Fire Emblem Fates has three versions and a whole lot of characters. If you’re new to the series, as many players are thanks to this installment, you may be looking for the best ways to utilize the huge number of characters at your disposal. Which ones should you take advantage of? Which ones should you ignore? What classes should you make them? These questions can be intimidating as a new player, but fear not! This Adventure Rules guide is meant to take as much information about the characters as possible and to shove it in one convenient place. The guide will take place in three parts: characters that are playable in all versions, Birthright Characters, and Conquest Characters. This guide addresses the first group. Included in this number are characters like Izana and Fuga that are technically only playable in specific versions, but who don’t fit comfortably in either of the other categories.
This guide only addresses the adult characters. If you are looking for a guide to help you with parenting the children of the game, I’ve already got that! My children guide comes in three forms too: Kids in All Versions; Birthright Version; and Conquest Version. Also, if you need some general advice about the basics of playing the game, check out my “casual walkthrough” here. I also have a guide describing things like classes, skills, and hidden stats; that guide is here. If you click on the category called Fire Emblem Fates Guides on the sidebar on the right side of the page, you’ll find all of this information in one big page that you can scroll up and down as needed.
Also, I want to throw in a quick thanks to the website Serenes Forest for having such accessible information for Fire Emblem Fates. I’ve been using the site to get information that I cannot get for myself in-game. If you want to check them out, click this link. I couldn’t have provided information such as growth rates without them.
Here’s how the guide is gonna work. You’ll see the character’s name, their starting class, recruitment chapters, growth rates, and their personal skill. I’ll then go into a more detailed paragraph about matters such as which class to choose, which skills to utilize, and how to capitalize on the character’s abilities. So without further ado, let’s get started!
CORRIN (Player Character, Avatar)
Class: Nohrian Prince/Princess
Recruit: Prologue
Growths (*see bold words*) – HP: 45 Str: 45 Mag: 30 Skl: 40 Spd: 45 Lck: 45 Def: 35 Res: 25
Skill: Supportive – When this unit is the support unit and has a C+ support with the lead unit, lead unit gains Hit +10, damage dealt +2, and damage taken -2
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The main character of the game. For the first time ever, the player-created character is also the main prince/princess of the game, allowing you to define the lord’s look and abilities. The Avatar (I’ll refer to Corrin this way for the rest of the post) is a very unique character for a lot of reasons.
First off, defining the Avatar’s abilities is up to you as the player. This can be unsettling if you’ve never played the game before, particularly if you skipped Awakening. What the heck is a boon or a bane, and what does it mean when I choose one? Well, your Boon is something you’re good at, and your Bane represents a weakness. Depending on what you choose, your stats will be altered somewhat, and in the long term *you’ll have different growth rates* (which affects what stats will increase when you level up) and maximum stats. Now these things are also affected by your class, but it’s still important to choose your Boon and Bane strategically. To help you out, check out this list of which Boon/Bane corresponds with which stat, and how it affects your growths:
HP = Robust/Sickly__ HP +15/-10, Def +5/-5, Res +5/-5
Strength = Strong/Weak__ Str +15/-10, Skl +5/-5, Def +5/-5
Magic = Clever/Dull__ Mag +20/-15, Spd +5/-5, Res+5/-5
Skill = Deft/Clumsy__ Skl +25/-20, Str +5/-5, Def +5/-5
Speed = Quick/Slow__ Spd +15/-10, Skl +5/-5, Lck +5/-5
Luck = Lucky/Unlucky__ Lck +25/-20, Str +5/-5, Mag +5/-5
Defense = Sturdy/Fragile)__ Def+10/-10, Lck +5/-5, Res +5/-5
Resistance = Calm/Excitable__ Res +10/-10, Mag +5/-5, Spd +5/-5
The other thing you choose is a Talent. That was something that definitely threw me off the first time through, as it is different from Awakening. What is a talent, exactly? Well, your talent is your second class. Every character in the game has two base classes, and their second one is accessible with an item called a Heart Seal. When you pick your talent, you are picking the class you can change to with a Heart Seal. I recommend that you choose a talent from the opposite version of what you’re playing – if you’re playing Birthright, choose a class from Conquest, and vice versa. This will increase your variety a little bit and give you access to skills that you won’t be able to get from other means. This is especially helpful because the use of Partner and Friendship seals will allow you to spread those skills around to other units in your army and subsequently, their kids.
