SylvieLeo

I'll be nice. Super Saiyan Charlotte!Soleil as Hero.

Looking for an Arthur with Rend Heaven. If anyone has him, thanks!

Seconding the Benny comment. It is also worth having him being one of the first units you promote -- I promote him to General as soon as he joins just to get that monstrous defense (so he doesn't get too hurt from being doubled until he gets the Wary Fighter skill at lvl 5). Yes, that is one Master Seal of the precious few you get/buy that early in the game, but everyone else you should really grind until level 20 before promoting -- yes, even Elise. She needs all the opportunities to raise her Skill stat, which the Troubadour class can help with, before she can do crazy damage as Strategist or Malig Knight, if you so desire. Hopefully by the time most of your units (that you care enough about) are ready to promote only when you get access to more Seals roughly Chs. 18 onward. I agree. Museum Melee, IIRC, doesn't give exp in Conquest, which makes it a terrible chore/form of self-torture with all the enemies that will swarm you. I have shamelessly been using Boo Camp to help some of my weaker characters gain some much needed levels (Mozu, who joins at lvl 1, and Kaze, who joins at lvl 10, come to mind). DLC is always optional and not a must have -- after all, the game designers did make it possible to beat the game without extras.

That's nice of IS to have that plug. I haven't played Awakening (yet?), so this just seemed weird. But now I question why Owain became a Dark Mage when he adopted the Odin persona -- was it just to have Nohrian class? And Inigo/Laslow is the odd one out.

Why do fhe Awakening Trio have access to Hoshidan-only classes (Selena: Sky Knight, Odin: Samurai, Laslow: Ninja)? Did they spend time training in Hoshido? But this doesn't seem likely, since it never comes up in conversations about their background checks or how they became Nohrian retainers. Or is this just a mark of IS's bias toward Hoshido ("Here are a few classes we know you missed having from Birthright... except you won't be able to have other characters partner seal to them. Too bad! That's what you get for picking the dark side, neenerneener~")?

Actually, if you pick Branch of Fate, you will be taken to the Avatar creation menu, so you can change your Avatar if desired. What do not change are the play settings (Normal/Hard/Lunatic and Phoenix/Casual/Classic) as well as the stat increases/level ups for your Avatar of your last playthrough.

Like I said, I'll probably end up benching Arthur once I get enough flexibility with the number of units in my camp. Fighters/Berserkers are very much high risk, high reward. They definitely need all the pair-up bonuses that they can get because of their abysmal Luck stat and innate Crit Avoid penalty. If you can get Arthur or Charlotte to have a good partner, they definitely make it easier to clear a map. Arthur in attack stance with Effie or Selena was huge for me in Conquest 10 just because of all the axe/club- and naginata/lance/shuriken-wielding enemies, so weapon triangle advantage at least didn't work against him. Of course, RNG is cruel and some enemies will get that 5% crit... People should play however suits their strategy style, but they shouldn't shy away from a class/unit until they get a chance to tinker with them. I like Arthur only until I get his son Percy, whose personal skill is wondrous, and Charlotte for whatever beastly child she produces. I usually make Charlotte's child a Berserker because they'll have all-around better stats than her. (Not to mention Charlotte's only real use is in PvP, as her personal skill will allow her to dominate the field, but let's not talk about PvP...)

Let me also place emphasis on Conquest 10 as a defend map: keep your units clustered around the defend points, and make sure Elise has the Freeze staff. Arthur has been usable in my Conquest Hard/casual run so far -- RNG has been blessing him with a number of successful critical hits even at around 15%, and he can take one physical hit or so. I probably will bench him in the late game, when I have more units. Speaking of which, in Conquest and Revelations, the number of units you have in the early game is very limited, so your early units will probably end up OP. Be sure to evenly spread experience when you can. There are joke weapons that you may get by luck, such as the Cupid's Bow, which restores health to the enemy unit. This of course can be exploited for experience gain. Actually, a number of the joke weapons are actually quite useful for their accuracy, even with the low damage output -- sometimes you want to actually land the hit rather than gamble on RNG. If you want to use child units, you'll want to optimize for them. This may make your play a bit more complicated than you'd like, so just use your first playthrough to get familiar with the game mechanics and different units, then optimize marriages in a second/later playthrough. Don't aim for balanced units, since they're likely to end up neutered with the way RNG usually plays out. In general, you'll want to stick to whatever class branch the character appears with, but there are several characters who would prefer a different class branch that they can get by marriage or friendship. For example, both Sakura and Azama have pretty high Strength growth, so you may want to reclass them to a physical fighter unit (Swordmaster, Berserker, or General are some possibilities), but they come as the Priestess/Monk class, which are healers. If you need healers, keep them as such. If you have enough healers, you can manipulate their feelings/relationships to switch them to the offensive. I wouldn't expect too much from the actual story, but the gameplay is absolutely fantastic and is the reason that people keep playing Fates, so I hope you enjoy! (Edited for clarity.)

