Best Banner to Start From

[ninjero]

Been waiting to play this game for a while now, since I figured the meta would change dramatically in the first 6 months or so. Now that the game's been out for some time, I'm hoping to take the dive pretty soon. 

One of the things I've noticed is that there isn't clear documentation on here about the current/upcoming banners. As a new player but experienced f2p gacha gamer, I want to make absolutely sure I'm rerolling on the best banner before I start. Since the game is still less than a year old I'll inevitably still might run up against powercreep, but I'm hoping to mitigate it at least a little bit by starting with some heroes with awesome staying power. 

Is there a banner going right now that's great, or should I sit on my hands a bit more 'till something truly awesome shows up?

[Thane]

If you roll for waifus, you never waste orbs. That's the golden rule.

More seriously, however, while I'm fairly new to the game as well, I've heard a lot of good things about Klein on the Quick Riposte banner, as he is the skill inheritance god, but someone better than me at the game might want to chime in to make sure I don't mislead you.

What I will say is that the current summer banner is seasonal, and thus won't return for a year or so, and as far as I know, they're all pretty decent units.

[thecrimsonflash]

It really depends on what you are going for, if you want to go for meta you will want to try to get reinhardt (olwen has dire thunder aswell but I don't know if it is part of the meta, can someone clarify?), but if you want to get characters that you actually want you will  just need to look at the current banners or just wait for future ones.

Edited July 24, 2017 by thecrimsonflash

[ninjero]

7 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

It really depends on what you are going for, if you want to go for meta you will want to try to get reinhardt (olwen has dire thunder aswell but I don't know if it is part of the meta, can someone clarify?), but if you want to get characters that you actually want you will  just need to look at the current banners or just wait for future ones.

I'm behind on my real FE gaming as well (only played Blazing Blade, PoR, & Awakening) so getting my waifu isn't necessarily AS important... Reinhart seems like a really random character though 

[Magical Glace]

19 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

(olwen has dire thunder aswell but I don't know if it is part of the meta, can someone clarify?)

Olwen's role is different from Reinhardt's.  She makes a much better user of Blarblade(+), and when using Dire Thunder instead is more about attacking 4 times with Life and Death/Desperation than getting as much off with the initial 2 attacks as possible, since her attack is lower while her speed is higher.  

 

That said, purely as far as meta goes I do recommend rerolling for Reinhardt (preferably a +Attack one, but neutral attack is also pretty good).  Dire Thunder, combined with  attack buffs, can let him do a lot of damage easily on his turn, and this is a rather player phase oriented game compared to the rest of the series that I've played sans maybe Conquest.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Glaceon Sage

[kcirrot]

For a brand new player there are three characters that could be very helpful, now and in the future.  

Summer Robin, Summer Tiki and Gray, all currently available have a skill called [weapon] valor.  Robin has lance, Tiki has Axe, Gray has sword.  These are very valuable skills as they allow you to train units who use those weapons.  All three characters are decent to good at what they do as well.  So if I was just starting that's where I would start.

[thecrimsonflash]

Just now, ninjero said:

I'm behind on my real FE gaming as well (only played Blazing Blade, PoR, & Awakening) so getting my waifu isn't necessarily AS important... Reinhart seems like a really random character though 

he has a tome called dire thunder which is a brave tome (hits twice when attacking) he also is mounted so he has the highest possible attack range in the game.

[Bartozio]

Some of the best units right now are Reinhardt, Nino, Tharja, and some other mages with a similar spread as those last two (but they need SI). There's also Bride!Cordelia, but she's a seasonal unit you can't get anymore, so she's kind of irrelevant for you. There's also Hector, Ryoma and Ike, who don't really break the game, but are very good well rounded units and are used by most people (and other people might say they do break the game). Finally, dancers and the Renais twins provide ridiculous support to teams, but you get a free dancer anyway, and a lot of units can be build to fill the role of the Renais twins decently enough (not as good, but close enough that you don't really need them).

None of the most broken units are on a banner right now, with Delthea coming somewhat close (similar spreak to Nino, but she would require Odin's tome to break the game), but most of the good mages aren't that rare (Nino is obtainable as a 3*, Tharja and Reinhardt as 4*).

Klein is also a very good archer and hardly needs any investment, because his starting kit is already really good. He gets outclassed by Bride!Cordelia if she's fully build, but he still does his job well enough.

In short: Delthea and Klein are the only really noteworthy characters on banners right now, and Reinhardt, Nino and Tharja are the other characters you might want to roll for (Nino a bit less, since she's relativly common).