Now another unique thing about the Avatar is his/her starting class: the Nohrian Prince/Princess. This class has two different options for promotion: the Nohrian Noble or the Hoshidan Noble. In Conquest you only get the former, in Birthright the latter. In Revelation you can switch between them. This means that depending on which version you are playing, the Avatar’s skills and growth rates will differ in his/her promoted class. This couples with the fact that the Yato, the Avatar’s personal blade, has different stat bonuses in each version. So on the Birthright side of things, the Avatar is going to lean more towards Strength and Defense, with some speed boosts from the Yato. On the Conquest side, it’ll be more about Magic and Speed, with the Yato offering protection.
The Avatar is a powerful character that is absolutely worth taking advantage of. (S)he has the ability to serve well as either a quick, strong unit killer or as a sturdy wall to tank hits and wear down enemies for your weaker characters. The former role will likely be more valuable in Conquest, where you have a number of slower characters, while the latter will be helpful in Birthright where more characters are frail. When (s)he joins you, the Avatar will already have the skill Nobility, which increases EXP by 20%. Because of this ability and because of gaining experience from the six chapters at the beginning of the game, the Avatar tends to be a lot more powerful than other characters in the early game. This can be helpful for training up new units, as (s)he can use dragon form to deal high-but-not-deadly damage so that weaker ones can deal the finishing blow and gain lots of EXP.
Another great strategy for the Avatar is to pair him/her with as many characters as possible. Take advantage of functions like the Private Quarters to gain support points with other units. As you gain C-level supports with more characters, more and more people in the army will benefit from the Avatar’s personal skill, which gives bonuses to damage, defenses, and accuracy. This is another way in which the Avatar helps lower-leveled units.
When it comes to skills, Nobility is a great starting skill that makes the Avatar powerful early. At level 10, (s)he gains Dragon Fang, a really good attacking skill that adds a lot of damage to attacks. Both the Hoshidan Noble and Nohrian Noble have good skills to contribute, and in Revelation when you can get both sets, you should. You can change classes to get the advantage of other skills, but you always want to come back to either the Nohrian Noble or Hoshidan Noble. If you’re playing Revelation and can choose either one, I suggest making the decision based on whether you want staffs (Hoshido) or tomes (Nohr).
FELICIA
Class: Maid
Recruit: Chapter 2 (Male Avatar), After Chapter 15 (Female Avatar)
Growths – HP: 40 Str: 10 Mag: 35 Skl: 30 Spd: 40 Lck: 55 Def: 15 Res:35
Skill: Devoted Partner – If paired with the Avatar as the lead unit, damage given +2 and damage taken -2
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At the beginning of the game, you receive a powerful helper character based on your gender. If you’re playing as a male, Felicia will stand beside you. She’s something of a special character – she starts as a promoted class, but with low stats and the ability to gain EXP at a normal rate. In addition to this, she can level up far beyond level 20, so you don’t have to waste special seals on raising her level caps. This allows you to use her like normal characters while taking advantage of her advanced skills early in the game.
Felicia has a personal skill that is useful only when working with the Avatar. It’s a pretty good skill that gives the Avatar a flat bonus to damage given and damage resisted. I just hate that there are characters whose personal skills only apply when working with the Avatar. Conceptually, I get it, but it reduces their versatility and makes them less viable when paired with other characters. I mean, look at the Avatar’s skill – it gives the same bonuses as this one, plus some, to any character (s)he has a C level support with. It just makes skills like this one seem really irrelevant. But hey, Felicia is a great partner for the Avatar, so take advantage of it, especially in the early game when you don’t have many other characters.
Felicia’s second base class is the Mercenary, which means that you can use a Heart Seal to make her into a Hero or a Bow Knight. Neither of these classes takes advantage of her staff or shuriken experience, which will make it difficult to change to them, but they offer Felicia two more “breaker” skills: Axebreaker and Shurikenbreaker. Combine that with the Maid’s ability to get Tomebreaker, and you’ve got three different weapons that Felicia can face with a +50 bonus to Hit and Avoid. Axebreaker is particularly good, as it protects her against a weapon that normally beats her in the weapon triangle. The Hero also offers Sol, which allows her to absorb half the damage she deals as HP. Combine this with the Maid’s Live to Serve ability, and Felicia is going to be healing whether she’s attacking enemies or healing allies. This certainly increases her durability on the field, particularly if you have those three breaker skills equipped as well. Now her other class is the Strategist, which offers her the very useful Inspiration skill. This is an aura skill that increases damage given and reduces damage taken for any allies within two spaces (making up for that rather limited personal skill). You could also take Rally Skill from the Bow Knight and Rally Resistance from the Strategist to make her a sort of Rally character, but this strategy is better executed by other characters with more varied (and more useful) Rally abilities.