I have a female Avatar, +Spd/-Lck, Samurai talent (which actually might have been a waste since there are no Katanas in this game, sigh). My plan so far is: Effie!Midori as General or Master Ninja Nyx!Dwyer as Strategist (or is there a way I can make him Dark Knight?) Selena!Sophie Charlotte!Siegbert as Berserker Felicia!Forrest as Sorcerer (possibly Dark Knight, though I'll have to see how usable his Str will be) Peri!Ignatius as General Camilla!Velouria, S-rank Shigure to Kinshi Knight Laslow!Shigure Azura!Soleil as Kinshi Knight or Master Ninja Beruka!Percy Elise!Ophelia as Sorcerer/Witch Mozu!Nina as Merchant Charlotte!Siegbert!Kana I'm not deadset on any of these, and I don't have some classes planned. There are lots of variables, like I could swap Nyx and Mozu to get a more magical-bent Nina, which would be fine and I wouldn't need a magical-bent Dwyer. I also know the wonders of Charlotte!Soleil, so I'm not adverse to that. I always lament having a slow Percy, but there's nothing I can do here, at least I don't think I can. Children I don't really care for are Sophie, Shigure, and Dwyer, so feel free to suggest different parents for them. Finally, I could totally have a different father for Kana, especially since Charlotte's hair color doesn't look that great on Male Kana, haha.

So I am on my second play through of Conquest, this time on Hard/casual. I don't remember every mission and what type of enemies are prevalent in CQ, so those might influence my decision on marriages. Because I really like Midori (who doesn't?), I'm struggling with who should be Midori's mother. I think I did Beruka in my last CQ play based on an "optimized marriages" list, and I don't remember her being good at anything. This time around, I'd like to have either Azura or Effie be Midori's mom, and keep Midori either a Master Ninja or maybe even play around with General. The only thing about Azura is that I'm hoping to save her for Kinshi Knight Soleil. What do you guys think?

Charlotte!Velouria!Kana has better HP, Strength, and Speed (at the cost of Def), and is an incredible beast. Literally. My Kana is level 20/10, and already has 30 Str after recruiting her with a level 4 Offspring Seal. She tears through anything and even manages to survive a Wyrmslayer/Beastslayer hit or two if she doesn't outright dodge.

I've definitely lost on Conquest Ch 10 (where win condition is not to beat the boss but to defend tiles from capture) several times before I realized I needed to get my act together, since playing casual made me be casual. Usually I reset if I lose Corrin, so I've never gotten to the point of losing my entire party.

If you're not adverse to buying skills from other people's castles, then Amaterasu is definitely worth the money for Azura and Mitama, both of whose personal skills can combine with Amaterasu for extra HP back for surrounding units. Actually, it might be good to buy Amaterasu for all your healers, since they're usually standing behind other units anyway! Personally, I'm a fan of Lifetaker, especially on speedier units who don't have high strength/defense but can finish off an enemy by doubling. By doing so, they can recover whatever damage they did receive while attacking. However, the only downside is that Lifetaker activates only on Player phase. I can see a skill like Vengeance (hit harder during Enemy phase) working really well with Lifetaker (get back HP on Player phase).

I haven't leveled up most of those units either, haha. Good luck to the both of us on level grinding, oh man....

Charlotte, Kagero, Silas, and Arthur are up!