[ninjero]

2 minutes ago, Bartozio said:

Some of the best units right now are Reinhardt, Nino, Tharja, and some other mages with a similar spread as those last two (but they need SI). There's also Bride!Cordelia, but she's a seasonal unit you can't get anymore, so she's kind of irrelevant for you. There's also Hector, Ryoma and Ike, who don't really break the game, but are very good well rounded units and are used by most people (and other people might say they do break the game). Finally, dancers and the Renais twins provide ridiculous support to teams, but you get a free dancer anyway, and a lot of units can be build to fill the role of the Renais twins decently enough (not as good, but close enough that you don't really need them).

None of the most broken units are on a banner right now, with Delthea coming somewhat close (similar spreak to Nino, but she would require Odin's tome to break the game), but most of the good mages aren't that rare (Nino is obtainable as a 3*, Tharja and Reinhardt as 4*).

Klein is also a very good archer and hardly needs any investment, because his starting kit is already really good. He gets outclassed by Bride!Cordelia if she's fully build, but he still does his job well enough.

In short: Delthea and Klein are the only really noteworthy characters on banners right now, and Reinhardt, Nino and Tharja are the other characters you might want to roll for (Nino a bit less, since she's relativly common).

11

Thank you for this! It seems like I shouldn't worry too hard about waiting for a good banner to reroll for Tharja & Reinhardt then. I am a fan of Tharja, so I'd probably opt for her.

How long would I probably have to wait for a "broken" unit to come up on a banner? Do they have "Players Choice" banners or the like? 

Like I said, I'm willing to sit on my hands. If I aim for a Tharja + some other sauce it sounds like I probably wouldn't be too disappointed, but from experience, it sounds like I should maybe wait and use my opportunity to reroll so I can get an optimal 5* ?

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Olwen is a character that's only great if you've got lots of skill inheritance and a team to make her work. Not just the blarblade, but an established Cavalry team with Fortify and Hone Cav skills. The Alm and Celica banners have some great skills and units, but most of what's on-tap besides that is rare cavalry like Eldigan, Olwen, and Leo. Klein has access to Death Blow 3, but you can pull him at 4 star if that's all you want from him. He is a really good unit without investment however, so pulling him as a 5 star would not be bad at all.

Honestly, I think the best time to have jumped in was during Hero Fest which was at the end of April. There was a banner with an increased focus rate for four of the best characters in the game that don't require much investment - Azura, Takumi, Hector, and Ryoma. Plus you would have been around for the Grand Hero Battle events for Xander and Camus, the two best F2P units, and great foundation for a cavalry team. Xander's GHB may be getting a re-run soon though. A lot of this game's excellent units are available at a low star rarity (like nino and cecilia), or given to you for free on a regular schedule. My advice is to jump into the game sooner rather than later. The orb and feather income you get on a monthly basis is really good, and there's no telling if they decide to drop it in the future, or if we're already at the maximum we'll ever see. Reroll for some good units to start with, then have fun polishing off all the orbs you'll get from story modes. It'll take a while before you can get the big bucks from Arena and Tempest Trials. 

I recommend trying to reroll for a +Atk Reinhardt (available as a 4 or 5 star), any character with built in distant or close counter - those are Ryoma, Hector, Takumi, and Ike, all 5 star exclusive. Azura or Ninian is also good so that you don't have to build up your free to play Olivia, but not as important long term as the previous two character types I mentioned. Nino is available as a 3 star, so you'll get opportunities to find her with a good nature.

[Bartozio]

2 minutes ago, ninjero said:

Thank you for this! It seems like I shouldn't worry too hard about waiting for a good banner to reroll for Tharja & Reinhardt then. I am a fan of Tharja, so I'd probably opt for her.

How long would I probably have to wait for a "broken" unit to come up on a banner? Do they have "Players Choice" banners or the like? 

Like I said, I'm willing to sit on my hands. If I aim for a Tharja + some other sauce it sounds like I probably wouldn't be too disappointed, but from experience, it sounds like I should maybe wait and use my opportunity to reroll so I can get an optimal 5* ?

 

It's very hard to predict when certain characters get a banner. The regular banners introduce new characters, so neither of them will be part of that.

There's several "special occasion" banners and the skill banners that they might appear on though. Reinhardt has already appeared on a skill banner, so he's pretty unlikely to appear there again in the near future, but Tharja might.