The Maid class is fantastic, serving two very helpful functions: healing and weakening. Felicia’s shuriken attacks bring down enemy defenses so that your other characters can hit harder, and also allow her to defend herself where another healer would be helpless. Her second function is healing, restoring the HP of weakened allies to prevent them from falling in battle. Since she can fight, you can send her up on the front lines to heal and be a bit safer than a healer who is only using a staff. Of course, she can’t take much punishment, so you don’t want to stick her somewhere that a bunch of enemies are going to come barreling through. But she can fight a couple without giving you a panic attack, and anyone she hurts will be easier to defeat later on.
A note about Felicia: her magic stat is far better than her strength, so once you find a Flame Shuriken you’ll want to let her run with it. She can function pretty well as a Strategist with her good magic and speed stats, but you’ll have other characters who make good strategists and Felicia is quite solid as a Maid. Once you’re done switching around and collecting skills, that’s the class you probably want to settle on.
JAKOB
Class: Butler
Recruit: Chapter 2 (Female Avatar), After Chapter 15 (Male Avatar)
Growths – HP: 50 Str: 30 Mag: 15 Skl: 40 Spd: 35 Lck: 45 Def: 25 Res: 25
Skill: Evasive Partner – If paired with the Avatar as the lead unit, Avoid +15 and damage taken -3
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Jakob is the Butler character who joins you early in the game if you’re playing as a female. He has many similar advantages to Felicia, but he has a different secondary class than her and different growth rates, meaning his specialties are different as well. He also has a child, Dwyer, while Felicia simply gives birth to the child of whatever male she marries.
Like Felicia, Jakob’s personal skill only works with the Avatar. It has different effects, though, effects that are primarily defensive in nature. This makes Jakob a good partner for the Avatar when (s)he’s in a tight spot, making you less likely to get hit and significantly reducing damage when you do. Again, I wish this skill applied to other characters somehow, but it’s useful in the early game and one you definitely can take advantage of easily.
Also like Felicia, Jakob can become a Strategist as one of his class options. Unlike Felicia, he doesn’t have the stats to take advantage of it. His low magic growths compared to his strength means that he won’t be doing that much damage with tomes. However, he can better capitalize on his other two classes, the Paladin and the Great Knight. These classes have some pretty interesting skills. Aegis from the Paladin is a solid defensive skill against ranged attacks. The Great Knight’s Luna increases Jakob’s offensive capabilities somewhat, but the Great Knight also offers the absolutely wonderful Armored Blow, which reduces physical damage by 10 when Jakob initiates battle. With these skills, you’ll be using Jakob more for his offense than his healing.
Whereas Felicia is built to excel as a Maid or Strategist, Jakob might have more to offer you in one of his alternate classes. He has relatively balanced growths that would suit the Paladin class, but be aware that you’ll be working up his lance and sword skills from nothing. If you keep him as a Butler, he’s not going to be able to heal as much as Felicia but he’ll still get the job done, and he’s better with physical shurikens than she is, so something like a silver shuriken will be more powerful in his grasp. Personally, I prefer Felicia both for stats and for personality, but that’s an opinion – Jakob is plenty viable and you can definitely implement him on your team well.
AZURA
Class: Songstress
Recruit: Chapter 6 (Birthright/Revelation), Chapter 9 (Conquest)
Growths: HP: 25 Str: 50 Mag: 25 Skl: 60 Spd: 60 Lck: 40 Def: 15 Res: 35
Skill: Healing Descant – Allies within two spaces heal 10% HP at start of turn
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“You are the Ocean’s grey waves…” This princess is a lovely singer and dancer who you WILL get tired of listening to by the end of the game. She joins you on every path and brings the power of song to your team. This allows your units to go twice in one turn, which is certainly advantageous. But can we take a second to look at those growth rates?! Dang! This girl has some serious potential to do more than just chill out as a singer, and if you don’t pay attention to that fact then you are seriously missing an opportunity.
