About to play BR. Suggestions for Team?

[Simon the Digger]

As the title says, I'm about to play BR for the first time..but I'm not sure what my team should be. 

Keep in my mind (obviously), it's my first playthrough..so I'm not looking for a super complex and crazy team. 

Even though I haven't played the game yet, I have seen the characters and did a little research. How's this?

Corrin

Azura

Hinoka

Takumi

Ryoma

Kanna

I like to have my teams small like 4 or 5 units as opposed to 13 or 14. It makes those 4 or 5 units absolutely disgusting, since they compete less for experience.

Questions: (I know it's alot, but bare with me here)

• I heard Mozu is really bad. But she has aptitude. How bad can she be? Should I use her?
• Is Felicia good? I know she's the Jagen, but I heard she's more B-tier instead of A & S tier like Ryoma and Corrin. But doesn't she get as much EXP as a first-tier class for some reason?
• How's Oboro, Silias, Scarlett and Reina?
• How's the Ninjas?
• How do you get the skills? I heard it's not like Awakening: getting skills at a certain level.
• Since it's my first playthrough, I wanna use Sakura, since she's the only remaining Royal. But isn't she not that great? Should I use her?
• How does forging work?
• Anything else I should know?

Thanks!

[Dean]

My general experiences with Birthright...

• I think Mozu takes too effort / resources to catch up to be "good" and the payoff isn't especially good in Birthright (the game isn't kind to Bow-locked units). If you'd like a trainee-style unit I'm quite bullish about Hayato - his base damage output is much higher, he doesn't need a Heart Seal and bulky mages have a strong niche.
  • If you have DLC / multiple paths she's a decent enough recipient of a Dread Scroll.
• Felicia isn't really a Jeigan - for all intents and purposes she's treated as a level 1 unit. I have very little experience with her in Birthright.
• I think Reina, Scarlet and Silas are very good. Oboro's perfectly fine as well.
• Kaze, Saizo and Kagero are all worth considering on a team. Saizo in particular is one of the strongest units in the game.
• In Fates, if you class change and haven't learned the skills available from that class yet, you will learn then one-by-one as you level up. e.g. If I have a Level 10 Nohr Prince and reclass to Ninja, upon reaching Level 11 they'll learn Locktouch, and then at Level 12 they'll learn Poison Strike (the first two Ninja skills). This difference comes as Awakening reset your level to 1 whenever you class changed, but Fates keeps your current level.
• I don't think Sakura's very good, but compared to other staff users her personal skill is very good so she has a niche.
• If you have two of the same weapon and a certain gemstone (available from some random events in My Castle) you can merge the weapons together to create a stronger weapon. Generally +2 Might compared to the original weapon, but higher level forges can give larger bonuses.
• If you're keen on Kaze, I'd recommend having him reach an A-support with Corrin before the start of Chapter 15.

[Wanderer-Of-Fates]

I’m probably not the most fit to answer because I’m more of a casual gamer but here goes:

-I liked Mozu, she’s probably not the best unit (can’t beat Donnel when it comes to villager units!) but she is fun to train up and fairly satisfying

-Felicia is good, she stays as a maid (no promoted maid) so maybe that’s why the leveling is slower? She can be good to have because she can attack from a distance and heal

-I like having a spear user so I enjoy using Oboro, Silias is pretty good at his role and so is Scarlett but I didn’t use her much. Reina was good right when I got her but she got passed up by my other units near endgame

-Ninjas are fun- if you plan to use Kaze on your team consider getting him up to an A support with the avatar (I’ll leave it at that)

-I think you do get character skills based on level but you get other skills based on class, everyone also has a character skill

-I usually paired her up when I played because she is a good healer to have, maybe if you premote her she could hold her own?

-You basically combine two weapons of the same type to make a stronger one

-check out http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Forge if you need more in-depth info with^ and the other articles on the wiki too

Have fun!

[Wanderer-Of-Fates]

10 minutes ago, Dean said:

My general experiences with Birthright...

• I think Mozu takes too effort / resources to catch up to be "good" and the payoff isn't especially good in Birthright (the game isn't kind to Bow-locked units). If you'd like a trainee-style unit I'm quite bullish about Hayato - his base damage output is much higher, he doesn't need a Heart Seal and bulky mages have a strong niche.
  • If you have DLC / multiple paths she's a decent enough recipient of a Dread Scroll.
• Felicia isn't really a Jeigan - for all intents and purposes she's treated as a level 1 unit. I have very little experience with her in Birthright.
• I think Reina, Scarlet and Silas are very good. Oboro's perfectly fine as well.
• Kaze, Saizo and Kagero are all worth considering on a team. Saizo in particular is one of the strongest units in the game.
• In Fates, if you class change and haven't learned the skills available from that class yet, you will learn then one-by-one as you level up. e.g. If I have a Level 10 Nohr Prince and reclass to Ninja, upon reaching Level 11 they'll learn Locktouch, and then at Level 12 they'll learn Poison Strike (the first two Ninja skills). This difference comes as Awakening reset your level to 1 whenever you class changed, but Fates keeps your current level.
• I don't think Sakura's very good, but compared to other staff users her personal skill is very good so she has a niche.
• If you have two of the same weapon and a certain gemstone (available from some random events in My Castle) you can merge the weapons together to create a stronger weapon. Generally +2 Might compared to the original weapon, but higher level forges can give larger bonuses.
• If you're keen on Kaze, I'd recommend having him reach an A-support with Corrin before the start of Chapter 15.

