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Gaius? Offers a good balance of Str, Skl, and Spd, and gives her access to Assassin if she wants an alternate bow using class. I like her as Bow Knight though.

As far as Gregor supports go Cherche is hands down the best conversation imo and that's usually how I marry him off. Sumia isn't so much worst girl as she is subjected to a terrible support conversation chain with Chrom, I actually rather like her convos with Male Robin and Gaius. The best partner for Cordelia is objectively Robin Stahl because Stahl!Severa is the best Severa there is except for Robin!Severa, but I'd understand if you don't want to marry outside of the people you're using. Is Vaike Sully good? Kjelle looks like she'll turn out well but I can't speak for the conversation. Kjelle will have good HP, Str, Skl, and Spd growths but will have low Def for a General. That's par for the course with Kjelle though, Sully does it to her and it's hard to reverse, you might want to slip her over into Paladin or Assassin to take advantage of her growth distribution.

Haha grats Hunter, take it from me she's excellent. @Eviora The game is a lot of fun for me, and it seems like it'd be a lot of fun for people who don't know as much about Fire Emblem too. I don't know how much exposure you've had to Fire Emblem before this, but I reckon it'd almost be better if you haven't played any 'cause then you wouldn't be searching for your favourites. Rerolling is a thing to make sure you get at least one hero you want though, and I think the rates in this game are much better than a certain other mobile game I've played (looking at you F/GO). I at least have managed to get all 5 of the people I'm looking for thus far.

I KNOW THIS FEEL SO MUCH! I actually used Libra once and he was pretty good, not as good as the best but not as bad as the worst either. I think you'll really like his character though. Yeah this is pretty true, as far as Oifeys go Frederick probably sits around the same level as FE7 Marcus. My opinion on the full ranking looks something like Titania>Seth>Marcus=Frederick>Oifey with the rest of the early game prepromotes being Jagens rather than Oifeys.

Ayy you're gonna play Awakening! A few thoughts of mine: RIP Stahl the main bro of all of Fire Emblem. I am surprised that you're forgoing a cavalier altogether though, most people use Sully because she joins super early and doesn't have a Y chromosome. No cavaliers and no Sumia means your early game is going to be trudging along at a snail's pace, though it's not like Awakening is Genealogy so that really doesn't matter (for the record Genealogy has HUGE maps and cavalry/fliers are completely mandatory). I am glad you want to use Maribelle and Brady though, those two are a couple of my favourite characters from this game, their supports are a lot of fun. I'll definitely read along and give my thoughts though, Awakening isn't my favourite Fire Emblem game but I do like it a lot (contrary to a lot of other people who have played the games I've played), and I'm always going to be interested in you playing new FE games.

I have 4 castle upgrades and the 1.5 boost and I've taken Kagero from level 20 to level 37 in 27 hours. She's easier to train than an average unit because she just nukes infantry but with the 1.5x boost I don't think it's that bad honestly. Healers are still hellish to train, and without the boost it's pretty slow yeah, but with it I'm finding it pretty easy.

The description is a mistranslation, Triangle Adept/Gem Weapons actually double all weapon triangle effects. I've seen axe users with attack stats 15 higher than Stahl's Def doing zero damage, there's no other explanation. Also the base weapon triangle effect is 20%, not 10%. That means that Stahl with a Ruby Sword decreases green unit attack values by 40% before applying his Def/Res. 50*0.6=30 and my Stahl has 31 Def, so axe users that have 50 attack do no damage. He also generally takes like 40 something damage from Thoron+ wielding mages despite his high teens Res stat implying an effective attack stat of mid 60s. All I'm saying is that it matches what I've observed in the game, and would be the second mistranslation I've come across, the first being the effect of the Physic staff.

You can do so in one of two ways, using their base stats or using their final stats. Taking my Effie as an example, her level 1 4* stats are HP: 21, Atk: 23 (12 without the Silver Lance), Spd: 3, Def: 12, Res: 3. You then compare this to the base stats table here and see which stats are naturally high and which ones are low. In my case I got lucky with my Effie and she got a +Def, -Spd nature. That then reflects on her final stats which (as a 5* at level 40) would be HP: 50, Atk: 55 (40 without the Silver Lance), Spd: 19, Def: 36, Res: 23. You can obviously also work backwards from their final stats to determine what their nature was. Assuming you didn't screenshot your level 1 stats after summoning each of your most important characters then for 4*s and lower you can build up 20,000 hero feathers, get them to level 20+, and then take them into the unlock potential thing (or whatever it's called). You don't actually have to go through with it, but you can get a preview of what their 5* base stats will be that way, and from that calculate their nature. Haha this put a big smile on my dial, it's only morning but this is probably the funniest thing I'll read all day, props. Speaking from experience (I have tons of it between Stahl and Cordelia) the choice between Steel and Ruby should largely be based on your confidence in the unit's bulk. The Ruby Sword will DRAMATICALLY decrease the amount of damage you take from green units, and increase the amount of damage you take from blue units by a similar amount. For this reason I consider it more of a defensive choice than an offensive one. As an example my Stahl, with a Def stat of 31 atm, doesn't take damage from any axe user with an attack stat under 50, and even the ones that get over that only deal 2 or 3 damage per hit. I'd estimate that even Hector won't be able to hurt a max leveled 4* Stahl. As you can imagine I find this trait very useful despite the fact that he gets completely trashed by lance and blue magic users. If Palla has a similar thing for Res then she might be a very good green mage killer with a Ruby Sword but otherwise the Steel Sword may be the better option. It all comes down to personal preference and stat distribution in the end.