Azura’s personal skill is kind of “meh.” Healing is never a bad thing, of course, but since it’s only ten percent, even your highest HP characters will only get around 6 HP from her ability. The other problem is this: Azura’s main purpose is to give someone a second turn. Generally, the character benefiting from this will be traveling more than two spaces away from her. This means that Azura is generally a character who won’t have many units close to her. That being said, Azura’s personal skill makes her naturally gifted in a character approach that I call the “aura,” which we’ll discuss in a bit.
Azura’s songstress class cannot promote, but it levels up to 40 and gains four different skills. Her other class option is the Sky Knight, and that unlocks some pretty decent skills. Darting Blow to increase Speed when initiating battle; hard to argue with that! The Kinshi Knight and Falcon Knight each offer her different bonuses. Particularly notable from each branch is Amaterasu from the Kinshi Knight and Warding Blow from the Falcon Knight. Air Superiority and Rally Speed are decent as well, but the others are more like “must haves” for Azura.
I recommend that if you’re going to change Azura’s class around, you change things up early and then go back to Songstress to finish out. Her Songstress class may seem weak at first glance, but it actually makes her quite powerful at high levels and has a lot of useful skills. But since they don’t really start cropping up until she’s in her 20’s and 30’s, you can make her something more useful until she gets there. Definitely settle on Songstress though, as it enables her to give other characters an additional action and makes her a powerhouse when it comes to speed and damage.
Azura has two very distinct roles. Role number one is the support role, and she functions most naturally in this way. Giving allies extra turns and increasing their stats is built into all of her paths. For this approach, you’ll want “aura” skills like Amaterasu and Voice of Peace, plus Rally Speed. Amaterasu combines with Healing Descant to restore 30% HP to all allies within two spaces at start of turn. That’s the equivalent of suddenly giving every ally standing near her the Renewal skill, making her passive healing ability a LOT more effective. Voice of Peace also protects those allies from damage. If you can’t sing for anybody, use Rally instead to give every ally within two spaces a powerful +4 bonus to Speed. If you do sing, don’t worry – the person you sing to gets +3 to Speed, Skill, and Luck thanks to her Inspiring Song.
Role number two is harder to use, but can be very effective if managed properly. That role is the glass cannon. Azura has incredible natural growth rates in Strength, Skill, and Speed. This means that after she’s had some time to level up, Azura is very likely to deal high damage with good accuracy AND to follow up as well. If you work on her lance skill so she can use good weapons, she’ll be a serious powerhouse. The biggest issue, though, is her squishiness. Her low growths in HP and Defense mean that Azura will take near-fatal damage from pretty much any attack, and particularly powerful enemies will easily knock her out in one swing. This means that if you choose to use her offensively, you have to do so very strategically, placing her only in positions where she can initiate combat without fear of reprisal from other enemies. If she gets swarmed, she WILL die. In this role, Warding Blow can increase her offensive viability, as it decreases magical damage to Azura by 20 as long as she initiates battle. That combined with her naturally decent resistance and the weapon advantage provided by her lances makes her incredibly effective against enemy magicians. Send her into combat against magical threats and watch them crumble before her.
SILAS
Class: Cavalier
Recruit: Turn 3 of Chapter 6 (Conquest), End of Chapter 7 (Birthright) or 14 (Revelation)
Growths: HP: 40 Str: 45 Mag: 5 Skl: 50 Spd: 40 Lck: 40 Def: 40 Res: 25
Skill: Vow of Friendship – If Avatar is below 50% HP, unit deals +3 damage and takes -3 damage
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Silas is the childhood best friend you didn’t know you had. He’s a pretty cool guy who is quite devoted to his old buddy. He joins you no matter what, although he joins MUCH earlier in the traditional two versions compared to the final path.
Dat personal skill, tho…of all the Avatar-specific personal skills, I like this one the best. Silas doesn’t have to be paired with the Avatar or even be near him/her. If the Avatar has 50% HP or less, then BAM, the skill activates. This means that Silas can take advantage of that damage and defense increase while being paired with someone else, potentially receiving some kind of bonus from that character as well. It’s a great skill that makes Silas a lot more powerful when the Avatar is in rough shape.