With special ocasions, I mostly mean the Tempest Trials and Voting Gauntlet, which are monthly events that always have a banner to go with them. Tharja has already appeared on both though, so she probably won't be appearing there any time soon. Reinhardt hasn't appeared in either, but considering the themes for these events, the chance isn't to high he'll appear there either.

The only thing close to Player Choice banners would be the CYL banner that will come after summer (that is literally all they have told us about the release date) that will feature the winners (Ike, Roy, Lyn and Lucina) of a poll that took place before the game came out (the characters will have new art and maybe new skill sets), and the Golden Week banner that featured four of the most popular characters in the game (no idea how they decided those, but it did seem pretty acurate).

If you just want Tharja and Reinhardt, there's no telling when they'll appear on a banner, so you'd either have to keep track of all banners from now on, or just start rolling and hope for the best. As @Gustavos mentioned, there's also free units getting out that are very good and you might miss if you wait to long.

There will be a new banner coming out soon though (the 28th I believe), so you could wait until then to see if something game breaking comes out (or at least a very good unit that you also happen to like a lot).

In the end, my advise would be to either just start playing the game now, and reroll for Tharja and some decent other stuff (preferably on either Kleins or Delthea's banner so the chance of getting them increases) or wait for the next banner and start then (Klein's banner will still be available at that point if the new banner isn't to your liking, but Delthea's banner will get replaced).

[Alexmender]

It's a bit hard to say with the current banners. The summer banner is limited and offers nice units but nothing game breaking, the Alm/Celica army banners offers new characters and two of them are really powerful (Delthea and Sonya respectively with Delthea being the better of the two), the Cavalry banner is the most meta atm but the characters from it need some investment to show their true power. 

I'd say that it'll be better if you roll for the characters you like because the game allows you to use every character on the roster if you invest on them, but if you are set on going for the best in the meta then I'd suggest to roll on the Quick Riposte banner for Klein and try to get a blue mage called Reinhardt alongside him.

In case you get some off banner 5* while rerolling I'd say these characters are top tier and totally worth your time: Hector, Azura, Celica, Lucina, Ryoma, Ike, Takumi and Linde.  These characters need little to no investment and will serve you well through the whole game.

Characters like Nino and Tharja are pretty powerful but they need support in order to truly shine. If you really want to use them I'd suggest rolling for one of the Renais twins to grant them the biggest amount of buffs they can get.

 

[XRay]

You can check the current banners here from the wiki. You can check old banners by clicking on the archive link towards the bottom of the page. You can check the news from the wiki for upcoming banners and information.

For the cavalry banner, Olwen is the best out of the three on the banner. It takes a lot of effort to get Ursula to 5*+2, so if you can afford to snipe several Olwens, I recommend doing so. Cecilia is a free unit and Xander's GHB should be coming up within a few months, so they will easily form the core of your cavalry team. I would not bother with the other two.

For the Echoes banners, Delthea is the best infantry mage on the banners right now. Gray has a good C skill to help with training. The rest is just okay. Sonya is not too bad, but Nino outclasses her and Nino is easily summonable.

For the Quick Riposte banner, Klein is decent. Takumi and Jeorge slightly outclasses him, but Klein comes with a good starting skill set, so you do not have to invest too much into him for him to be good, unlike Takumi and Jeorge. Since Leo is the only red tome cavalry, he is the best unit to fulfill that role with Rauðrblade. Subaki is not that useful outside of flier teams, but you can still sacrifice him for Quick Riposte 3. Quick Riposte is an amazing skill, but the 3rd tier version can only be obtained from 5* units right now. The 2nd tier is almost as effective, but you will need the 3rd tier to maximize your Arena score.

The summer banner offers limited characters that may or may not appear again in the future. Robin and Tiki has a good C skill to help with training like Gray. All the units also have decent weapons for Enemy Phase builds.

[tumut]

Try for Delthea, Sonya, Klein or Leon, and any Summer units.

 

Get yourself a good Archer since you have the chance, Summer Gaius, Leon, and Klein are all fantastic.

 

You can look at the tier list on the wiki to get an idea of who's good. ALSO WATCH OUT FOR IVS

[Ice Dragon]

26 minutes ago, Glaceon Sage said:

Olwen's role is different from Reinhardt's.  She makes a much better user of Blarblade(+), and when using Dire Thunder instead is more about attacking 4 times with Life and Death/Desperation than getting as much off with the initial 2 attacks as possible, since her attack is lower while her speed is higher.  

