Johnnie

Low manning in any Fire Emblem completely removes any challenge. Try full-recruitment, no-grind, no pair-up, full deployment and deploy by lowest level on every map. That provides a decent challenge even on hard.

Great Master is basically there to take advantage of Azama's great physical growths. No one else will get there without a H/P/F Seal, and most of them would rather go Onmyoji instead. Maid/Butler are there to give a different spin on the Jeigan concept, similar to Sothe in RD.

I forgot about the usefulness of Pass. I'm talking about the two Apothecary skills. The first one means a +2 tonic turns into a +3. The second means you can still attack or trade afterwards. Like I said, situationally useful but they're at least worth grabbing for the 7 or so characters who can get it.

Don't under-estimate those Apothecary skills. 150 in gold gives +3 to a stat and a free extra turn which is very handy for certain situations. Not that it's worth grinding every character through Apothecary, but it is worth it to grab for the characters who can get it naturally whether through marriage or inheritance. Outlaw is similarly useless aside from the +1 move. Good luck.

Pretty much, yes. Though thinking about it more you would have to do 2 playthroughs as Apothecary Corrin (male and female); 1 as a male Oni; 1 as a male Spear Fighter due to the rarity of those classes. You'd also have to do a separate file for each class if you want to include the Corrin -sexuals, which means repeating the process on both Conquest and Revelations for the unique characters. The child units would be harder if you want to include them since they have more limited supports.

On mobile so bear with me. Yes, when you add a unit to your logbook after beating the game that logbook character will retain every skill you taught. Except maybe DLC skills; I'm not sure. Using my Jakob above, I can start a new game and buy every Cavalier, Troubadour, Pegasus and Archer skills (including the ones you don't see) on to my new file. It's only for characters you capture from other castles that you can only access the skills that are equipped. To efficiently get every Birthright skill onto a character is why you need 2 files. I'll keep using Jakob. Take him to right before endgame with only learning his base class sets and Archer from Takumi, then make a second copy of this save. On one copy marry him to someone, grind him up through the class sets and beat the game and add him to your logbook. Don't save! On the second save you can then buy those skills onto the other Jakob and save the game. Go back to the first save and marry Jakob to someone else. Keep repeating this process until you have all the skills on one character, beat the game and add them to the logbook. You can then delete all previous copies of that character. The only skills you couldn't do this with are the illegal skills: Nohr Prince, Dancer, Villager and Kitsune/Wolf. And possibly DLC skills since I never tested that.

Meet Jakob. He's in my logbook with every Cavalier, Troubadour, Archer and Pegasus skill. When recruited he keeps all of his skills and class options from his previous file. If I were to take another Jakob to endgame with say Samurai skills, I could buy every one of these skills onto the new Jakob and add him to the logbook. Then he would have the skill sets of 5 classes but only his default class options and Samurai. I could repeat this process indefinitely until I had a Jakob with every skill in the game. Given enough time and patience, I would only need 2 save files to accomplish this and I could work on 5 units at a time.

When you beat the game and add a unit to the logbook they do retain every skill you taught them. So you could add every skill to Oboro, beat the game and she would have every skill retained in the logbook on a new playthrough. The classes wouldn't carryover.

Mind, I'm doing a gimmick run. Every unit I'm using on my Conquest team is in a Hoshidan class. More speed than you can shake a stick at and plenty of strength, but nearly everyone is a paper tiger. For a unit breakdown, have a list: Basara Corrin, Azura, Sniper Niles, Master Ninja Xander, Swordmaster Odin, Master of Arms Leo, Kinshi Knight Selena, Mechanist Camilla, Spear Master Haitaka, Onmyoji Jakob, Merchant Midori, Falcon Knight Elise, Master Ninja Laslow and Mechanist Shura. My highest natural defense going into Chapter 17 is Xander at 20; my average is 14. I don't care about resistance since Jakob has Tomebreaker and Elise and Shura are flush with it. As I said, I'm finding the mid game to be significantly easier than normal but I'm wondering if I'll be able to hit benchmarks for the end.

Selena actually does decent as a Kinshi if you're willing to baby her through the early levels. Though it's on Hard, I'm finding using all Hoshidan classes to be pretty easy compared to normal. Doubling thresholds are easier to meet and there's enough damage to one-round most everything. My only regret so far is not capturing Kumagera so my only physical tanks are Haitaka and Xander.