Silas has really balanced growth rates, and the cavalier is a balanced class. Most of his growth rates are going to land pretty comfortably around the 50% range, which is something of a double-edged score. Because almost every stat is going to be a coin flip whether it increases upon level up, predicting Silas’s growth is almost impossible. One playthrough the RNG might give him incredible strength and pathetic defense, while the next one might do the opposite. You might use him once and he is absolute garbage, and next time all the coins come up heads and he’s the most powerful unit on your team. It makes using him something of a risk, but it’s a risk that can be very rewarding.
Let’s look at skills. Silas’s second base class is the Mercenary, another balanced branch that leans slightly more towards Speed and Skill, whereas Cavalier leans slightly more towards Strength and Defense. No matter what path you send this kid on, his approach is going to be all about balance. Sol (from the Hero) and Luna (from the Great Knight) have always gone well together to make a character a serious offensive presence. Armored Blow increases Silas’s power when he initiates combat, while Axebreaker, Shurikenbreaker, and Aegis all give him a defensive advantage. So again, we see a balance between offense and defense. I recommend stacking the offensive skills and then choosing which defensive skills seem most important to you. Shurikenbreaker is always a good choice – ninjas are irritating in every version and someone with an advantage against them is an awesome tool to have in your pouch.
My recommended class for Silas is probably the Paladin, a class that definitely benefits from a balanced approach. Hero is a good secondary option that has less movement but no weakness against beast-defeating weapons. If you want his growth rates to be somewhat more controlled, becoming a Great Knight increases your Strength/Defense while lowering your Skill/Speed, while becoming a Bow Knight does the opposite. This allows you to guarantee Silas’s performance in a particular area a little better, but you’ll lose some of the benefit of his balanced growths.
KAZE
Class: Ninja
Recruit: Chapter 6 (Birthright), End of Chapter 8 (Revelation) or 11 (Conquest)
Growths – HP: 55 Str: 40 Mag: 0 Skl: 45 Spd: 65 Lck: 20 Def: 20 Res: 35
Skill: Miraculous Save – When unit is the support unit, lead unit has a Luck% chance of surviving a fatal blow with 1 HP
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Kaze is the good-natured ninja you meet towards the beginning of the game, and he has one of my favorite lines that incredibly sums up the changes to gameplay that Fates has brought: “your death need not come all at once.” Kaze is a delight to have in your party, and particularly in Birthright you want to be good friends with him as soon as possible (HINT HINT).
Miraculous Save…this is a personal skill that I have never once had activate. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever even had the situation come up. I probably have, I suppose…Kaze basically gives the Miracle skill to anyone he is supporting, which is kinda cool. It’s not a skill that you’re going to be utilizing in a very intentional, strategic way, but when it kicks in it will feel pretty amazing. Special note: Kaze’s daughter Midori has a personal skill that gels really well with this one, so when you’re training her up be sure to pair her with her father!
Kaze has an amazing set of classes at his disposal with both ninja and samurai as his base class options. Both rely on Speed and Skill, and Kaze has both of those in excess. Both have a promotion capable of using an S-level weapon, and both offer a skill that gives him +5 damage with a particular weapon. Kaze has all the potential to be really freaking powerful. With a skill selection like Astra, Lethality, Swordfaire and Shurikenfaire, his offensive potential is off the charts. He also has access to Replicate – you know, in case the idea of having two of Kaze on the battlefield sounds helpful to you. Hint: it is.
I recommend that you train Kaze as a Swordmaster and then put him in the Master Ninja class. He’ll be able to deal +5 damage with both weapons he has proficiency in, have the ability to wield S-level shurikens, have a chance to instantly kill his enemies, and if that doesn’t work out have a higher chance to hit them 5 times in a row in one attack. Now while Kaze has incredible offensive/killing potential late game, in the early game he is a chip-damage character. Use him against big scary enemies to chip off a bit of their health and defenses, but don’t put him anywhere he can be attacked a lot. Kaze has a bit of natural bulk courtesy of his high HP growth, but he’s pretty frail on the physical side and cannot handle lots of enemies at once. Use him strategically as a poisoner and assassin, and he’ll be an incredible asset to your team.