 

That said, purely as far as meta goes I do recommend rerolling for Reinhardt (preferably a +Attack one, but neutral attack is also pretty good).  Dire Thunder, combined with  attack buffs, can let him do a lot of damage easily on his turn, and this is a rather player phase oriented game compared to the rest of the series that I've played sans maybe Conquest.

Reinhardt has a better stat spread for Blarblade+ than Olwen does when controlled by a player because a player can consistently get both Hone Cavalry and Fortify Cavalry on him.

Olwen has a better stat spread for Blarblade+ when controlled by the AI because you can really only expect one buff at a time.

When controlled by a player, the general order of effectiveness looks something like (total buffs in parentheses: Atk/Spd[/Def/Res]):

• Blarblade Reinhardt (+6/6/6/6)
• Blarblade Olwen (+6/6/6/6)
• Dire Thunder Olwen (+6/6) = Blarblade Olwen (+6/6)
• Dire Thunder Reinhardt (+6/6)
• Dire Thunder Reinhardt
• Dire Thunder Olwen

Dire Thunder Reinhardt without buffs is already incredibly good. You really don't need buffs unless he's literally supposed to be carrying your entire team.

Dire Thunder Reinhardt (+6/6) is the highest that you can expect an AI to be able to use competently if you're planning on using Reinhardt in an Arena defense team.

Dire Thunder Olwen (+6/6) requires the player to activate Desperation to prevent certain opponents from killing her on the counterattack, and therefore isn't great for the AI.

Both of the Blarblade builds with +6/6/6/6 buffs are too much to expect the AI to competently use.

 

15 minutes ago, ninjero said:

Thank you for this! It seems like I shouldn't worry too hard about waiting for a good banner to reroll for Tharja & Reinhardt then. I am a fan of Tharja, so I'd probably opt for her.

How long would I probably have to wait for a "broken" unit to come up on a banner? Do they have "Players Choice" banners or the like? 

Like I said, I'm willing to sit on my hands. If I aim for a Tharja + some other sauce it sounds like I probably wouldn't be too disappointed, but from experience, it sounds like I should maybe wait and use my opportunity to reroll so I can get an optimal 5* ?

Reinhardt has been on several recent banners so he's probably less likely to return on a banner in the immediate future. You shouldn't worry too much about re-rolling. Just re-roll for one or two good characters, then keep that account.

I'd personally recommend getting at least one out of Celica, Tharja, Reinhardt, Delthea (if you plan on using melee-range infantry or melee-range units without their respective movement-type-specific buffs), Linde, Azura, Hector, and Klein of the 4-star-or-higher-exclusive characters if you want something powerful and easy to work with from the get-go that doesn't fall off later on. From the 3-star pool, Nino and Cecilia stand out the most as top-tier units.

 

There hasn't been a real players' choice banner except for the Hero Fest banner that ran during the Golden Week holidays in Japan, which wasn't really players' choice so much as it was the obviously most wanted character from each color. The only other holiday season I could imagine them pulling that stunt off again would be Christmas and New Year's.

There also isn't really a way to predict what banners are coming up. The patterns are consistent, and some can be inferred from datamined information (Voting Guantlet banners especially), but the characters themselves that appear on the banners are not usually predictable.

 

As for "broken" characters, there really aren't any besides Reinhardt, mostly because there are few characters that reliably counter his strongest AI-controlled build (Dire Thunder, Moonbow, Death Blow 3, Lancebreaker 3, Quickened Pulse) and most of them are either hard to get (Julia is 5-star-exclusive), hard to build (Titania wants Distant Counter), or don't work with specific team compositions (Fae wants Ninian or another dragon with Fortify Dragons on her team and is also expensive to build). The AI typically cannot deal with a player-controlled Reinhardt without inflating stats, running specific counters, or overwhelming the player with more units.

Anything else that's "broken" is either a team composition (full cavalry and full fliers) or an inheritable weapon (Raudhrblade, Blarblade, Gronnblade), and even those aren't completely infallible (Berkut's Grand Hero Battle, for example, started your team separated around the map with the enemy moving on Turn 1, which prevents you from activating buffs for a few turns).

[Alkaid]

2 hours ago, kcirrot said:

For a brand new player there are three characters that could be very helpful, now and in the future.  

Summer Robin, Summer Tiki and Gray, all currently available have a skill called [weapon] valor.  Robin has lance, Tiki has Axe, Gray has sword.  These are very valuable skills as they allow you to train units who use those weapons.  All three characters are decent to good at what they do as well.  So if I was just starting that's where I would start.

