Seals and Stat Boost Items -- Who Should Get Them?

[Katryn]

I'm doing a normal casual playthrough while waiting for Fates to release next Friday (getting Birthright and Conquest for my birthday / Valentines day! Yay!) I've finished up to Chapter 11 and I'm ready to get on with the next part of the game.

However, I have a bunch of items -- Seals, Master Seals, various stat boosts (Goddess Icon, Seraph Robe, etc.) and I'm not sure how to best distribute them. I understand from the description what they do. I'm just not sure who to give them to.

My characters are all in their original classes and these are their current levels:

Chrom -- 12, F!Mu -- 13, Lon'qu -- 11, Mirel -- 9, Frederick -- 3, Ricken -- 18, Cordelia -- 17, Sumia -- 17, Nowi -- 8, Gregor -- 10, Tharja -- 14, Sully -- 9, Panne -- 10, Olivia -- 1, Kellam -- 7, Maribelle -- 7, Lissa -- 14, Libra -- 1, Gaius -- 7, Stahl -- 7, Donnel -- 6, Virion -- 7, Vaike -- 8.

Chrom and Sumia have an S Rank.

Lon'Qu and Cordelia have an A-rank

Gregor and Nowi have a B rank

I'm planning to S-Rank F!Mu with Henry and A rank her with Tharja. (If I get others great, but these are the two I really want.)

Am I relying too much on pairing up? (I wasn't doing it at all -- initially thought it was like rescue from FE9 for some reason? -- but then someone showed me that and the above levels are the result. I like mages and pegasus knights.

Should I get a few extra levels on certain characters before moving on?

I may seem overworried considering I'm on normal-casual, but I'm playing that way because I don't have the time / patience to restart for unit death because of arthritis--not because I'm trying to blindly zerg my characters to victory. I've beaten other FE games on "classic" (in quotes since that technically became a clarification with Awakening). It's been quite a while, though, and I have little over a week until the new games come out and take over my 3DS. :)

Anyway, thanks very much. Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm sure I'm not the first to have asked about this; I hope it's not too annoying. Have a great day!

Edited February 11, 2016 by Katryn

[Ema Skye]

You seem really underlevelled for that point in the game, particularly with Chrom and MU. It's fairly common for MU to be at Level 20 by that point on Normal mode. That said, it is Awakening and so you've got tons of grinding opportunities so it's not a pressing concern.

Generally, Robin and Chrom get first dibs on Parallel Seals. Grandmaster is honestly a crap class compared to the other options the game throws at you (Dark Flier, Sorcerer, Hero, debateably Great Knight because Luna is so good). Chrom loves switching to Cavalier because it's a net gain in stats and he loves having the horse. Panne is also a really good option because she can swap to Wyvern Rider and gets really strong very fast. Same thing applies with Sully.

Assuming those two get your Parallel Seals, your Master Seals are best off going to Sumia and Cordelia. Dark Flier is an absolutely ridiculous class (I won't spoil why since it seems like you haven't played FE13 yet, but get them to Lv15 Dark Flier and you'll see what I mean). Lissa and Maribelle also like promoting because they get offense. You're one chapter away from being able to buy infinite Master Seals so this doesn't really matter.

Statboosters can really be distributed however you want. Some people like stacking them on one unit to create a massive boulder that steamrolls everything while others like using them to patch up weak points. Personally, I'm an advocate for stacking them on one unit (usually a Dark Flier) but that fits how I play FE which might not fit for you.

[Czar_Yoshi]

If anything, you're badly underusing pairup. Your level distributions are way too uniform, you should have about half your team way stronger than that and half way weaker.

Everyone's probably too weak for the stat boosters to make a notable difference yet, since you could very quickly focus on someone and in the space of a turn or two get them much bigger boosts than that just from levelling up two or three times. In terms of Seals, Robin, Chrom and Panne are the only ones worth reclassing, everyone else should try to promote at 20. I'd focus on training the Pegs, maybe Ricken and Nowi, and anyone who has a high support level.

Then again, it's Normal and Normal is designed so you can do pretty much whatever you want and not get screwed, so just carry on however you please unless you legit get stuck. Just remember to always give someone some sort of Seal when they hit the level cap to stop them from wasting exp.

[eclipse]

I think TC is rotating people in the pair-up to give them equal experience distribution. Since this is a Normal non-optimized run, it's perfectly fine.

Given your levels, I'd suggest the following:

- Use a Second Seal to reclass Panne to Wyvern Rider

- If you absolutely, positively must use a Master Seal, I'd go Sumia -> Ricken/Cordelia. Unless you have my luck with Sumia, she should be able to hold her own for a while. Ricken should probably go Sage, as the next chapter will hand him a lot of juicy targets.