MOZU
Class: Villager
Recruit: Paralogue 1; talk to her with the Avatar or finish the chapter with her alive
Growths – HP: 30 Str: 40 Mag: 5 Skl: 50 Spd: 55 Lck: 45 Def: 35 Res: 30
Skill: Forager – Unit recovers 20% HP at start of turn when standing on Mountains, Fields, Wastes, or Woods
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Mozu is a classic archetype from the world of Fire Emblem – an innocent villager who needs some serious training to blossom, but has a lot of potential once she does. She’s got an innocent heart and plenty of determination. A note for Conquest players: I really do not recommend her in Conquest. She’s too much of an investment in a game where you cannot grind for levels. Use her in Birthright and Revelation when she can train using the challenge maps.
Forager is one of those skills that thematically makes a lot of sense, and it’s just enough of a healing factor to be somewhat helpful. Plus, it has a guaranteed activation as long as you use the terrain to your advantage. Now there are some maps where finding these types of terrain just won’t be possible, but you’ll generally have some good opportunities to capitalize on Mozu’s passive healing.
Here’s the thing that makes Mozu something special: she starts with an amazing skill called Aptitude. This skill increases all of Mozu’s growth rates by 10%. This is addition, not multiplication, so you just add 10 to every number listed above, plus the growth rate bonuses from her class. This means that Mozu will have at least 50% in pretty much every stat, with some going as high as 75%. Over time, her stats will really start to add up to something impressive.
So Mozu has the unique starting class of Villager, and can change to her secondary base class of Archer. Skills she has access to include stuff like the mighty Profiteer/Spendthrift combo of the Merchant class, Seal Strength from the Master-at-Arms, and useful Sniper skills like Certain Blow and Bowfaire. It’s a rather eclectic collection of skills – indeed, Mozu’s classes are very odd and don’t necessarily mesh all that well.
My recommendation for Mozu is to train her up as an Archer rather than a Villager. Her growth rates naturally fit the Archer class, and there is not much benefit in advancing to the Merchant or Master-at-Arms. The former has a very gimmicky strategy that pretty much only works well for Kaze’s daughter Midori, and the latter has low weapon levels and a skill that is just as detrimental as it is helpful. Conversely, as an Archer Mozu can access much better skills, and by settling on Sniper she’ll be able to get an S-level with bows. She’ll bring a lot more to the table that way, even if it isn’t necessarily her “canon” class.
SHURA
Class: Adventurer
Recruit: Talk with the Avatar in Chapter 15 (Revelation), End of Chapter 16 (Conquest) or Chapter 22 (Birthright)
Growths – HP: 30 Str: 25 Mag: 10 Skl: 20 Spd: 35 Lck: 30 Def: 15 Res: 35
Skill: Highwayman – When unit initiates battle, if the enemy cannot counterattack they suffer Skill/Speed -3 after the battle
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Shura is the kind of unit that I think of as a “replacement unit.” If you’re not used to Fire Emblem, think of it this way: Shura is the guy you use when someone who can do the same stuff as him has died so you need a replacement. He starts as a promoted class but has low growth rates and cannot have supports with anyone other than the Avatar. He’s not designed to be used reliably – he’s a fallback, someone to help you out in a pinch but designed in such a way that he cannot be a crutch.
The Highwayman skill is a decent Seal skill. If the opponent cannot counterattack when Shura attacks them, they suffer a reduction in Skill and Speed. Now Skill isn’t really a big deal – only losing 3 does almost nothing to accuracy or critical hit rate. But Speed…now that matters. 3 points of Speed can be enough to lose the ability to follow up, or can cause the character to now be vulnerable to follow-ups. This skill only activates against opponents who cannot attack Shura in return, though, so you’ll have to use it against enemies with melee weapons that cannot deal with Shura’s range advantage.
Because Shura cannot be friends with anybody, he has three base classes instead of two: Outlaw, Ninja, and Fighter. This gives him access to a large number of skills, but whereas other characters can use Friendship or Partner seals so that you as the player can create your own custom combinations, these classes are what Shura is stuck with. It gives him a massive array of skills, ranging from the offensive (Gamble, Lethality, Axefaire) to the defensive (Lucky Seven, Shurikenbreaker, Axebreaker) to the supportive (Rally Skill, Rally Strength) to the quirky (Pass, Replicate).
Shura’s stats and growths fit a supportive role, and he functions well in his starting class of Adventurer. Changing to a Master Ninja could be quite viable, though, as his Highwayman skill will couple well with the stat-lowering effect of shurikens. Gamble and Lethality add to his offensive abilities when he does need to fight, but his unusually low skill for a bow-wielder means that he won’t be activating these skills as often as you may like. Poison Strike from the Ninja is really good on Shura – it allows you to add chip damage to his natural ability to seal stats. Replicate allows you to send more than one of Shura running around the map, which is great is you’re using him as your only character with Locktouch, or for having an extra healer on the battlefield. Just be careful to keep both replicates out of harm’s way.
