When do you class change?

[Paper Jam]

One of the oddest things about Awakening, IMO, is that it isn't necessarily a good thing to wait until level 20 to use a Master Seal, as it generally is in other Fire Emblem games. To get a wide variety of useful Skills without eating up huge amounts of Experience, it seems (hypothetically, at least) like it might be best to use Second Seals at level 10.

I must admit, it took me a while to get into the habit of using Second Seals at all, but I think that some of those skills are way too useful to pass up. (The Thief's Move +1 skill, for example, strikes me as a very good skill for Kellam or Lon'qu to have.)

So I guess my question is, how do you guys use your Master Seals and Second Seals?

[Shadow Mir]

Personally, I'd say it depends on the unit in question - the likes of Ricken and Tharja, who're saddled with poor reclass options, I'd promote at 20, whereas most others I'd probably promote earlier.

[Mister Cold]

Imo promoting is 20 reclassing 10 (16 for promoted)

When you promote you are lvl 21, so if you promote on 10 you lose 10 lvls.

Those lvls get added to internal lvl anyway (iirc) might aswell add the stats.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Second Seals - ASAP, Level 10 if I can

Master Seals - usually a minimum of level 15. Depending on the situation

[Silver Lightning]

Eh, I dunno, I've never been a big fan of waiting, especially in this game where you have to reclass to learn skills and efficiently cap stats. So I'm impatient and I promote/reclass at the earliest opportunity; once a character learns the skills I want and reach lvl 20 on their final end class, I just fill in any stats they didn't cap with stat boosters (which don't tend to be a lot).

Edited April 11, 2013 by Silver Lightning

[Dai]

Level twenty for either of them. I'm hardwired to do any class changing of any sort at level twenty. Regardless of whether or not the unit has maxed their stats.

[Vorena]

Even if ignoring all skirmishes and finishing chapters relatively early (under 10 turns and stuff), then you still get more than enough experience for units that you will eventually reach lv20 long before you get enough 2nd seals to reclass them all. You only get a few compared to the number of master seals. So for me, its the usual wait until lv 20, then promote. Unless I have a specific unit I want reclassed like Donnel, morgan, Panne, etc.

[Meteor]

Imo promoting is 20 reclassing 10 (16 for promoted)

When you promote you are lvl 21, so if you promote on 10 you lose 10 lvls.

Those lvls get added to internal lvl anyway (iirc) might aswell add the stats.

This is exactly what I do, unless I don't care about the level 15 promoted skill, then I reclass at 10 to stay promoted.

Another thing I try to do is promote into a class with skills I want. So if I want Armsthrift but not Sol, I swap to mercenary ASAP, then to something else before promoting. This prevents being hit with +14 internal levels from reclassing out of a promoted class with nothing to offer.

Edited April 11, 2013 by Meteor

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Eh, I dunno, I've never been a big fan of waiting, especially in this game where you have to reclass to learn skills and efficiently cap stats. So I'm impatient and I promote/reclass at the earliest opportunity; once a character learns the skills I want and reach lvl 20 on their final end class, I just fill in any stats they didn't cap with stat boosters (which don't tend to be a lot).

You can reclass a level 20 back to level 1 of the same class. It's not quite as precision as using stat boosters, but it's certainly less gold intensive.

I tend to use Second Seals at level 10 (if promoted and I feel the level 15 skill is worth having, I'll wait until 15). Master Seals it depends on how a particular character is doing at the time. If they seem to be struggling and could really use the immediate stat boosts, I'll promote them early (although this typically kills long term usefulness, it's better than them falling off the wagon even earlier), otherwise I'll try to get them as close to 20 as I feel I can get away with.

[Anacybele]

I actually don't plan to reclass anyone except Donny and Olivia. I just never felt the need to. lol

I use Master Seals at lv. 20, like most peeps.

EDIT: Oh, but I did use a Second Seal on Frederick to make him a lv. 1 Great Knight again. That guy's got far more potential than what he ended up with at lv. 20. I don't care if he's a Jagen. He's still beast when work is put into him.

Edited April 11, 2013 by Anacybele

[Interceptor]

Situational. I like to promote Pair-Up bots as soon as possible, for the promotion bonuses, but otherwise I'll hang around in the unpromoted classes as long as possible in order to maximize stat gains from level-ups. I don't worry about skills all that much. I tend to reclass Manaketes repeatedly until they cap their stats.

[Elieson]

Promoting someone like Kellam as soon as he hits lv10 is beneficial, whereas a unit like Chrom can handle himself into the late teens before even wanting a promotion. It's just situational.

[Jakkun]

For Chrom I go Promote him to Great Lord at Lv20, then I would class change at Lv20 Great Lord into a Great Knight. Grab Luna. Rinse & repeat into Paladin, get Aegis. Then go into Great Lord again. By now most of his stats should be maxed (maybe even Resistance), and you'll have his best skills under your belt.

(But then again, Chrom's a pretty straightforward unit. Not much help is needed for him. Avatar & Morgan, on the other hand...)

[AzureLight12]

So when you get Fred in the Prologue, he's technically lvl 21? Or 11?

[Herb]

Imo promoting is 20 reclassing 10 (16 for promoted)

When you promote you are lvl 21, so if you promote on 10 you lose 10 lvls.

Those lvls get added to internal lvl anyway (iirc) might aswell add the stats.

I'm having a really hard time understanding reclassing and promoting. Can you explain the level loss after promoting? I don't get that at all. Thanks!

[Thor Odinson]

Promote at 20 on the higher difficulties (Luna or higher) because individual exp gain per kill is quite low once you promote and you'd actually want those extra stat points at unpromoted exp

On Hard I don't really care that much I probably have them at 20 anyway by the time I even get master seals