I second this. Having those would be a big quality of life boost, especially starting off with the game and they'll always be useful to have. Plus the fact that Robin and Tiki are limited units and may not come back (or for a very, very long time) so there's that value as well.

However, #1 priority should be characters you like. If you really like somebody on a banner right now, I'd go for them. Luckily if you like Tharja she's available as a 4 star unit, which makes her a lot easier to obtain and not as much pressure on re-rolling for her at the start. Same goes for Reinhardt. Otherwise, I'd still recommend Summer Robin and Tiki as a good starting point, unless you're just not really interested in them. Solid units, limited availability, and a big help in training your other units you get in the future. (and Gray is good for the same reasons, but he's not limited so I wouldn't be as concerned about getting him over the other two)

Edit: And oh yes, please make sure you check out how boons/banes, natures, IVs, or whichever of the many names you prefer to call them work. You'll be pretty disappointed if you reroll for something you want and find out later it had a bad nature for it.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Alkaid

[Rafiel's Aria]

9 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

.However, #1 priority should be characters you like.

This though. If you go for the characters you love, you're never really miserable. :3 But having Reinhardt sure does make life much easier.

Since people have already mentioned the best units, I'll mention some characters with useful skills. Hinata is a popular pull because he gets Fury 3 at 4 stars which basically gives characters +3 to each stat at the cost of some HP after every battle. He's always a good character to look out for. Shanna gives Desperation 3 at 4 stars which allows two consecutive attacks (if your character can already counterattack). Quick Riposte and Life and Death are also popular skills, but the 3rd level is only unlockable at 5 stars. 
 

The current meta is also fond of teams that can soak up buffs like cavalry teams, flier teams, and characters with -blade tomes. Cavalry teams are the easiest to build since you have a variety of mages and healers to choose from in addition to your normal weapons. (Plus their buffs are pretty easy to get.) Flier teams provide mobility, but I've found that their buffs are a bit more difficult to snag. Palla is available at 3-4 stars while most of the other fliers with buffs are available at 4-5 stars or just 5 stars. They're also a bit more limited since we have no flying healers or archers, and the only flying mage is no longer available. 

Hope this helps! Personally, Delthea's probably worth trying to get. I really like having strong mages in this game.

[Lushen]

From a strictly competitive standpoint (which is not how I recommend playing the game),

Klein is great for a beginner because he has a great skillset and decent stats.
Subaki is actually pretty decent for GHBs and such, but not great.
Leo is not great, but rare and he is the only red horse user.

Olwen is underrated.  Reinhardt is better, but Olwen is perfectly respectable. 
Eldigan is not the greatest since you will eventually be able to get Xander from GHBs
Titania is nothing special

Summer!Gaius is really good, but requires heavy investment.
Summer!Frederick is not great
Summer!Robin and Summer!Tiki are both respectable, but not anything special.

I haven't really looked into the new characters yet.

For you, I would say Klein and perhaps some of the new characters are your best bet.  But keep in mind Klein will become less useful as you get better characters and he is always available as a 4* so he's easier to promote later.  Another great thing about Klein is he is a nocolor so if you pull him as your attacker he will be able to do damage to everyone which helps fill in some gaps in your team.

 

Also, be thinking about your odds of getting certain characters.  Don't pull for reds if there's only one red you want and there's 3 other reds in he same banner.  In this case, there aren't really any issues but sometimes IS will put banners together with a lot of the same types.  And keep in mind that if the character you want is the only one of that color you have a good chance of getting them in under 150 orbs.  Otherwise, it's hard to say - I got 7 Summer!Fredericks in a row when I wanted Summer!Gaius, banners with more than one color are a pain.

And really, the game is more fun if you go for characters you like rather than competitive characters.  

Edited July 25, 2017 by Lushen

[NekoKnight]

I'm going to give a different kind of advice and just say, don't worry about the current banners. When you are still new, you should focus on getting a variety of units (summoning 5 at a time is the most orb efficient) to build up your team and skill inheritance options. After you feel like you've got enough coverage, you can start sniping for particular units you need for your team compositions.

[XRay]

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

And really, the game is more fun if you go for characters you like rather than competitive characters.  

I would have to disagree slightly with that statement. All the investment poured into my triple Reinhardt defense team is totally worth it. It brings me great joy to know that countless victims players had their deathless run end prematurely.

