Want to get back in

[Zihark11]

so im looking to go hard core into heroes again. Any suggestions on who i should check out for helpful guides? ive got 2 and half teams of level 40s and about 30 5 star characters. 

[MacLovin]

yo

there's probably f2p newby guides somewhere, and idk if this goes anywhere else but I'll give you what I've been doing.

This is assumed f2p, no 5* or limited exclusives. 

If you have the tempest trial and GHB units, they're pretty much all great for f2p use. Even clive can be made competent.

Reds

• Soleil- Great stats, good base weapon, and can do almost any set for a sword unit. 38/35 neutral natured offenses on a unit that's a 4* pool one is insane. 
• Fir- Solely good due to her refined sword. If you get a +atk/spd one, then she's golden. 
• Ares- 4* pool sword cav with a prf weapon that allows for 0 turn cool down on 3* specials. He only really wants vantage as important SI. Probably the best sword cav for f2p peeps.
• Xander- DC weapon using GHB sword cav. Solid defenses and can make great use of stance skills plus bonfire spam. Worthwhile promo if you haven't pulled Ares yet.
• Adult Tiki- 3-4* pool red dragon. She comes with a refineable DC weapon and has great minmaxed atk/def stats. Pretty easy to build and shits all over the game when used properly. She only gets better with high investment, but functions pretty well on budget builds.
• Lilina- 3-4* red mage. She's all attack and nothing much. Her refined tome gets death blow, meaning she can stack death blow with her tome and the A skill slot for +12 attack on PP. Pretty good unit and fun to raise. 
• Tharja - 3-4* pool red mage. Solid bladetome user with decent speed if you don't want to raise Lilina. Tharja is vanilla, but reliable.
• Caeda- 3-4* pool sword flier. Probably your best bet for a f2p red flier unless you get super lucky and roll an Elincia. Anyways caeda has a great sword refine. But she REALLY wants a +atk>+spd>+res nature since her damage output is kinda crappy. Still an easy build with like darting blow, desperation, and iceberg or sth. Palla's the only other low rarity sword flier and is a mediocre jack of all trades.
• Marth is a buffbot. He's good if you want a buffbot with anti dragon capabilities.
• Chrom is a high attack, shit speed falchion beatstick. He's good if you want that, but  it depends on your choice.
• Draug is your only f2p sword armor option. He's good with investment and functions well. If you got the Black Knight or Arden from their TTs and have no interest in making an armor team for arena, then I'd say use them for your pve armor team. Zephiel is also decent.
• Hana is alright with her inbuilt LaD.
• Eirika is a solid buffbot with good stats and a good prf.
• Vanguard Ike is a freebie from the story mode and is essential to many f2p guides
• Arvis is a quadploy debuffer. Solid, but not amazing. 
• Olivia is the ultimate f2p hero.

Blues

• Nowi is amazing and a 3-4* rarity blue dragon with a DC weapon and good statline. Use her and cheese the game.
• F!Corrin is also a good dragon of the same rarity. However, she's more of a speedy one with less attack and no lightning breath built in.
• Cordelia is a cheap to build lance flier that only wants death blow. 35/35 offenses are amazing.
• Shigure is a cheap to build lance flier that focuses on speed. He wants more SI than Cordelia though.
• Ephraim is a great lance infantry unit with auto-doubling on his refine and a buffbot effect on the prf.
• Lukas and Oboro are tanky lance foot units that can just take bonfire/ignis and a slaying lance to be great. Lukas is more minmaxed for atk/def, but Oboro's build for mixed tanking. Both are easy to raise and don't have important skills to fodder, so they're easy merge projects.
• Oscar best f2p lance cav. He's got good offense and has a built in solid B and C skill. Just give him any lance of your choice and a good A skill and he's solid.
• Camus is a DC lance cav from the GHB. Solid enough.
• The Reinhardt is an amazing 3-4* unit that is essentially a very good f2p unit due to his brave magic tome. Just give him death blow and moonbow.
• L'Arachel and Ursula are also fine blue tome cavs that can utilize bladetomes well. Ursula is a free GHB unit and L'Arachel also has a prf Invaldi tome (stronk) and comes with res. tactics.
• Tailtiu is likely your best f2p infantry blue mage.  Good stats and weapon. Easy to build and etc.
• Effie is a good armor and has stupidly high strength. While her res. stat isn't as good as the other low rarity lance armor, Effie is easier to use.
• Valter is a good GHB lance flier with a fury-lite built into his prf and innate panic ploy on his C skill slot. He's solid overall.
• Fjorm is a story mode recruited Legendary Hero with a DC weapon. She's essential to f2p strats.

