Making the weird tertiary characters work

[Topaz Light]

You know the ones. Characters like Bord, Cord, Matthis, Roshea, Vyland, Caesar, Radd, Tomas, Dolph, Macellan... The ones who clearly exist—gameplay-wise, at least—primarily as backups for if your other units of that class died or something and you really just need another one. They usually have kinda weird and mediocre growths and bases, such as Roshea's odd HP/Strength/Skill specialization, and are generally all-around worse choices than just using the primary or secondary characters of whatever classes they are.

My question, though, is if anybody has any builds for these characters to make them more viable. I usually kinda lean towards Myrmidon or Archer for the Class Set 1 characters, to make their overall growths as high as possible and to either boost their Speed/Skill (Myrmidon) or give them support/chipping utility (Archer), but that feels a little myopic, so I'd like to hear if anybody else has ideas, or has gotten good results with any of them! I know that Caesar and Cord are both pretty solid choices for a non-Etzel Dark Mage/Sorcerer, at least.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Topaz Light

[eclipse]

Bord - He needs Speed.  Hero gives him that, and keeps his axe rank.

Cord - He works as literally anything, though he does fine in his default class.

Matthis - He wants to be a physical class.  Dracoknight has slightly better growths for him.

Roshea - Sniper, by far.  It fixes his bad Speed growth, while allowing him to hit relatively hard.

Vyland - For whatever stupid reason, he has better growths as a Mage.  I don't understand it either.

Caesar - Besides magic, he also makes a decent Horseman.

Radd - Turn him into a Paladin, and watch as he absorbs physical attacks.

Tomas - He has options!  My personal favorite is Cavalier to Dracoknight.  I don't know how or why it works, it just does.

Dolph - His growths scream Berserker.  Good luck getting that axe rank, though!

Macellan - He'd rather be a Hero.

Merric - Main mage or not, he makes an absolutely hilarious Paladin.

[Lukas]

I usually make Caesar a hunter until level 11-13, so that he can get some nice speed levelups. After that, I usually make him a fighter, until promotion, so that he can get some nice strenght and HP growths, and some weapon ranks in axes. After that, I make him a Hero again and he becomes pretty great, not sedgar great, but still great.