[Lushen]

12 hours ago, XRay said:

I would have to disagree slightly with that statement. All the investment poured into my triple Reinhardt defense team is totally worth it. It brings me great joy to know that countless victims players had their deathless run end prematurely.

I guess it depends on the person.  As much as I like my Bride!Cordelia and Spring!Camilla who do most of the heavy lifting, I built the crap out of my Lloyd who became just as useful (took a lot more work) and I love his character (minus his attacking art).  I also would kill for an Ephraim.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

15 hours ago, Lushen said:

I guess it depends on the person.  As much as I like my Bride!Cordelia and Spring!Camilla who do most of the heavy lifting, I built the crap out of my Lloyd who became just as useful (took a lot more work) and I love his character (minus his attacking art).  I also would kill for an Ephraim.

 While it depend on person i personally think fun and quality are highly correlated

 

I wouldnt like most things in games if i dont like how they play. You wont enjoy using favorites for a long time if they are complete shit imo.

 

Like Jagen is my favorite unit and i dont enjoy running his base set since it sucked

 

 

Also adding to your review about Olwen

 

You can optimize Olwen by getting LnD2 and HC from daily Hero battle. Provided you get a non -ATK Olwen she should be super strong.

 

Also olwen comes with the best skill in the game so thats another point in her favor

Edited July 26, 2017 by JSND

[Sunwoo]

I want an Olwen

Uh, anyway, start on any banner. I think they can all work.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Sunwoo

[ninjero]

Thank you for all of this feedback! I think the best plan sounds like either a well-rolled Klein, an excellent 5* off-banner, or waiting for the 28th to see what the new banners are.

That last one depends on my luck. In the process of re-rolling but might give up for the night pretty soon. 

I managed a double roll (did the first 10 or so quests) with Donnel + Shanna + Lon'qu + Mae, who are all A+ or above but aren't mentioned here. I assume there are plenty of A+ & S characters that aren't as beginner friendly? None of them were waifu material, so I trashed them anyways. 

I'd also probably stick with someone like Lyn, Nowi or Camilla just because they seem reasonably powerful (especially Lyn) + I like the characters. Obviously same with Tharja. 

Though as it is, most of my favorite FE characters seem not to be in the game yet (Nephenee, Say'ri, Severa etc) so that's sort of why I'd rather just roll for someone that makes the early grind incredibly easy. 

 

Edit: Got neutral-natured Reinhart + Nino. Seems like a fairly reasonable start ^.^

Edited July 27, 2017 by ninjero

[Ice Dragon]

8 hours ago, ninjero said:

I managed a double roll (did the first 10 or so quests) with Donnel + Shanna + Lon'qu + Mae, who are all A+ or above but aren't mentioned here. I assume there are plenty of A+ & S characters that aren't as beginner friendly? None of them were waifu material, so I trashed them anyways. 

Yeah, it's basically because a lot of the high-tier characters require a lot of Skill Inheritance to make work.

Shanna, for example, really wants Roderick's Firesweep Lance+, which requires a 5-star Roderick, and also really wants support from an ally with Hone Fliers (naturally found on Hinoka, who is 5-star exclusive) or Goad Fliers (naturally found on Palla).

Every character that prefers a Brave weapon, like Donnel, wants Death Blow 3 (only 4-star source is Klein) if they are slow or Life and Death 3 (5-star exclusive skill found on Hana, Minerva, and Jaffar, two of whom are 5-star exclusive characters) if they are fast.

All fast mages want either Life and Death 3 (preferred) or Fury 3 (if you don't have Life and Death 3 or you need to survive a counterattack), but Tharja's default Darting Blow and Linde's default Speed +3 are good substitutes while you wait for a more optimal skill.

Effectively, the best characters to re-roll for when starting out (if you want the best head start you can possibly get) are characters that rank highly both with their base kit and with a fully optimized kit.

If you really want to optimized your starting pulls, you can also aim to have good skill donors as your non-top-tier pulls. Hinata has Fury 3 as a 4-star unit. Shanna has Desperation 3 as a 4-star unit. Lon'qu has Vantage 3 as a 4-star unit. Gunter and Jagen have Hone Cavalry and Fortify Cavalry, respectively, as 4-star units. Corrin (F) and Camilla have Draconic Aura as 4-star units. Robin (M) and Tiki (Awakening) have Bonfire as 4-star units. Catria and Frederick have Luna as 4-star units. Shanna and Niles have Iceberg as 4-star units. Odin and Palla have Moonbow as 4-star units. Barst and Selena have Reposition as 3-star units.