I've rarely had Selena work for me so she's usually benched after Chapter 10.

It really can't be stated enough how powerful and useful the bonus items are. You get one of each kind of staff, one each killer/effective/dual/magic/blessed/special/brave weapon, and several joke weapons and staves some of which are hillariously overpowered. Also 2 3-range weapons and 2 of each stat booster except Boots and Arms Scroll. And if you're somehow short on cash, the battle and visit seals sell for 10 grand each.

When I use Benny it's usually as a General. Instant promotion lets him solo Kitsune Lair and he will usually get Wary Fighter before it's done. He makes a great pair up both after that. I've never used Charlotte at all.

My favorite thing about Conquest is all the different ways you can play the game. Like I said, I'm doing a Hoshidan units run. This means Heart Seals for the Awakening kids and Corrin; Friendship and Partner Seals for the Royals, Silas, Niles and Effie; using Midori and Shigure and things like that. It's surprising how effective these classes can be in this path.

Did a similar strategy last night on this map. I'm redoing my Hoshidan Conquest run so I'm doing it on Hard. Basara Jakob, Swordmaster Odin and Kinshi Selena steamroll this map. I completely ignored the reinforcements and the middle though I also left Ryoma alive. Pretty easy map compared to previous runs.

Chest keys don't carry over in Fates. Use them or lose them. Same with door keys. I always go straight through the center on this map. Nos Odin or Effie/Silas with a javelin and Lily's Poise will easily soften up at least one spear fighter and archer while Corrin with Jakob in attack stance can do the same for another spear fighter. Every one else can be cleaned up on turn 2 and you can always burn a Freeze use if needed. This is also a great chapter for feeding Nos Odin since he makes short work of the archers by Haitaka.

I did Samurai Odin on my Hoshidan classes run. He turns into Ryoma by endgame with Heartseeker and a critical bonus on a forged Killing Edge. I prefer to keep him in Dark Mage since he facetanks better through the mid-game but Samurai is more viable for endgame.

We get it, you hate Arthur and axes. You've been beating this horse for 3 years now and I seem to remember you doing the same with Vaike before then. It's dead. Let it rest.

I think the only decent weapon you get from any of the Paralogue is the Swordbreaker. Reina is the best bird in the game and the best bow-bird. Hinoka might catch up in speed but none of them will reach her strength for a long time, if ever. I doubt it's reasonable to unlock all of the children without grinding so that's not a compelling reason to bench her in my mind. And since I did recruit Caeldori I might as well let Reina see use.

Probably a C, if only for the pair up benefits to Corrin.

I'd say he still remains solid without reclassify. He still remains a solid debuffer, Tomebreaker makes for the best magekilling and Butler/Maid is the only class that can S-Rank staves.

Just finished Chapter 12, which is usually one of the more difficult for me. It was a complete cakewalk. I'm honestly finding the early game easier than usual. Still grinding supports. The only ones not in their Hoshidan class are Niles and Silas. Going into Chapter 13 I have Oni Savage Corrin, Oni Chieftain Jakob, Falcon Knight Elise, Archer Effie, Ninja Kaze, Dread Fighter Camilla and Spear Fighter Haitaka. Everyone is at or near promotion, so I'll probably start after the next map. I'm planning to recruit Shigure and Midori soon with Arthur and Camilla as their parents. I may use Percy as a pegasus but it'll depend on his stats.

Decided to marry Arthur to Azura. HP +5 would be useful on Shigure, I think. Niles is going to marry Mozu since he needs Elbow Room. Going to go with Corrin, Jakob, Niles, Kaze, Effie, Silas, Azura, Elise, Camilla, Shigure, Midori for a main team. Camilla is a dread fighter for now, I may marry her to Kaze.

Oni Savage and Blacksmith aren't stellar but Chieftain is pretty solid. The Seal skills work better on a ninja. One of my favorite gimmick builds is MN Rinkah with 3 seals. Ultimate debuffer even with 0 damage. :)

Thankfully Corrin has decent Skill and Blacksmith gives a high bonus and growth. Whoever marries Effie is irrelevant. I'm changing them to their Hoshidan classes and calling it done. I'm even tempted to remove their Nohrian skills but I haven't decided yet. I'll probably marry Effie to Silas to get the early Partner Seal. I also haven't decided who is marrying Azura; Silas would be a waste. Maybe Niles since he doesn't need the extra damage.