Yeah you did better than me haha! You responded as I was typing my advice... oops 

[Dean]

12 minutes ago, Wanderer-Of-Fates said:

Yeah you did better than me haha! You responded as I was typing my advice... oops 

Never hurts to have a second opinion! I've only played the game a couple of times.

[Wanderer-Of-Fates]

21 minutes ago, Dean said:

Never hurts to have a second opinion! I've only played the game a couple of times.

Yeah, your right! Me too actually so it’s good to have had someone else back me up or have a different take on things- helps make the info more interesting!

[GoldPaladin]

 

Most of Birthright can be soloed with just Ryoma and Corrin. If you're playing for fun and don't want to stretch it chapter to chapter, always remember that these two can solo most of the game, even at the end. Ryoma is ridiculously powerful (should've easily been the Lord unit of this game). You can throw Ryoma into hordes of enemies where he'll kill everything without dropping less than 50% in HP. 

 

To answer some of your questions: 

I haven't used Mozu that much to give a good opinion on here. She is similar to Donnell from Awakening. 

Felica isn't a bad unit, but you probably won't use her a whole lot except as a healer. She is more of an Oifey as a Jagen. I didn't find her growths to be terrible in my Birthright playthroughs.

Ninja's are incredibly useful units who replace Thieves in the older games. One of the best gameplay things that Fates does is make Thieves useful and a legitimate threat on the battlefield. Make sure you get an A rank support with Kaze early in the game, you'll be thankful for this later on. 

Skills work pretty much the same as Awakening, except for second seals. This game cuts out a bit of the grinding. When you change class, you can do it at any level and get the skills, I think (I am not a fan of class changing, so I don't know a whole lot about it since I avoided this). 

Oboro is one of the best units in the game and is probably the best female when it comes to marriage if you're going for the second generation. She can pair up with anyone and produce an overpowered unit. Scarlett is OK for a pre-promote. I liked Reina and wished that her character wasn't locked to just the Avatar alone for supports. Silas is going to be your lone horseback unit in Birthright and it comes down to your opinion if you like Paladins or not. I always found him to be a good unit, so I used him. 

Sakara is a good healer IMO, never really had problems with her. 

I didn't touch forging, so I don't think I could help you there, sorry. 

 

 

 

[SavageVolug]

All in all your setup seems solid. My recommendations are:

Oborro is good she's one of the few units in Hoshido with decent defense

Rinkah can get suprisingly tanky for a fighter type unit

Ninjas are good but since they are a combination of Thief and Assasin I never saw the point to bringing all three. Why do you need 3 thieves on a map? I would recommend on only using one or two of the three. Me personally I prefer Saizo and Kagero as they generally have good strength whereas Kaze seems to take a while to get good strength.

Reina is a flyer so she's automatically good

Felicia I've never had any trouble with but I always either keep her as a maid or Heart Seal her to Valkyrie

Scarlet- She wields an axe and rides a wyvern what other convincing do you need? No seriously she's good and comes with a killer axe.

Silas- is great. I think if he had a sword that was ranged and could double he would at least be just as good as Xander.

Mozu- CAN GET good, however I think she requires too much effort with a payoff that's not incredibly significant. I like her as a character but most of my runs I don't use her.

Forging- I HATE how this game does forging it is such a major pain. Basically to increase a weapon to two you need two of whatever weapon. Then to increase to level three you need two level two weapons and son on with level seven being the max for the game.

[Shadow Mir]

10 hours ago, Corncake said:

Even though I haven't played the game yet, I have seen the characters and did a little research. How's this?

Corrin

Azura

Hinoka

Takumi

Ryoma

Kanna

I like to have my teams small like 4 or 5 units as opposed to 13 or 14. It makes those 4 or 5 units absolutely disgusting, since they compete less for experience.

This is just me, but low-manning isn't nearly as effective in Fates due to steep exp reductions for overleveled units (as in, once they outlevel the enemy by at least 5, they start leveling up much slower). 

10 hours ago, Corncake said:

Questions: (I know it's alot, but bare with me here)

• I heard Mozu is really bad. But she has aptitude. How bad can she be? Should I use her?
• Is Felicia good? I know she's the Jagen, but I heard she's more B-tier instead of A & S tier like Ryoma and Corrin. But doesn't she get as much EXP as a first-tier class for some reason?
• How's Oboro, Silias, Scarlett and Reina?
• How's the Ninjas?
• How do you get the skills? I heard it's not like Awakening: getting skills at a certain level.
• Since it's my first playthrough, I wanna use Sakura, since she's the only remaining Royal. But isn't she not that great? Should I use her?
• How does forging work?
• Anything else I should know?

Thanks!

