Let’s see
Early Promoting is generally the best way to go, personally I like to get a few extra levels in but that’s just me
Postgame doesn’t require a team of maxed out Looped DFs, you’ll probably be fine even with promoting fairly early
enemy witches tend to teleport to party members separated from the main group and lag behind others
terrain bonuses are huge, this is why magic has static hit rates
Resistance is pretty much static, most characters have a growth from 1-8%, so it’s all down to luck. Think of it like a random blessing from the gods or something.
Support bonuses are nice and I’ve never needed to go out of my way to build a support, although I forget the exact range the support bonuses extend out, maybe 3 tiles?
weapons that are generally regarded as good weapons:
Brave sword (high crit, no weight, and decent 9 might when fully forged)
Killer bow (high crit, hunters volley is OP as hell, but a pretty hefty weight penalty of 4 when unforced and 2 at max forge, but with hunters volley speed isn’t much of a concern) evolve from a 1 star silver, which you can evolve from a 1 star steel, which you can get from evolving a 1 star iron
Zweihander (decent stats but has great combat arts, ESPECIALLY Tigerstance, which adds your skill stat to your attack) evolve from a 2 star steel sword
One weapon i think is quite good is the Rhomphaia. It’s got a pretty hefty weight and you need to forge your one ridersbane into it, but the Dragonhaze art is great (adds speed to attack). But the price of forgoing the ridersbane is a pretty hefty toll.
i forget the exact price needed to get these weapons and forge them, but I do know most require gold marks to either make or fully forge so it may not be feasible to get them all right away.