Too many clerics... o.o;

[Sakura]

Before chapter 17, I had Saphy, Tina, Sleuf, Linoan, and Nanna as my healers.  I'm using all of them so I could get high Staff ranks for the later chapters... but now I just got a new healer: Sara.  She kind of reminds me of Sophia from FE6... is she any good?  She has wrath even though she can't use it.  o.o;

[Celice]

If she can promote, she can use Wrath.

The reason there's a number of them was the fatigue system.  But that's more for the casual players--but how many characters are you using exactly ._.  Or is your entire team basically healers >.>

[Sakura]

Yeah... Saphy, Nanna, and Tina are all promoted already.  I also have Asvel and Salem for healing...  Sleuf is almost promoted. 

[Mekkah]

Linoan and Sarah are Sisters, so they can use magic before promotion. And pretty well, I might add. Having many healers is important because you'll want to have a maximum amount of people capable of using Warp, Rewarp, Restore, M Up, Rescue, Sleep and Silence for the later chapters. For Linoan, Saphy and Sarah, this won't be a problem because they start with relatively high staff ranks and get plenty of chance to build up. Nanna and Tina start with horribly low ranks (Nanna with an E and some EXP way back, Tina comes later with only an E). Salem comes with a C so he's middle ground. Sleuf has no problems since he comes with an A.

As long as you have plenty of people with B and some with A, you'll be fine.

[VincentASM is too important to have a messed up name]

IMO Sara is the best healer and one of the better magicians.

She does have a late recruitment, but that's offset by her great growths (80% in most areas) and Elite. Unlike other late-comers in the series like Nino, she also has great staff utility (A staves from the go and 25% chance of re-action) and her bases are actually decent thanks to FE5's low caps.

Her HP is kind of low though so it's risky to use her on the offensive. It's probably no more risky than using other mages though (Sety excluded). Also (and like Linoan) she can't use Wind magic (arguably the best magic type) until promotion, because of the silly Wind base.

I might be a tiny bit biased as well

[Mage Knight 404]

You mean you haven't bothered to check Linoan and Sara's Weapon Level ranks until now?

Yes, they use magic, and VASM got pretty much all of the stuff that sets Sara apart from the rest; she dominates and does it with her innocent style.

[Sakura]

Oh... ok I'll use them then...  But I have like no Light magic tomes left.  Saphy only has 13 uses on her Lightning tome and the only other one I have is Linoan's Rezizia (I haven't used it yet, though, since I never let her fight... o.o).  And I'm on Chapter 18 now.  Where could I get more Light tomes?

[Shirona]

Unfortnately, the next Lightning tomes available appear to be in a vendor...in Chapter 22. Looks like you'll have to wait a while.

[Sakura]

^ Well, that sucks. 

They really need more magic tomes in this game...  The only tomes I've been getting are Thunder ones that I steal from enemy mages and mage knights.  Pretty much all my bishops and mages and mage knights and dark bishops (salem's class) are using Thunder. 

[Shirona]

At least there are still many units who can use Thunder tomes. I remember getting stuck with tonnes of Yotsmungand and Hel tomes by endgame, stolen from enemies, and only Salem can use them. They were still good for selling, though... 

[Sakura]

Yeah, I have like 15 Thunder tomes on my storage.   

Do you know what I'm supposed to do with the villagers and the enemy knights with the faces in Chapter 18? 

[Mage Knight 404]

Herein lies the insane strategy to recruit Xavier.

Each villager must head in and speak to each of the Lenster armors with face sprites. Each villager has their own person to speak to, and the armors will become NPCs. Once ALL of the Lenster armors have been spoken to(their survival is not required), you can have Leaf talk to Xavier.

Be warned: doing this will require SOME planning at least.

[Mekkah]

If you have long-range magic like Meteor, Hel or Bolting, now is the time to use it to use on the Freege Armors (those without faces). 20 Mag people can OHKO some of them, and 2HKO the majority. Use Lara or someone else with such a tome to finish them off.