I don't even want to know the odds. This means that I now have all 5 of my Fire Emblem Dream Team members that are currently in the game. Still between 7 and 10 more that I don't have yet, depending on whether I want to include a few more favourites in that most prestigious of clubs, but none of them are in the game at the moment so it's time for me to save my orbs. I'm going to need to stock up for when the next one is added. Kagero is -HP +Res which I'm really happy with. I was hoping for +Spd because 35 is a really nice max speed stat but the fact that she got a + on one of her stronger stats and a - on one of her weaker ones is more than enough for me. Azama is -Def +Res and the jury's still out for me on that one. He's naturally more inclined to physical bulk rather than magical bulk, so this Azama will either do a solid job at taking hits from both, or fall short in both categories. Only time will tell whether he's good or not, but the good news is that he's theoretically not that hard to get. I'd much prefer he got a bad nature than Kagero. He might even find himself on one of those free hero rosters in the future, but for now this one's more than good enough for me.

Honestly Shanna has an amazing skillset, like so good that she may well be the best Pegasus Knight in the game at the moment, but Catria is also excellent. In the end I'd probably want to level both, but for now I'd start with whichever one you need more out of high Def or Res. If you need high Def level Catria and if you need high Res level Shanna.

Yeah turning the coins in for crystals is definitely the best use for them, personally I'm planning on doing that, and then saving them for Azama, because leveling a healer to level 40 is painful and I'll take all of the help I can get. As for my arena progress, I'm sitting on 6 straight wins on the hardest difficulty atm, the combination of Cordelia, Stahl, and Merric is enough to beat most teams out there, though Takumi can present a problem, which is why my last member is Jeorge. Bait him in, counter attack him, seal his attack, and then gang bash him. Because I don't run any bonus point characters (the only one I have that isn't story given is a level 2 4* Robin) I generally net around 900 feathers from offense, and another 400 from defence. As for who I'd promote first? Cordelia is a pretty easy answer to that one, she gets a lot from being 5*, Brave Lance+, Galeforce, and Triangle Adept 3. Effie gets to hit a bit harder but that's about it, and Stahl gets a bonus to Obstruct but neither can compete with Cordelia as far as gains go. She also needs all the stats she can get because the Brave Lance is a massive handicap.

When you get 4 white summoning spots and get 4* Clarine, 3* Clarine, 4* Matthew, and 3* Matthew. At least I like Clarine more than my current healer (Maria) but where're Azama and Kagero at?

Well, I didn't manage to summon a 5* at all on the last summoning focus, so here's hoping they reuse them and keep my nice 4.5 or so percent on each of the 5* categories. Not really thrilled about the new summoning focus, Sacred Stones is one of the easier FE games so I don't really like it very much, and by extension I don't really like its characters, and while I love Genealogy, I'm not a huge fan of Seliph or Julia. Ephraim appears to be the best of the bunch with his hatred for Def and great personal weapon. Eirika seems like a pretty good team support oriented sword wielder, but lacks stuff that makes her good in combat herself. I'd imagine she'll be pretty squishy too. Seliph's skill set is all over the place, with a support skill, a (bad) durability skill, and a weapon-skill combo which means he's at his best when he's at low health. I'm not too torn up about this though because honestly Seliph was a pretty bad lord for most of the story he participates in. What confuses me though is that Tyrfing provides him with a boost to Def, when I definitely thought it'd be boosting Res given that it's original effect is +10 Skl, +10 Spd, +20 Res. Julia also confuses me, but that's because she's a green unit rather than a blue unit. I thought Linde was going to set a precedent for light mages to be blue units, and I also thought this made logical sense as they would keep their weapon triangle advantage against dark magic, yet here is Julia as a green mage. That aside she's... rather tame for (probably) being the most powerful playable unit in Fire Emblem history. I think where she'll come into her own is through her stats, expect a unit with ridiculous Atk and Res, along with good Spd and HP, and very low Def. It is disappointing to see the book of Naga reduced to nothing special in this game though, guess I'd better brace myself for something like +4 Spd when attacking Forseti.

I'd promote now, by the time you get to level 35 or so as a 4* you'll have enough SP for everything.