- Drop Frederick, because your team really, REALLY needs the experience. Drop Donnel, for the exact same reasons.

- Sounds like you have a female Robin, so you can have her pair up with Miriel and watch the sparks fly. It'll also fuel Veteran, and a good romp on Chapters 12 and 13 should fix her level issues.

- See if you're strong enough to do Paralogue 4 (I think it should be available by now), but be warned that you've got somewhat of a strict time limit before a certain item goes poof.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Eh, at those levels Fred is probably as strong as or still stronger than most of the team.

[Luxian]

Almost what was already said :
-Reclass Robin Chrom and Panne

-Master Seals on Peg Knights and Staff users.

-Keep Frederick a support unit or defensive one. If you didn't know yet, you can unequip your units. They still have their weapons but won't use it. This way Frederick can become a wall for Magic users who can snipe whatever comes at Fred. If he doesn't have enough defense, Pair him up with Cavaliers, Archers or Kellam. That is if the map has narrow alleys and allow you to do so. Else Pair him up with mages. Your Peg knights seem to hold up fine, sopair him with Miriel. If you till want him go gain EXP, give him a fairly weak weapon lika a Bronze Sword or if you were lucky a Log/Tree Stick(?)/Ladle.

I'll add :
-Try to reclass your units into gender locked classes.Troubadour Peg Knights are definitively must have. Troubadour is an easy way to level up while being a supportive unit. Peg Knights for theDark Flier Class.Barbarians and Fighters are less impressive, but you couldtry Barbarian class at leasst for one of them if not everyonewho can do it. I feel like thepromoted classes are rather useless.

-Also reclass everyone who can do it into Mercenary. Like Gregor, they'll get ARmsthrift. They can promote to Hero, a very useful class.

-Level up your Cavaliers, Kellam and maybe Virion or Vaike because they will give Defense boost toyour Mage/Peg party. Or just let them pair up with your units. But not leveling the cavaliers seem like a great loss for me. In their main/promoted/reclassed Classs, they are sure to be useful somehow.

-Staff users are easy to level up and you will need them more and more. Focus on at most two of them (now Lissaand Maribelle really need it).If you want to level up someone without effort, try the staff users. EVen once promoted, you cann level them easily. They can defned themselves, gain Exp by healing and not swallow the exp for the rest of the team.

[Czar_Yoshi]

-Keep Frederick a support unit or defensive one.... Pair him up with mages.

-Also reclass everyone who can do it into Mercenary. Like Gregor, they'll get ARmsthrift. They can promote to Hero, a very useful class.

Why a Mage? Mages give Mag and Skl, which aren't things Fred wants.

At levels that low, AT is a drop in the bucket. It really won't make a difference at all, even if you get it on the majority of your army, until they've got 60+ levels under their belts.

[Luxian]

Well true, he woulnd't benefit much from it. But I meant the opposite : Mages fight and Frederick giving the bonus, since I rally eclipse saying Frederick just swallows EXP from other units.... My bad I should have say it the other way around. Looking at her levels, it seems she doesn't use much physical units besides Chrom and Peg Knights. As I don't know about her stats, I assumed Sumia and Cordelia woulnd't need the +4 Def as much as Mages, since there isn't much physical units.... Though if you strive for efficiency, yeah definitively don't do that either. I usually like to know my mages are safe, and I don't like killing units too soon, so I pair up for Def/Res much more than Mag/Str/Skl...

And about Armsthrift, it's definitively not a priority, and you're right the units don't have much luck with them. so that might end up useless (unless F!Mu/Donnel have great luck already) and there are usually better skills from other classes to get first. I might have come up with it a little soon...

[Katryn]

I think there are two issues going on with how I'm playing, because I do agree that it's odd that I have so many high level mages and so few high level cavaliers / other physical units. My Pegasus Knights got high level because I put Chrom and Lon'Qu behind them, making them harder to hit. I'd then switch characters if they came in range of an Archer. I wanted to S-Rank Chrom x Sumia, so that was intentional. When I liked how Lon'Qu and Cordelia paired on the field, their rank increased as well.

I love a lot of the mage characters in Awakening, especially Henry and Tharja. In any other FE I've played, my strategy would be to have a wall of physical units blocking off an area with mages and archers behind them. That's what I was doing up until about Chapter Eight. Then I got told that units get x3 support bonus if they are paired. I'm largely playing for supports, so my setup shifted to putting a more defensive unit behind a softer unit. This works good for Peg. Knights / Wyvern Riders and mages, but not so great for archers (they become pin cushions the next round and don't seem as good in this game as mages which is weird. (I ran Rolf or Shinnion, Soren or Ilyana, and then mostly physical units and healers back when I played PoR.)

