Hey all, I'm restarting hard mode of FE:RD due to my team having a minor case of the sucks. I probably would be able to do it, but I'd rather get through with the strongest team possible.

So I'm thinking for the final part, my team will consist of those you need to (Ike, Micaiah, Sothe, Sanaki, Kurthnaga, Ena) plus Edward, Haar, Titania, Tibarn, Caineghis, Shinon, Nailah, Elincia, Nephenee, Naesala, Skrimir and I haven't decided about the Herons yet, I figure they will all be leveling up once every ten turns no matter what I do, so I'll decide who I think is doing best near the end and pump them with BEXP if I need to.

The main problem I can see is that I'll mightn't have enough exp for Micaiah, Sothe and Edward, whereas the Greil mercenaries have plenty of exp to go around, so I'm kinda tempted to change out Edward for Zihark/Mia (Yes, I'm opening that can o worms again)

And yes, I'm aware that I don't have much magic - I've never been a big fan of it in FE - sure they do good damage, but they are so squishy - I would prefer more melee who can deal damage AND take it. The only time it's really useful is against highly armoured units, in which case Micaiah with Thani, and a bunch of people with hammers will make very short work of them.

Skrimir will be using a lot of laguz gems in the final battles so I'm not too worried about the transform gauge thing

I'm not entirely convinced by Nephenee however, was considering replacing with a lance general, lance paladin, or even Soren

What do you guys reckon?

Oh, I did think of one thing that my party might be missing - dragonslayers. There's going to be one very hard fight due to a lack of those. Oh well, theres a skill I can give someone for that battle, and I'll buy a wyrmslayer. Shouldn't be too bad, but it is one more reason to go for Soren I suppose

Worrying about the 4-E chapters might burn you. If you level up too few units, you'll have truble in the first 6 chapters of part 4 (where your team is split up).

Among the herons, stick to Reyson. I like Leanne, so I use her, but she is quite simply inferior to him. You'll definitely want Mia over Edward for the endgame.  Other than that, your team seems very fine. Far better than any team I've ever been to the endgame with, at least.

Generally, my endgame teams is something ala

Ike, Micaiah, Sothe, Sanaki, Kurthanga, Ena, Leanne, Mia, Jill, Nephenee, Edward,  Rolf, Mist, Tibarn a few other random mages (I bloody love mages). I generally end up having a few useless units. On my hardmode, I had been so RNG cursed that I had to kill Deginshea with just Tibarn Rolf.

If the endgame is your problem, not using mages shouldn't be much of an issue. In E-1, mages vs non-mages isn't that important.  In E-2, mages are a tad too fragile and a bit of a problem. In E-3, they're nice to have for half of the dragons. But if you bless Nosferatu for Micaiah, she can easily solo all of those. (That makes her useless on offence for the last two chapters of offence though, but she'd be bad at those anyway). In E-4. they're also bad. In E-5, they're worse than non-mages.

So, the only reason you'd want mages for the endgame is really for the healing.

Edit: Didn't see your second post. Bless Nosferatu on Micaiah, and Tibarn, Ike, Micaiah and healer should do 4-E3 easily.

Perhaps I shall go for Mia, it would be a lot easier to sort out all the exp than going for Edward

I should be fine for healing - Micaiah and Elincia can both heal well enough if they have high quality staves.

For the non end game, I plan to also given Soren, Nolan, Geoffrey and maybe even Oscar a decent amount of experience as well, and maybe get a few more to soak up damage like Gatrie, Toroneo, Boyd.

Nosferatu for Micaiah sounds like a good idea, I'll likely want her healing after 4-E3 anyway, shes too squishy to send against any of the enemies near the end.

Reyson is the one that Galdyrs 4 friendlies regardless of if he's transformed or not? Sounds like a good idea being as I need all my Laguz Gems for Skrimir, I might give him celerity for the extra movement.

Rafiel doesn't have Canto, and isn't flying, so that alone pretty much kills off any chance of using him over Reyson/Leanne

Reyson doesn't do 4 regardless of whether he's transformed or not. He does 1 untransformed, and 4 transformed. Leanne does 1 untransformed and 2 transformed.

Sorry, yeah I always get Reyson and Rafiel confused.

Canto, flying and extra movement is good, but if I'm using all my Laguz gems on Skrimir then I think I might be better off with Rafiel due to his all around Galdyr all the time. Leanna seems like a definite no.

I spose I can probably getting enough Laguz Stone's to make Reyson useful, or should I take Soren instead of Skrimir and use Laguz gems on Reyson?

My trick was to always give Shinon the dragonslayer skill, since he's the only one that can attack them with impunity, since IS decided it was fun to unbalance dragons further by making them ranged attackers.

Failing that, i would get someone with high crit or one of those sure-kill skills like Impale and sic them on the dragons. Snagging the Wishblade off Levail helps.

If you like Skrimir then keep him. If I remember rightly you should have two laguz gems - unlness you plan to just use one on Kurthnaga, and even then you get another one when Nasir joins your team.

What do you mean unbalance dragons further? The playable dragons are all rather weak, and the two chapters you face enemy dragons in are both rather easy.

If the dragons had had 1 range, melee users would have been near useless compared to mages for that chapter. Endgame, making most units have 2 range is a necessity.

Rol, Naesala is a royal laguz.