IZANA
Class: Onmyoji
Recruit: Upgrade Hot Springs in My Castle to level three (Birthright/Conquest)
Growths – HP: 45 Str: 15 Mag: 35 Skl: 55 Spd: 30 Lck: 45 Def: 35 Res: 35
Skill: Peacebringer – Allies and enemies within two spaces deal -2 damage
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Like Shura, Izana is a character that functions more as a replacement than a legitimate character for the game (although he has pretty decent growths compared to Shura). He’s a quirky character that is only unlocked by investing Dragonvein Points in the Hot Springs of your My Castle. Izana cannot be recruited in Revelation.
Peacebringer is a purely defensive personal skill that has an obvious disadvantage – it reduces your damage too! It’s gonna be tricky to create a situation on the battlefield where the bad guys are within Izana’s influence and the good guys are not, and most of those situations involve sending Izana right into the line of fire. If you need someone to chill everyone out while you recover, this skill can be somewhat helpful. But be aware that your units are weakened just as much as the enemy.
Izana’s three base classes are the Monk, Samurai, and Apothecary. These are some pretty weird classes to put together, with very little overlap as far as weapon proficiency is concerned. It seems weird to have all of these classes together, but the sum of their parts actually makes a pretty interesting unit. Tomefaire and Astra make Izana an offensive powerhouse when equipped with a magical tome. Renewal and Countermagic are excellent defensive measures. Replicate allows you to have two of Izana on the field, adding to your number of healers. Izana’s weird class selection actually gives him a really viable skill set, making him pretty decent in battle and quite helpful as a healer. Because of this, I recommend that you jump around through Izana’s various class options before settling back on his starting class of Onmyoji.
FUGA
Class: Master-at-Arms
Recruit: Upgrade Hot Springs in My Castle to level three (Revelation)
Growths – HP: 20 Str: 20 Mag: 0 Skl: 15 Spd: 5 Lck: 20 Def: 10 Res: 10
Skill: Wind Disciple – Hit and Avoid +10 when unit has less than full HP
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Fuga is the alternative to Izana, taking the much weirder character’s place in Revelation but being unavailable in the earlier versions. What’s weird to me about all of this are their growths – I mean, Fuga’s are even worse than Shura’s, but he’s only available in Revelation, making him seem like a “secret” character. I suppose the low growth rates are offset by his high stats when he joins the party – the longer you wait to get him, the stronger he’s going to be and the less those low growths will matter. Like Izana and Shura, Fuga has few-to-no supports and mainly serves as a tough character to add to your party if you’ve been losing characters left and right.
Wind Disciple is a decent skill, I guess. Adding 10% to your chance to land attacks and avoid them is certainly not something to complain about, and the bonus is added as long as Fuga has sustained even just 1 damage. This skill isn’t overpowered by any means, but it will certainly be helpful when using Fuga.
Fuga’s three base classes are the Samurai, the Oni Savage, and the Monk. This is pretty similar to Izana, but Fuga is a physical rather than a magical character and Oni Savage has some pretty great skills to offer. Fuga has access to both Counter and Countermagic, making him quite deadly when enemies initiate combat. Offensively, the combination of Astra, Deathblow, and Swordfaire makes him an absolute monster when initiating combat. Lancebreaker is a good alternate skill to have if you don’t like one of those, as it covers Fuga’s weakness to lances when wielding a sword. You definitely want to be a Swordmaster rather than a Master-at-Arms; the former class gets S-level swords and has better stat caps, plus hidden stat bonuses that increase your critical hit rate and ability to avoid attacks.
Holy cow, did that take a long time! But we’re finally done, and now you’ve got plenty of info to help you out when choosing what characters to use and how to use them – at least when it comes to these characters available on both paths. Next I’ll be doing one on the characters exclusive to Birthright, but you’re gonna have to give me a week or so on that – these huge guide posts don’t go together easy and they take a lot out of me. But it’s all worth it if it helps you adventurers to succeed on your Fire Emblem journey! If you have any specific questions, feel free to leave a comment. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy Fates and that this and the other guides available on the site helps you out!
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