It could also be that I am playing on Normal-Casual and while I'm not racing to my death, I'm also not resetting unless something I can't replace gets messed up. (Had to do that twice now pairing Katryn (F!Mu) with Henry--Grrr.... I want you guys to get to S-Rank, not have Henry keel over! >.< Note: F!Mu is +Mag / -Str) I have a strong suspicion that my setup would look quite different if I was playing Normal-Classic and if I'd understood what pair-up was from word go. (As I mentioned earlier, I thought it was like Rescue from FE:PoR for some reason...)

I'm now at Chapter 15. I should really pause and work on my Cavaliers and possible Kellam before I go further, because they should likely be what is backing my mages, even if I do end up keeping to this weird setup I have going. They would offer good mobility (Cavaliers) or a great defense boost (Kellam) that would likely benefit what I'm doing.

Levels Update:

Chrom -- 18, Katryn -- 1 grandmaster -- Frederick -- 4, Ricken -- 6 sage, Henry -- 17, Maribelle -- 3 valkyrie, Sumia -- 2 dark flier, Miriel -- 12, Cordelia -- 18, Tharja -- 1 dark knight, Cherche -- 14, Gaius -- 9, Panne -- 11, Donnel -- 9, Olivia -- 3, Kellam -- 7, Lon'qu -- 17, Nowi -- 13, Gregor -- 10, Lucina -- 10, Stahl -- 9, Vaike -- 10, Sully -- 9, Lissa -- 14, Libra -- 1, Virion -- 7.

Chrom x Sumia are S-Rank; Cordelia x Lon'Qu are S-Rank, Gregor x Nowi are A rank. I plan to pair Ricken and Maribelle, Katryn (F!Mu) and Henry, I think if I figure out who I want to pair some of these characters with that leveling will go better--I want to do some side leveling on lower units for XP and Support since I do want to try and unlock the kids. I'm here for as much story as possible. I think my biggest problem with some of the defense units (Kellam, Sully, Stahl) is that they just haven't done anything to overly stand out as characters. I've thought of pairing Virion and Sully because of their opening, but *wow* that's going to be a pain. (Hmm... Maybe not if I have her lead and him lend stats. Not going to be the best match up, though.)

Anyway, I'm rambling now so I'll end this here. Thanks very much for all of the advice and suggestions. I'll do another update when I've made more progress. :)

Edited February 11, 2016 by Katryn

[Avalanche]

At this point, I think you should make it a priority to establish some Pairings. As people have mentioned, you are pretty underlevelled for this point in the game (I believe Chapter 17 is when you will face solely promoted enemies in the story missions), so I recommend unlocking some Paralogues to use them as a means of training and maybe using some of the Children to replace units that have fallen behind (For example, Tharja's kid is likely leagues ahead of Lv.7 Virion at this point.). If you want a recommended place to build up Supports, I find Edward's Bonus box to work really well. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or even PM me.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Avalanche

[eclipse]

Alright, here goes. . .

- Chrom needs to promote, NOW.

- Tharja really should've gone the Sorcerer route, because Dark Knight's skills are mediocre. Who she pairs with really depends on what you want out of Noire. If you want to give Noire the ability to destroy everything on player phase, have Gaius be her father. Otherwise, you can pair her with someone like Vaike (it'll give her some pretty amusing options).

- Pair Cherche and Stahl, for giggles, and because Stahl gives Gerome a pretty good class set.

- Why is Donnel still in the party?

- Sully x Virion's actually a decent pairing, even if it means having Virion literally gain no levels at this point. Sully x Vaike also works. If you want to throw all sanity out of the window, you can try Sully x Libra.

- Olivia's not that hard to pair, as long as you don't mind waiting for a while. Have her dance for her husband. Do so ad nauseum.

- Panne is a wrecking ball and a half, so any physical husband not named Donnel will work.

[Roflolxp54]

Since this is Normal Casual, you should have no problems abusing Reeking Boxes -- in Normal difficulty, Reeking Boxes are a guaranteed profitable way to get money while also gaining experience and support points, depending on the location of the skirmish you spawned. Chrom isn't required to be deployed at all for skirmishes so you can simply focus on a single pair of units that you're trying to support and train.

Of course, skirmishes that are on later-game maps have higher-leveled/promoted Risen that give more experience (particularly Thieves and Tricksters) and better drops.