• Mozu might be too much effort for you if you're not keen on grinding. She starts at level 1... but unlike Donnel from Awakening, who NEEDED a Second Seal just to function, she doesn't need one, and thus she isn't as much trouble as he was.
• She does get exp like a tier 1 unit. Also, she can level up to 40 instead of the usual cap of 20.
• Oboro is one of the better units in Birthright. Silas is the only horseback unit you get (unless you marry him off, that is). Scarlet has amazing base defense in a route where nearly all your units are lacking in the defensive aspect. Reina is also pretty good.
• First off, ninjas replace thieves when it comes to picking locks, so that's worth considering. Anyway, while some people swear by them, I don't think they're all that great. Kaze is fast and a hard stop to anything magical, but struggles with anything that isn't squishy. There's also a caveat about him, but I'll divulge that later. Saizo is stronger, but slower and not as much of an anti-mage as Kaze is. Kagero is even stronger than either, but doesn't hit as reliably as the other two.
• You're right - it's not like Awakening. You don't need to grind as much, because you learn class skills in order of when you'd normally get them. Ergo, if you reclass into Mechanist at level 4, you would get the Apothecary (or Ninja) skills first, then Golembane.
• Yes, because her personal skill is amazing, and she's a really good healer. Also, she can get Renewal, which is great.
• Forging requires two copies of the weapon to be forged, and a resource that depends on the weapon you're forging. I don't bother with it because the system is practically unusable.
• Kaze will die if you don't have an A support with him after chapter 15. Also, the servant you get is dependent on Corrin's gender. The other one joins slightly past the halfway point.

[Ertrick36]

17 hours ago, Corncake said:

Questions: (I know it's alot, but bare with me here)

• I heard Mozu is really bad. But she has aptitude. How bad can she be? Should I use her?
• Is Felicia good? I know she's the Jagen, but I heard she's more B-tier instead of A & S tier like Ryoma and Corrin. But doesn't she get as much EXP as a first-tier class for some reason?
• How's Oboro, Silias, Scarlett and Reina?
• How's the Ninjas?
• How do you get the skills? I heard it's not like Awakening: getting skills at a certain level.
• Since it's my first playthrough, I wanna use Sakura, since she's the only remaining Royal. But isn't she not that great? Should I use her?
• How does forging work?
• Anything else I should know?

Thanks!

First of all, I'll just reiterate that going with a small team isn't all that great of an idea here.  And I personally hate using Ryoma, at least with Raijinto.

Anyway...

• Listen; just have her kill-steal about two-thirds of the enemies in her own paralogue and have her solo the boss.  If you want to really give her a good jump-start, bring a Heart Seal or Dread Scroll to the paralogue and have her reclass to either archer or dread fighter right away.  In any case, is she takes on so many enemies and defeats the boss, I guarantee you she'll hit at least level 5 easily.
• Reina's more of a Jagen, tbh, though she doesn't show up as early as Felicia.  Felicia is officially of a promoted class, but has stats and experience gain more akin to an unpromoted unit.  Same with Jakob.  That being said, this means they can get promoted skills very early on.
• 'Boro is the best character ever.  Silas is nice, Scarlet is an unfortunate Corrinsexual with super buff defense, and Reina, like I said, is like a Jagen in that she shows up as a promoted unit a bit early on.  In fact, Reina is probably more akin to Sirius, unit-wise.
• Use at least one ninja.  Master Ninjas are broken, and people hate it when you use them online.
• Example: If you have a level 12 archer and reclass him to samurai, he'll get Duelist's Blow at level 13 and Vantage at level 14.  Basically, if you reclass at any level higher than that of which you'd gain the skills and you don't have those skills, you will gain them each consecutive level after the reclass in the order you'd get them until you're caught up in skills.  You can also buy them through Einherjar, though that's a system best left for a second or third playthrough.  Also, children can inherit skills from parents the same way they do in Awakening.
• Sakura is great, she just has a fairly slow start being that she's a healer.  She actually has a surprising strength growth, so she can be decent as a Priestess if you want her to go that route; that class will also give her Renewal, which is a pretty damn good skill for survivability.
• You use ores and copies of the same weapon to forge a weapon.  For a +1 Iron Katana, you need a Pearl and two Iron Katanas; for a +2 Iron Katana, you need two Pearls and two +1 Iron Katanas (a total of four Iron Katanas and four Pearls); for a +3 Iron Katana, you need three Pearls and two +2 Iron Katanas (a total of eight Iron Katanas and eleven Pearls).  Each consecutive upgrade makes the weapon's might, hit rate, and (if not an E-Rank weapon) crit rate a little bit higher.  You can make a Steel weapon have more might than even S-Rank weapons, making those forged steel weapons objectively better.  It can get broken, but you start needing tons more resources once you reach about +4 weapons.
• Shiro is good though impossible to get without a Rescue Rod, B+ rank weapons are honestly kinda lame, have your avatar A-support Kaze, Friendship Seals make platonic supports more worth it, and units who share their classes with royals tend to have more polarized stats.  Also, My Castle is the only place where you'll find shops, and you can only gain points for upgrading these and other My Castle buildings through either playing chapters, doing skirmishes, or visiting other people's My Castles.

[Simon the Digger]

Quote

Kaze will die if you don't have an A support 

Read the first sentence of my post. 

Thank you for the suggestions, everyone. Although, I'd appreciate it if someone gave me an exact list for which characters to use...

Before I re-make my team, I heard that you shouldn't "lowman" BR...how come? Is it cause High Level units level up super slowly, or what? If that's the case shouldn't I limit the how many promotions a unit gets more? In most FE games, I like to have 3-5 units on my team. But what about on BR?