From there, I prefer to Warp/walk in someone with more Bld than them (to avoid capture), a scroll (to prevent crits), vulneraries and no weapons. That distracts them while you open the door for the civilians. They'll walk to the right armor, but once converted, they start fighting each other. The converted ones are allowed to die, the problem is when they kill an unconverted one. You need all of them to have talked to each other to allow Leaf to talk to Xavier.

Personally, I prefer to use a high Bld Lifis for the distraction task, because he can steal weapons.

[Sakura]

Wait do the villagers walk there by themselves or do I have to carry/Warp them?  o.o

[camus the dark knight]

I always thought Sara's in game portrait looked kind of weird (shot  )

Seriously though, Sara is a great unit and certainly worth using if you put a little effort in to training her. Linoan isn't too bad either. I personally find Nanna good as well, but many would disagree with me here.

EDIT: They walk on their own once they can reach them, so basically once you open both the armor's and the villager's doors.

[Haken]

Another note is that if you have Lifis steal all the ungeneric knights' weapons, they can't try to kill each other, and instead surround. That would help immobilise the ones yet to be converted.

[Neofox]

To be fair, most players want to recruit everyone possible, even if they're terrible. There's really no strange reason required for wanting to do that.

[Haken]

To be fair, most players want to recruit everyone possible, even if they're terrible. There's really no strange reason required for wanting to do that.

All the more reason then.

[Ayanami]

At least there are still many units who can use Thunder tomes. I remember getting stuck with tonnes of Yotsmungand and Hel tomes by endgame, stolen from enemies, and only Salem can use them. They were still good for selling, though... 

Salem cannot use Hell tomes, the game designers really does not want us to use these 1HP reducing spells.

-----

Getting the Member Card is no problem as you can capture the soldiers and release them, as for the Thief Staff, it will become useful for stealing the javalins from the middle room soldiers or you can have one of your thieves steal them, that should be easily done as many soldiers do not have much BLD. Sleep Swords are the way to go to keeping the Generals still to get the civilians to talk to them, but be sure that to leave a path to get them to talk to each sleeping General. I repair the Sleep Staff that Salem comes with to put the soldiers in the middle of the room to sleep. Xavier will not go after the civilians either. But getting both Xavier and the Member Card will be a headache as you want to keep the Dancers around as one of them has a Pure Water, the lone Recover Staff in the game, and a Luck Ring. To do this, you have got to use the Thief Staff to steal the lockpicks from the Thief by the Dancers on your first turn, that is if you are going to prevent he thief from letting the Dancers out.

For Staff users, Tina is not a problem to raise her low Staff level as her Thief Staff will raise it up very fast when you get her to steal the stuff from the enemies in whichever route that you took after Chapter 15, as well as getting one of the Scrolls in Chapter 18 as well as the Body Ring, which that should be given to one of your thieves. Sara is meh, but she is needed for the final two chapters in the game, but her staves will tire her out after one battle, so you will want to save a few Stamina Bags to be able to bring her into both battles as you WILL need her in both of those battles.

[Neofox]

as for the Thief Staff, it will become useful for stealing the javalins from the middle room soldiers or you can have one of your thieves steal them, that should be easily done as many soldiers do not have much BLD.

Thieves must have greater SPEED than the enemy in order to steal from them. They need higher build than the weight of the weapon they are attempting to take, though.

Sleep Swords are the way to go to keeping the Generals still to get the civilians to talk to them, but be sure that to leave a path to get them to talk to each sleeping General.

I'm pretty sure the civillians can't talk to sleeping units.

For Staff users, Tina is not a problem to raise her low Staff level as her Thief Staff will raise it up very fast [...]

Erm, no it won't... All weapons in this game give 1 WEXP regardless of what it is, so that means Tina will take a while to get her staff level up.