Probably blew it a bit out of proportion but here's where I got it from. For sure they're not the best weapons around, but they actually are the best weapons for dealing with a specific threat. The description on them actually doesn't give you the full picture of what they do either, I assume it's a translation error. Rather than just altering the amount of damage you inflict, they actually double the weapon triangle effects, meaning they also alter the amount of damage you take. Couple this with Stahl's extremely high defence and you have a unit with 3 movement, who will take 0 damage against any and all axe users, and frequently kill them back in a couple of hits. Even green mages don't do much damage to him, which is saying something considering his defence. After you remove 40% of their attack value they really aren't working with much. Triangle Adept works in exactly the same way, and by pairing Stahl and Cordelia I'm starting to see that a team of 3 colour varied Triangle Adept/Gem Weapon users could actually be very formidable when played right.

From my experience with fast brave weapon units they're underwhelming at best, though I'm starting to suspect that my Cordelia has a minus speed nature which, if true, would really irritate me. On the earlier briefly touched on topic of Ruby Swords (or their lance/axe equivalents) I used to think they were trash like you Huk, until I started using Stahl on my main team. That guy will singlehandedly manhandle any axe users he comes across (which considering I often run Cordelia, is something I really needed). My main team right now is looking like: Cordelia/Effie (depending on how many archers/red units there are) Stahl (basically there to cover my blue unit, beats just about any green unit with low difficulty) Merric (rounds out the weapon triangle and deals with armours) Maria/Felicia Up until now I've been running Maria in the fourth slot 100% of the time, but as HP values get higher and higher static healing is getting less and less effective. Felicia provides me with slight healing support on occasion, and also gives me debuffing and probably most importantly a dedicated anti mage unit, seeing as Stahl and Merric both have horrible Res, and the highest value among the blue units is Cordelia's 23. Thoughts on who should occupy that last slot? I also have a Jeorge for anti flier support fyi, though he doesn't help with the low Res issue.

Seliph and Julia are the ones that get me excited, Nintendo are bringing in Genealogy much sooner than I expected. Or at least part of Genealogy anyway. I'd be interested to see what they do with the book of Naga (Julia's personal weapon) in Heroes, considering that it is undoubtedly the most powerful weapon in all of Fire Emblem. Whether they try to make it balanced or just embrace it's horrendously broken nature will be interesting to see.

Offensive staffs do half of the users attack minus the targets resistance. If they didn't then healers would be the best units in the game. Also looks like (according to Serenes Forest) the characters being added are Seliph, Julia, Ephraim, and Eirika. Now I'm not a massive fan of any of these, but Julia is cool and if I got her I'd definitely use her as my main blue mage.

Man I'm all about that Tellius and Jugdral rather than Sacred Stones. Give me Ike and Lewyn any day.

I'd probably focus on getting anyone you're planning on using to 4* first because it doesn't cost anywhere near as much as going from 4* to 5* and 4* are good enough. 5* are powerful for sure (especially if they have a personal weapon) but other than the weapon upgrade there isn't a massive difference between them and their 4* counterparts. That being said I don't have any 5*s so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

Merric is fantastic, high speed, high damage with effective damage vs fliers so you don't need an archer, solid defence too. Just don't leave him in range of too many other mages because he oddly enough has much better Def than Res.

Cordelia trivialised Xander but Veronica was a big problem for me because up until recently I didn't have a good red unit trained. Now I've got Awakening Tiki but my team that went into that one was Cordelia/Jeorge/Merric/Maria.

Make sure to grab Felicia because HOLY HELL SHE'S GOOD! The tier list sits her alongside Kagero and Saizo as one of the best shuriken/dagger users in the game and she deserves it tbh. I pulled a 4* copy of her and have been training her to fulfill one of the lunatic Feb mission requirements but she just murders everything. Between way too much Spd and Res, a high Mt dagger which debuffs for -5, healing your allies after attacking, and a tactical nuke every 4th shot (Glacies) she is a very, very good unit. If there's one free character that you raise from their humble 2* beginnings, trust me, it should be Felicia. I've only played Binding Blade once, and I didn't really like it (hence why I've only played it once) so I don't remember much of Narcian. He was very vain though, and very ambitious, not very likeable overall.

If I'm honest with you I was also worried about Effie's Def in the early levels, she started at 12 and only got a few boosts across the first 12 or so levels. Now she's sitting at level 20 with 21 Def (and 14 Res which is pretty damn good tbh) and I'm much happier. It's still not enough to be taking zero damage from most stuff but it's definitely enough to be an effective tank. It's also somewhat true to her growths in Fates though, Effie never had a spectacular Def growth as a Knight, I think it was 55%, with 20 of those percents coming from her class. In comparison her speed growth (also 55%) had a much higher personal component of 50%. Benny was the Knight more suited for General, while Effie was the Knight more suited to Great Knight because of its more offensive stat distribution. However her signature "speedy Knight" build at least didn't get carried over into Heroes as my level 20 Effie has 10 speed, and she has the Wary Fighter skill. For the full statline at Lv 20: HP: 31 Atk: 33 (Silver Lance) Spd: 10 Def: 21 Res: 14

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES! 2 down 10 to go. Only 3 of those 10 are actually in the game at the moment though. Hunter I hope you get her soon too. I know you want her just as much as I did.