Edited March 18, 2018 by Corncake

[SSJDennis]

Your units will start gaining like 1 EXP when the go to far ahead of the curve. So that's the main reason to use a team of like 10~12 units.

I also think you should go for female Corrin, as I value Jakob higher then Felicia. Felicia will do fine when joining later on, she comes with a nice staff rank and isn't the best Hero.

There isn't an exact list to go by. But if you take the time to write down, what is stated by above posts:

1. Corrin

2. Ryoma

3. Takumi

4. Hinoka

5. Azura

6. Saizo

7. Kaze

8. Scarlett

9. Oboro

10. Silas

11. Jakob (reclass early to Paladin)

12. Sakura

You can fill the additional team slots with the likes of Flora, Felicia with status staffs. Also Reina is a good filler unit.

I don't like to train up Mozu, most likely not because I would spend that first Heart Seal on Jakob, second on Corrin. Mozu as a Dreadfighter right off the bat might be worthwhile though.

Also spam tonics if you need the extra stats.

Don't forget, have fun playing the game.

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, Corncake said:

Read the first sentence of my post. 

I did. But that ain't something I could just not warn you about. And I meant Kaze needed an A support with Corrin specifically.

15 hours ago, Corncake said:

Before I re-make my team, I heard that you shouldn't "lowman" BR...how come? Is it cause High Level units level up super slowly, or what? If that's the case shouldn't I limit the how many promotions a unit gets more? In most FE games, I like to have 3-5 units on my team. But what about on BR?

It's precisely because higher level units level up more slowly. Sure, you might be able to get away with that in other FEs, but if you tried using only like 3 to 6 units in Fates, you WILL run into a point where your team just stagnates - as in they only get 1 experience a kill.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Ertrick36]

16 hours ago, Corncake said:

Before I re-make my team, I heard that you shouldn't "lowman" BR...how come? Is it cause High Level units level up super slowly, or what? If that's the case shouldn't I limit the how many promotions a unit gets more? In most FE games, I like to have 3-5 units on my team. But what about on BR?

It is pretty much because of how experience scales, just like Levant said.  You're only hindering your team by low-manning, as it could be significantly stronger collectively if you use more units.  And it's a really bad mentality to have if you ever hope to play some of the more difficult games such as Conquest, which have objectives that force you to spread out a bunch of units to tackle different goals and defend different areas.

I get that you probably want to keep things simple, but as long as you actively try to keep everyone at about the same level and remember how experience basically works (that defeating foes grants more experience than hurting them, and that higher level enemies grant more experience), it shouldn't be difficult to make a team that works well.  Just stick with the same dozen-or-so people, and it'll be fine.

16 hours ago, Corncake said:

Although, I'd appreciate it if someone gave me an exact list for which characters to use...

Let me get you a list of the units I think are best for a playthrough, barring the royals as they're all pretty good.  Best to worst, top eight, barring child units:

Spoiler

1. Oboro - Balanced and with the highest base defense out of the Hoshidan cast, she'll hardly get doubled and will be able to take a few hits before going down.  Her base class, Spear Fighter, comes with "Seal Defense", which debuffs an enemy's defense, and she can gain "Seal Speed" if she promotes to Spear master, both of which are great skills for what is essentially supposed to be a moderate tank.
2. Silas - He also has high defense compared to the Hoshidans, but he also has high mobility without being a flier and access to both blades and polearms.  He's another tank, but without the debuff skills that Oboro has unless you marry him to her.  Being a mounted unit allows him to retreat if need be, albeit not quite as easily as a sky knight or wyvern rider could.
3. Kagero - Crazy physical glass cannon, though maybe a bit feeble.  I'd otherwise recommend Saizo or Kaze; any of the ninjas are good, tbh.  Kaze is probably the least good though, imo.  Just bring one of the ninjas along, as ninjas are generally just really good units.  But going for all three may be a bit excessive.
4. Felicia/Jakob - Whoever comes first will become a solid unit, though Felicia will need a Flame Shuriken to do any real damage.  Jakob is best off reclassing into Paladin or Great Knight because his magic doesn't become all that great, but Felicia is good as either a Maid or Strategist.  Though whichever one you get later is barely worth the effort of training up.  I don't think you should think too much about what gender to make your avatar like SSJ said; just go with whatever you want.
5. Scarlet - Another solid tank, but she can fly and starts promoted, so she's guaranteed to at least match your best allies in defense assuming you didn't over-level them like crazy.  She can only support one character (your avatar), so she won't be giving any support bonuses to anyone besides you.  Solid growths though, so she can keep up with everyone.
6. Mozu - Can be difficult to train, but will usually turn out pretty good.  Lots of flexibility, though you can't make her a good mage.  She can either dominate the weapon triangle as a Master of Arms, go for a range-melee combo as a Merchant (using polearms and bows), go straight up ranged as a Sniper, become an anti-flier as a Kinshi Knight, or otherwise a solid combatant as one of the DLC classes.  She can be a better form of balanced than Oboro, but she requires effort to train, which is why I place her so low.
7. Reina - Typical pre-promote; good stats for when she joins, but a value that diminishes because of low growths.  She has solid enough strength and speed growths to keep up with the rest as purely a damage dealer, but everything else will wane.  And like Scarlet, she can only support your avatar, so she'll be yet another unit that can't give support bonuses to anyone but your unit.  One of the few units that probably makes the Mechanist class work well for anti-flier purposes, though I personally prefer just keeping her as a Kinshi.
8. Rinkah - Very good defense, she's tankier than anyone in Birthright barring possible avatar configurations.  But she is absolutely horrendous at hitting her foes and has less of a strength growth than even Sakura.  So tanking is all she's really good at.