Greens

• Raven- LnD on his refine, good stats, low rarity. 
• Nino- bladetome, good stats, low rarity.
• Linus- good stats, same wpn as Raven, comes with good skills,  and is a GHB unit that might return soon.
• Fae- The only f2p green dragon. Good for investment. Solid overall
• Titania- Support oriented axe cav. Can run triple tactics for good buffing.
• Frederick- An ok axe cav since there's not a lot of mergeable options. Solid enough.
• Walhart- GHB axe cav with a solid kit. Might rerun in december or jan.?
• Cherche- the best f2p axe flier. Good refine weapon and good stats. Easy to build and merge.
• Camilla- trickier axe flier to use, but is great on flier teams with her prf.
• Beruka- Solid axe flier that just wants ignis and QR/Guard. Flying wall.
• Michalis- Super Solid GHB axe flier. Good prf and similar statline to cherche. Comes with the iote's shield. Easy to build.
• Sheena- Literally your only f2p axe armor option. Lmao. She's great with investment however.
• Cecilia- The only f2p green mage cav. option. Solid overall.
• Soren- Solid green mage with good stats and refined weapon.

Note that greens don't have a ton of really amazing options at lower rarity aside from Raven(and linus)/Nino/Cherche/Fae. The rest are great, but not on the level of being lmao shitfuckers.

Colorless

• Klein's the best f2p bow infantry due to needing almost no skill fodder outside of moonbow and an assist slot+C slot.
• However the free takumi isn't bad Either. Ditto for the Fallen!Takumi as well.
• If you really want another infantry bowman, there's also Leon with his solid stats. Jamke's good too if you got him.
• Brave Lyn, if you got her as your free CYL 1 pick, is amazing.
• Sothe is literally the best dagger unit. 
• Felicia is alright with her refined weapon having adaptive damage ala dragonbreath and a high res. stat for iceberg nukes and mage tanking.
• I''m on the fence about recommending Kagero for a dagger unit. She just wants a barbed shuriken from kaze and death/darting blow.  On the other hand, she's just kinda ok without major SI. 
• Dagger units aren't a top priority so I'd recommend going for Sothe or maybe Felicia if you want one. 
• CYL 2 Veronica is a super solid horse staffer. She's got support and offense.
• The rest of the horse staffbots are pretty much interchangeable. Elisse is noteable for her good statline and Maribelle has good stats plus a rare staff.  The rest are worthwhile with SI so it comes down to personal preference. (Even the current TT reward Ethlyn is great.)
• Staff units in general come down to personal preference. However, note that Azama is a somewhat unique one with his good bulk. 
• I know this shouldn't count, but I'm gonna recommend pulling for Legendary Robin (Grima) on the leg. banners. She's a flying colorless dragon and has been on every leg. banner since her release. She's super solid and a ton of fun. 

Also, don't forget to grab the tempest trials ethlyn. 

[Garlyle]

How long has it been? Keep an eye on Legendary banners for profit, get Ethlyn if you can in time. As for 3-4 heroes checklist: Reinhardt, Lilina, Tailtiu, Effie, Shigure, Ares. If you can collect CYL freebies, go for Lyn and Veronica. From GHB Ursula.

Basicly what I said here is good to start or to come back:

 

[eclipse]

So, skills.  Namely, inheritance.

- Shigure gives out Harmonic Lance (think the lance version of Wo Dao) and Swift Stance.  I'd keep a good one (+Atk or +Spd), and use the rest for fodder.
- Ares gives Brazen Atk/Def, and it triggers at 80% max HP.  Slap it on a unit with Vantage for giggles.
- Since Cordelia's in the 3-4 pool, getting a good one should be a lot easier.  Once you do, one of her offensive options is a Firesweep Lance, courtesy of Roderick.
- Speaking of, Cordelia's also your source of Galeforce.  And ironically enough, Chrom is the Aether source.  Coincidence?
- Setsuna's weapon can be given to anyone, and becomes a Guard Bow after refinement.  Put it on someone who's meant to take punishment.
- Don't underestimate Pain+ (Dazzling) with Savage Blow in the C and S slots.  Azama and Lucius hand that out.
- Leon is both excellent fodder (Slaying Bow and Guard) and the best non-event Brave Bow user to date.  Speed is irrelevant when you're hitting twice for 58 damage (which can go higher).
- The best source for Sol is Raven (yes, there are times you'll want this).  Second-best is Chrom, but I'd rather inherit Aether.
- Drive Spd is on Tailtiu.  It's amazing.
- Despite his stats, Merric has the Excalibur refinement and Dark Excalibur to play with.  They're good tomes, but it's up to you to figure out how to make Merric shine (good luck).
- Get Ethlyn, she has Spd/Res Bond and a decent stat spread.

[SuperTroll Maxim Lapierre]

Brave Veronica would be the most useful choice for you in the free CYL2 summon.

Raven up your green mages to counter Lynhardt as you move up the arena tiers. Triangle Adept+QR/Bowbreaker is the ticket. +Res nature is useful because of Quickened Pulse+Moonbow on Reinhardt. It's good to have three. Female Robin is a freebie.