Robin can trade the Bronze Sword to the top of Chrom’s inventory to give him +10 Hit and still achieve the 23 damage.

-Pair Vaike to Stahl. Move Stahl above Robin and attack the Barb. The 10 damage should finish it off. Even if the Barb has Gamble and Vantage+, Stahl will have support level 3, cancelling out the crit chance.

-Move Sully to Stahl’s right and take Vaike.

-On enemy phase, a Soldier attacks Fred and a Soldier attacks Sully.

Turn 2

-Robin, Chrom, Stahl and Virion all do as they normally would in the Interceptor strat.

-Pair Miriel to Lissa.

-It’s possible for Fred to do as he normally does, but it depends on enemy Luna+ distribution. If the three enemies nearest him have it on two or more units, he may have to move differently to kite them. If possible, he wants to at least kill the Soldier Sully wounded.

-Sully can move to safety and possibly get an earlier heal from Lissa (provided Fred doesn’t have to alter his movement in a way where it’s preferable for him to get the heal).

Turn 3+

-Due to enemy movement volatility, this is where things break down. It’s entirely possible for this to continue much like Interceptor’s strat, but with Sully in better health, but there’s no guarantee. The more Fred has to kite, the more improv is required. Still, it front-loads a riskier start in order to face fewer enemies in the final turns.

-The idea of this strat is to avert having to fight against the Mountain terrain bonuses. This kills fewer enemies at the start, so the risk is a bit more even throughout the strat. This can somewhat rarely cause problems toward the end (depending on random enemy movement).

Turn 1

-Pair Robin to Stahl. Move Stahl all the way left.

-Pair Fred to Sully. Move Sully below the leftmost Soldier and swap to Fred. If there is Luna+ present in the Merc/Soldier/Barb combo, wait. Otherwise, you can get away with attacking.

-Pair Chrom to Lissa. Move Lissa 3 tiles left. Swap to Chrom. Make sure the Rapier is equipped, then drop Lissa to his left.

-Pair Vaike to Chrom.

-Move Virion down 1 tile.

-On enemy phase, the Soldier and Merc should fight Fred. The Barb should fight Stahl. A caveat here is that on rare occasions, the Barb will target someone other than Stahl. Hopefully, this is Chrom, but it’s possible for Fred to be targeted. If Robin has 10+ Def, giving Stahl 9 Def, this is slightly more likely.

Turn 2

-Mileage may vary, if the Barb proves uncooperative. Since this is so rare, I was assume the Barb targeted Stahl (and that it didn’t blick him if it had Gamble).

-Pair Virion to Miriel

-Move Chrom below Stahl. Transfer for Robin. Swap and kill the Barb.

-Move Fred 2 tiles left, then 3 down. Take an assessment of enemy damage output. He can usually get away with healing with a Vulnerary, then getting a Lissa heal, but if Lissa hasn’t been gaining much Mag or both Merc and Soldier have Luna+, he might need the Elixir (very rare case).

-Move Miriel to the right of Lissa. Swap to Virion and transfer Miriel to Lissa.

-Move Lissa to the left of Stahl. Swap to Miriel to trade the Fire and Iron Axe to Vaike. Swap back to Lissa and heal Fred.

-Move Stahl to the left of Robin. Swap to Vaike and trade over the Fire. Drop Stahl below him.

-On enemy phase, the Soldier and Merc suicide on Fred.

Turn 3+

-This is where the improvisation starts. Enemy movements will be a bit erratic, so you’ll have to compensate by luring them out. Usually, this will be done by Fred. Sometimes Robin can lure one and Vaike can handle lure a non-Merc (but will need a Spd or Def support against soldiers) once, but will likely be unable to tank more than once because he’ll need at least two heals and is less versatile than Robin. Still, in a pinch, he can finish off weakened non-Vantage+ Soldiers or Barbs.

-Fred prefers to have Sully as a partner if for no other reason than Virion can safely dispatch an enemy weakened by him. Robin typically wants to fill this role, as well. If you’re feeling really desperate for safe killing/wounding power, try to get a tome back into Mirel’s hands.

-Another thing to consider is reverse fighting order if the enemy doesn’t have Vantage+. This will let Fred still utilize his massive damage output in a safe way that allows the party to go more on the offensive. Also, it helps to give Fred EXP. Robin would prefer to have it, but if anyone else needs to get any, Fred is the next preference (since having a LV3-4 Fred by the time he gets benched helps make a lot of these early chapters much safer).

-Note that this strat is obsolete within the run itself, but I have left it in because it is still a solid, usable strat for anyone simply seeking to get through Lunatic+.

-This is pretty much done using Interceptor’s strat with some modifications:

-In Chapter 1, trade Robin’s Bronze Sword to Fred before the map ends.

-Fred should go before Stahl, finishing off the Merc with his Silver Lance (can be somewhat risky if the Merc has Patience because this drops displayed hit to 78, but the Barb is a worse potential point of failure).

-Stahl then attacks the Barb while beside Fred. This allows him to pick up the hit+10, bringing his displayed hit to 90 and giving a chance for dual strike from Fred. Now, before Stahl attacks, if Robin has 12 Spd, which will let her double the Soldiers with a Chrom C pair, Stahl can trade the Bronze Sword to the top of Fred’s inventory. This gives him more hit on the Barb if he does dual strike and the damage is still enough to make a difference (thanks to Czar_Yoshi for pointing this out). The reason Robin needs to be able to double Soldiers is because of the one that attacks Fred on EP. If Fred hits it with the Silver Lance, Robin only needs one hit for a kill. But with the Bronze Sword, she needs two hits.

-When Vaike has an opportunity to trade Fred his Iron Axe, always do it. Fred will be in attack range of two Barbs and a Soldier. The axe does more damage to set the rest of the team up for survival, as well as being neutral to both Barbs and has WTA against the Soldier. The sword is too weak and likely to just get the Soldier jumping on him for WTA. The lance is technically the strongest, but will cause the wounded Barb to jump on him and he might die if there’s too much Luna+.

-For the second wave, after Chrom packs up Fred and goes south of the river, the next PP will have the river itself be just out of enemy range. As tempting as it is to go there, don’t. The enemy will split up and surround him. Instead, wait until the turn after, cross the river and drop Fred again. For whatever reason, this makes the AI want to kill them more (my guess is that they see an exposed unpaired Chrom who can’t escape back across the river and get out of range, making that a “game ending” move). So instead of enemies randomly bleeding off right away, 5-6 of the enemies should keep pursuing so long as Chrom keeps doing this two move cycle and Robin fights the Boss far enough to the left. A Soldier or Barb might bleed off of the pack as Chrom is doing this, but Robin shouldn’t have any trouble taking it down, as usually this won’t happen until the Boss is dead. One thing to keep in mind is when Robin starts deliberately pulling enemies away, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll come off 2-3 at a time. Take this into account when prepping. Also, when the enemies chase Chrom at the top part of his cycle, it’s possible to have a Cavalier jaunt over and drop Robin on the left Fort for some healing (useful if the staff or consumables are running low).

-If using female Robin, pair up with Sully when fighting the Boss instead of Vaike. The Cavalier C support is helpful for Chapter 3.

-Note that having a C with someone other than Fred or Chrom can be very helpful for the second wave. Namely, because the Boss has Gamble (and up to two of his lackies afterward can also have it), which always puts Robin at risk. Lissa should be the most common choice here, but female Robin can theoretically get a Sully C in C1; and male Robin can get a Virion C (somewhat less likely, as Sully’s got the +1 Spd on pair-up bonus, making her preferred, since that one point can really make a difference).