This is all a matter of opinion, of course.  Though I think my top five-six do a decent job of covering all your bases.  I'll give a bonus royal list:

Spoiler

1. Corrin - Just by how flexible he/she is, your avatar always has the best potential out of the whole cast and is guaranteed to see some use.
2. Ryoma - It pains me to say this, but Ryoma is the next best unit, and it's all because of Raijinto and his class.  Him having a high-damaging 1-2 range weapon with Astra + Vantage makes him stupidly broken.  It's to the point where using him with that weapon makes the game not fun.
3. Takumi - Again, he's made good because of his personal weapon, the Fujin Yumi.  He can walk over all kinds of terrain without hindrance, and the Fujin Yumi, like Raijinto, grants high damage output.  He's also a better balanced archer than Setsuna, which isn't quite as relevant, but gives him an advantage in survivability.
4. Sakura - She's a good healer and a relatively flexible unit.  She's actually a bit tougher than your starting healers, and she gains access to Renewal, ensuring that she might never get killed.
5. Hinoka - She's a balanced flier.  Probably is as balanced as Oboro, though she will probably wind up with less Defense than her.  Nothing really sets her apart from your standard troops aside from the fact that she can activate Dragon Veins, which she probably is most efficient at, given that she's the most mobile unit of the Hoshidan royals.
6. Azura - She embodies probably the worst case of Birthright's "damage output over defense" gimmick.  She will hardly gain any HP or Defense, guaranteeing her position as a glass cannon, which is hardly good for a unit that can only do 1-range attacks unless she uses Javelins that take away her ability to double, critical, or use attack skills.  Her main redeeming factor is her ability to sing to allies to refresh the ability to use them, which isn't quite as useful in this game as it is in others.  Though I suppose in this case that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I just don't see her as a valuable unit personally.

Like SSJ said, though, there's no definitive list for who you should use.  Generally in Birthright, it's a good idea to bring as many tanky units as you can because as I've said a few times the classes and units in this path tend to be weaker on the defense front.

[Simon the Digger]

6 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I did. But that ain't something I could just not warn you about. And I meant Kaze needed an A support with Corrin specifically.

You could've said "if you're gonna use Kaze, I strongly recommend an A support with him", or something like that. I won't address it anymore though, no worries. Water under the bridge..

I appreciate the in-depth detail very much. Before I post the team, I got one more question...how many classes should the units go through? In Awakening you could burn through 5 or 6 classes, reap the skills and still gain EXP as you do it. But in Fates, is it more like..3 or 4? Since if you go through classes like in Awakening, the units will stagnate, right?

I also definitely decided to not use Mozu, since even with Aptitude, her growths are on par with units like Oboro, not donnel. Not worth the trouble..

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Corncake

[Shadow Mir]

10 minutes ago, Corncake said:

You could've said "if you're gonna use Kaze, I strongly recommend an A support with him", or something like that. I won't address it anymore though, no worries. Water under the bridge..

I appreciate the in-depth detail very much. Before I post the team, I got one more question...how many classes should the units go through? In Awakening you could burn through 5 or 6 classes, reap the skills and still gain EXP as you do it. But in Fates, is it more like..3 or 4? Since if you go through classes like in Awakening, the units will stagnate, right?

I also definitely decided to not use Mozu, since even with Aptitude, her growths are on par with units like Oboro, not donnel. Not worth the trouble..

 

I could've, but I forgot the part where it needed to be with Corrin at first. There's also the part where, in the event you marry him to someone, his child's paralogue is unplayable until after chapter 15.

Actually, reclassing in Fates isn't the same as it was in Awakening - you don't get your level reset when reclassing. Also, heart seals are limited for most of the game. There's also the fact that most units only have two class trees instead of three.

[ashlyn]

Well for starters, I think your team lineup sounds pretty good. They're all pretty great units, though you might want to include one of the ninja, since they are great for bringing down stats and securing doubles on enemies. 

As for your questions:

• Mozu is a decent unit. It does take a lot of effort and patience put into her, but the end result for me has been great and I have a fun time playing with Mozu. Many people seem to make Mozu a Merchant or Sniper, but I love to play with her as a Master of Arms, because she uses multiple weapons and fills in that role for me because I didn't really have anyone in that class the first time I played the game. If you really want to make her great, and have a lot of patience and time on your hands, you can get her up to level 10, so that she will get all of the skills from the Villager class, and then reclass her into a Dread Fighter. I kept her in the Dread Fighter class long enough so that she could get the skills from it, namely Aggressor, and then reclassed her into a Master of Arms. But then again, that's assuming you have the Boo Camp DLC to grind up levels on, because it does take quite a bit of time and would not be fun to deal with if you are just getting EXP from regular battles.
• Felicia is okay. I will admit, I don't have much experience with her or Jakob, I really just cast them aside on my first playthrough. I'm doing another playthrough right now and I plan on either making Felicia a Hero or putting her in the Dark Falcon class, but I haven't decided. If you want more magic units, then she could also function decently as an Onmyoji, however I think she would most likely be outranked in that class by Orochi, Rhajat, or even Sakura, if you choose to put her in that class. 
• Out of those four that you listed, Oboro and Silas are probably the best. Oboro has pretty great Str, Spd, and Def, so you may even want to consider using her in your game and putting her in your lineup. Silas is pretty balanced, which is a good thing in his case. He has good Spd and nearly even Def and Res, so he is quite flexible with the types of enemies you pit him against. Scarlet has a lot of Str and Def, but her Lck is a little bit low. It's not terrible, but it may cause her to miss more often or take more enemy crits than other units. She works best as a tank for battling blue units. Reina is useful when you first get her, but she slowly starts to derail when compared to others. She does have nice Skl, Spd, and Res, so she can be used to combat mages, if you choose to use her. But Hinoka would likely be better to fill in that role, and would work along nicely with your lineup.
• I used the ninjas throughout my game and loved it. Kaze is likely your best bet out of the three that you first get, because he has a lot of Spd and can probably double up on any enemy he faces. He also has a lot of Res, which can come in handy when there are maps with mages. As I said earlier, he can also help to cut down enemy stats when using a shuriken, and can help others bring down enemies if he is unable to do so. He also has the skill Poisen Strike, so he not only will be bringing down stats but will also bring down enemy HP. Asugi is also a viable option, because he not only has good Spd and Res, but he also generally has more Skl than Kaze and has more Mag, so he can use the Flame Shuriken effectively. The only problem with him is that it takes longer to get him than it does to get Kaze.
• Every unit comes with a personal skill that cannot be unequipped, but they also learn skills in every class based on their level. In unpromoted classes, I believe all skills are learned by level 10, and with promoted classes, one skill is learned at level 5 and then another is learned at level 15. If you are using a DLC class, it works differently, and I'm not sure exactly how it works, because it can change depending on when you put that character into that class. 
• Sakura is actually an amazing unit, or she was for me, at least. She's a nice healer and if you reclass her into a Priestess, she is also an additional bow user. She honestly has a lot going for her; great Str, Mag, Spd, Lck, and Res. Her Skl and Def are a little bit lower, but it's not much of an issue. Because of her good Str and Mag, she can deal a good amount of damage with a regular bow as well as with the Shining Bow, which deals damage based on the Mag stat. In the Priestess class, she also learns the skill Renewal, so she can easily heal herself after each enemy phase. If you don't like the idea of using her as a Priestess, then she also makes for a really good Sword Master. She may lose her ability to heal units, but she becomes a nice offensive unit and in some ways is more flexible than Hana or Hinata in that role.
• Weapons are forged in the Smithy in your My Castle, and you have to have two of the same weapon that has been forged the same amount of times, as well as a certain type of gem, based on what you are forging. When you forge the weapon, it makes it stronger and can help a unit deal more damage with it, and can add on to their hit and crit rates as well. 
• I would say to definitely play this game and to have fun with it. Don't let small stuff stress you out and don't be afraid to experiment with different classes for units and with pairings in this game. I tend to over analyze things and I think that gets in the way for me sometimes, but there is honestly so much that you can do with your characters that it makes it interesting. Have fun with it!

...And I hope I answered your questions well enough. I didn't expect to write so much, but once I get started on something I have the tendency to ramble, so I'm sorry if I boggled you with too much information. I hoped this helped and offered some good insight! Hope you enjoy playing the game!

[Ertrick36]

22 hours ago, Corncake said:

I appreciate the in-depth detail very much. Before I post the team, I got one more question...how many classes should the units go through? In Awakening you could burn through 5 or 6 classes, reap the skills and still gain EXP as you do it. But in Fates, is it more like..3 or 4? Since if you go through classes like in Awakening, the units will stagnate, right?

You really are thinking a lot about this...

Thing is, reclassing works quite differently in Fates.  When you reclass, you don't go back to level 1; you stay the level you currently are, but just as a different class, which is why I mentioned gaining skills after consecutive levels when you reclass.  And that also means that you can't go back to an unpromoted class, so you won't really build up internal levels like in Awakening.  You can go through as many classes as you please, and you can do so straight from level 1.  It's basically like Shadow Dragon's reclass system, if you're familiar at all with that.

I'd still recommend maybe keeping reclassing to a minimum, though.  A good majority of units work well as their base classes.  But if you're keen on acquiring skills, I guess you can have them reclass a couple times.  Also bear in mind that units can reclass into the same class as other units through marriage and A+ supports.  So you can make Oboro into an Oni Savage by having her support Rinkah and giving her a "Friendship Seal" (the marriage equivalent to this is "Partner Seal").  Also, the avatar doesn't need A+ support to use a Friendship Seal; any units he/she gains an A support with (that he/she can't marry) will give him/her free access to their base class through a Friendship Seal.

However, it's also worth bearing in mind that none of these seals come in an infinite supply for most of the game.  Master Seals come in the largest quantity, obviously, and I'm sure by the time you may need to promote your team, you'll have access to more than enough to promote a dozen.  But you can't acquire Heart Seals or any other seals willy-nilly like you could in Awakening.  Most items in your shops come in a finite supply, and you'll need to upgrade them to gain access to larger quantities.

22 hours ago, Corncake said:

I also definitely decided to not use Mozu, since even with Aptitude, her growths are on par with units like Oboro, not donnel. Not worth the trouble..

Well it's your decision, but her growths being merely "on-par" doesn't necessarily make her worse than Donnel.  Especially in Conquest, where you have so few archers.  Whether or not a unit is useful depends more on their utility than merely if they have the biggest numbers.  It's why in spite of Takumi having better average growths and survivability, some are inclined to believe that Setsuna's the better archer.

Donnel's nice and all, but he's mostly just a stronger merc/fighter for all intents and purposes; Mozu has more utility due to her class set and slightly above-average growths.  You can make her an archer, a melee weapon triangle adept (Weapon Master), or a mix of both ranged and melee combat.  I'd also argue that Donnel is significantly more difficult to level than Mozu is, especially since Donnel is forced to stay stuck as a crappy villager until he hits level 10.

Speaking of ranged combat though, archers are quite a bit better in this game in spite of the fact that bows were added to the weapon triangle.  Dark magic saw a huge nerf in this game; Nosferatu is now kinda crap, and the dark mages themselves are hardly as tanky.  They still have utility, but don't expect to be able to Nosferatu tank anymore.  This game saw tremendous amounts of rebalancing.

Mozu may not be a huge boon in Birthright, but she's certainly far from useless.  I'd think of her as a solid contingency plan at the very least.  And if nothing else, Aptitude is a nice skill to pass down on a child unit.

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, ashlyn said:

If you want more magic units, then she could also function decently as an Onmyoji, however I think she would most likely be outranked in that class by Orochi, Rhajat, or even Sakura, if you choose to put her in that class. 

I beg to differ, at least on Orochi and Rhajat - the former has a severe case of crippling overspecialization (she can hit hard, but that's about where Orochi's good points end), and the latter tends to have pretty bad skill, meaning she's gonna miss often. Sakura, imho, is better off picking up a bow.

6 hours ago, ashlyn said:

Asugi is also a viable option, because he not only has good Spd and Res, but he also generally has more Skl than Kaze and has more Mag, so he can use the Flame Shuriken effectively. The only problem with him is that it takes longer to get him than it does to get Kaze.

That's dependent on his mother, actually.

[joshcja]

If you want non-mu/Firstserve mages in BR Hayato/Rhajat/Orachi are all solid as Oni Cheiftains and bolt naginata Sakura is pretty solid.

Edited March 20, 2018 by joshcja

[ashlyn]

16 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I beg to differ, at least on Orochi and Rhajat - the former has a severe case of crippling overspecialization (she can hit hard, but that's about where Orochi's good points end), and the latter tends to have pretty bad skill, meaning she's gonna miss often. Sakura, imho, is better off picking up a bow.

That's dependent on his mother, actually.

I wasn't taking those stats into consideration and was mainly thinking of her Mag stat, so I didn't think of that originally. To me, Orochi's best stats arguably are her Mag and Skl, which would both be higher than Felicia's, even though it's only by a point or so. I agree though that Orochi doesn't have many outstanding stats, so I guess Felicia could potentially function better than her. Rhajat's Skl can be fixed, depending on who you choose as her mother. It usually doesn't change too much but it's possible to make it not be completely horrible, since you could give her weapons with higher hit rates or the skill Certain Blow to help with that too. I ended up doing that and had her mom as Mozu, who helped add more Skl and Spd to her. In all honesty, all three would perform about the same, when you don't take into account who you have as Rhajat's mother and exclude bonuses from statues.

Sakura is a really good unit and I think she's pretty flexible. I liked her using a bow in the Priestess class but in my recent playthrough, I decided to change things up and see how she was as a Swordmaster. It's a little bit different for sure than what most people do, but I wanted to experiment. It's been fun so far playing with her in that class. I think in the end she will end up having stats close to Hana's, but I think she will be better than Hinata. The only thing I really miss from having her as a Priestess is her outfit with the class, since it matched Mikoto's. But on the other hand, it is pretty hilarious watching her kick ass with a sword, lol.

I agree that with Asugi it does depend on who the mother is, and I should have took that into consideration. Generally, I've seen Asugi as having more Mag than Kaze, who usually has really low Mag for me. In some cases he may have the same Mag as his dad, but it's usually higher by a couple of points. In that aspect, he is most hurt by Oboro who decreases it more than anyone else in Birthright, as far as I know, unless Saizo marries a F!Corrin with bane Mag. His Res is generally very close to Kaze's, with it only being a little bit lower. He also usually has very high Skl and is on par with his father, or in some cases surpasses him. The main thing with Asugi that is important with the mothers is how much Spd he ends up with, which is almost always a pretty high amount, unless his mom is Orochi, who makes it pretty abysmal. Because of all this, I guess Saizo would also be a good choice, since you get him earlier on in the game and don't have to worry about any modifiers from parents. I just wanted to offer someone else in the same class as Kaze who could maybe offer something different in some areas, and work as another Mag unit. 

I'm actually glad you pointed that stuff out because it made me think more and compare them more, so now I might have some new ideas for my game. Plus, it's always interesting to hear other thoughts on the matter. This is slightly off topic, but now I'm curious as to who you chose as Rhajat's and Asugi's mother, if you decided to get both kids. Like I said earlier, I chose Mozu as Rhajat's mother for the hair color but then she turned out to be pretty good. I initially chose Orochi as Asugi's mother for ship reasons, but I found out that it made Asugi pretty bad, lmao. When I played the game again, I instead made Sakura be his mom, which proved to be a much better decision. 

 

[Dean]

On 3/21/2018 at 12:49 AM, joshcja said:

bolt naginata Sakura is pretty solid.

You've got me interested. Do you Heart Seal her straight away to get started on the Lance rank? (well, I suppose the only other option is force-feeding her Arms Scrolls).

She seems... very dependant on Rinkah pair-up in the early game. But I suppose every other unit is as well. Without her she's mostly 5-7HKOing the C7 enemies, and getting 3HKOed in return.

[joshcja]

10 hours ago, Dean said:

You've got me interested. Do you Heart Seal her straight away to get started on the Lance rank? (well, I suppose the only other option is force-feeding her Arms Scrolls).

She seems... very dependant on Rinkah pair-up in the early game. But I suppose every other unit is as well. Without her she's mostly 5-7HKOing the C7 enemies, and getting 3HKOed in return.

You do have to feed her kills early. Kinda like every other unit in BR not named corn/jacob/silias.

It's super easy to set up off dragonstome chip/attack stance though.

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/20/2018 at 11:55 AM, ashlyn said:

I wasn't taking those stats into consideration and was mainly thinking of her Mag stat, so I didn't think of that originally. To me, Orochi's best stats arguably are her Mag and Skl, which would both be higher than Felicia's, even though it's only by a point or so. I agree though that Orochi doesn't have many outstanding stats, so I guess Felicia could potentially function better than her. Rhajat's Skl can be fixed, depending on who you choose as her mother. It usually doesn't change too much but it's possible to make it not be completely horrible, since you could give her weapons with higher hit rates or the skill Certain Blow to help with that too. I ended up doing that and had her mom as Mozu, who helped add more Skl and Spd to her. In all honesty, all three would perform about the same, when you don't take into account who you have as Rhajat's mother and exclude bonuses from statues.

Sakura is a really good unit and I think she's pretty flexible. I liked her using a bow in the Priestess class but in my recent playthrough, I decided to change things up and see how she was as a Swordmaster. It's a little bit different for sure than what most people do, but I wanted to experiment. It's been fun so far playing with her in that class. I think in the end she will end up having stats close to Hana's, but I think she will be better than Hinata. The only thing I really miss from having her as a Priestess is her outfit with the class, since it matched Mikoto's. But on the other hand, it is pretty hilarious watching her kick ass with a sword, lol.

I agree that with Asugi it does depend on who the mother is, and I should have took that into consideration. Generally, I've seen Asugi as having more Mag than Kaze, who usually has really low Mag for me. In some cases he may have the same Mag as his dad, but it's usually higher by a couple of points. In that aspect, he is most hurt by Oboro who decreases it more than anyone else in Birthright, as far as I know, unless Saizo marries a F!Corrin with bane Mag. His Res is generally very close to Kaze's, with it only being a little bit lower. He also usually has very high Skl and is on par with his father, or in some cases surpasses him. The main thing with Asugi that is important with the mothers is how much Spd he ends up with, which is almost always a pretty high amount, unless his mom is Orochi, who makes it pretty abysmal. Because of all this, I guess Saizo would also be a good choice, since you get him earlier on in the game and don't have to worry about any modifiers from parents. I just wanted to offer someone else in the same class as Kaze who could maybe offer something different in some areas, and work as another Mag unit. 

I'm actually glad you pointed that stuff out because it made me think more and compare them more, so now I might have some new ideas for my game. Plus, it's always interesting to hear other thoughts on the matter. This is slightly off topic, but now I'm curious as to who you chose as Rhajat's and Asugi's mother, if you decided to get both kids. Like I said earlier, I chose Mozu as Rhajat's mother for the hair color but then she turned out to be pretty good. I initially chose Orochi as Asugi's mother for ship reasons, but I found out that it made Asugi pretty bad, lmao. When I played the game again, I instead made Sakura be his mom, which proved to be a much better decision. 

 

Well, like I said earlier,  Orochi does have good magic and skill, but her offense is compromised by the fact that she's so darn slow. Rhajat has that dismal 10% base growth that destroys any chance her skill growth had of being something approaching decent. 

That's the feeling I get from her too. Though I might pick up Renewal.

Asugi having more mag than Kaze shouldn't be surprising - the latter has a big fat goose egg for magic growth.

I do get them, but I don't tend to use them - I prioritize Midori, Sophie, Mitama and Selkie.

[joshcja]

Rhajat can pretty easily reach 50%+ skill growth after parent+class mods.

In a game with forgeable pony/reverse tome.

In a game where enemies have FE8 stats.

In a series where secret books are clearly the most valued and competed for resource.