Frey...really? I found Cain to be more reliabale..

I'll see what I can do with the others, though

I'll keep my likeable characters the same , but change the ones that I can't really like yet

I think stat wise Frey is the best horseman (well actually Wolf and Sedgar) but Abel and Cain aren't that much different. For me Abel > Hardin > Frey are the horseman I use (lost Cain in the Prologue, stupid mistake).

Wolf and Sedgar are apperantly great Hero's or Generals, but I haven't tried that myself. Their base stats are low and they're promoted units, but they're growth stats are the best in the game. I skipped them tbh. Will try in my next playthrough.

Also if you don't like Castor cause he's a hunter (and therefore won''t become a sniper) you can try to class change cavelier -> archer.

About what I posted earlier; changing Ogma (or anyone else) into Myrmidon is useless. Avoid and luck are for some reason not so important it seems. Mercenaries/Hero's are really good.

So far:

Lord: Marth (duh)
Mage: Merric (Linde is okey, not great)
Caveliers: Abel, Harkin, Frey
Hunter: Castor (I hate it that I don't have a good Archer in the game, maybe make one, I love Snipers)
Cleric: Lena
Fighter: Barst
Pegasus: Shiina
Thief: Julian (I'd love a better thief though. Volke is so awesome)
Dracoknight: Minerva
Mercenary: Ogma
Swordsman: Radd (but he's not that good for me)

Does anyone have ideas about whether it's better to promote to Berserker or Warrior (Barst in this case)?

Volke? I thought Matthew from 7 was godly...seriously..

I gave him one seraphs wing and he became the best Thief I've ever had..crits everywhere and super dodges..

hmm...so don't make anyone a myrmidon? they are my favorite class (save thief/assasin)

I'll see what I can do about it...hmmm

Merging with,

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=53609&page=1

Since this thread is becoming class discussion, too.

Fighter vs. Pirate: Okay, they both use Axe. Pirate can water walk. I assume Fighter would have better stats to offset the waterwalk? Are there enough waterwall in the game to have waterwalk actually shine? What's your experience with them so far?

Sword vs. Axe, vs. Spear: There are cheap Range 1-2 Axe and Spear but Sword has an expensive magical version? Why should I use Swords then? Since Axe/Spear could counter both close range as well as bows?

Well that's not nice... All the nice classes are on the same half! I guess the top half one will have to go Horsemen/Hunter...

I'm not really a fan of axes. My strategies shall have a 100% chance of succeeding (or close to), and if one unit has 72% chance of hitting... Well that messes that up.

I really like using fragile units really, but on defence (is that spelled with an s, not c?)  Swordmen + light/anima magic + Bowmen are generally my favourites.

What is the cap on each class, and how many units can you have on maps (normally)?

I'd probably go with a 2 myrmidion, 1 archer, 1/2 clerics, 1 mage and a pegasus knight if that is possible (I generally like to control relatively small squads, flanking the enemies).

I don't care if they're crappy, I'll do it anyway. That just adds to the challenge! :P

Well there are no really good Myrmidons and Archers in the game, sadly. And Mercenaries >>> Myrmidons big time. I love Myrmidons as well, but in Shadow Dragon you can forget having two in the team. I only use Radd and that's because I really want a Swordmaster, but honestly he's a burden. I have Castor, a Hunter, which is ok, but not as good as an Archer when he promotes to Horseman (Hunters also use bows btw, they're stronger, but have less defence).

Merric is a great Mage and Shiida is a very good Pegasus Knight, but lacks later on in the game.

Btw axes are awesome. Speed is the only thing holding Fighters/Warriors back, but with an Iron axe you should most of the time have 90+ Hit.

Btw, you don't have to choose one or the other half, you get units from all classes, you just can't class change from A type to B type. So a Knight can never class change to an Archer, but can change to a Pirate. 

I know I can have both, but the problem is that I might find half of the units in the game to be totally unintersting...

The only potentially interesting are Hunter/Mercenary/Sorcerer.

Of course, I could consider completely revamping my strategy for Shadow Dragon...

Sage, Sorcerer and Bishop. Aren't they kind of redundant? Do they have any unique trait to make them different enough to have different class?

Unpromoted they can only use one weapon, so they are usefull. After promotion they obviously all have different strenghts, but your Sage will already have a high weapon level for Books, while your Bishop can weild all staves.

Besides, Bishops have low strenght, so their magic use is not ideal. I'll keep Sages for the magic and Bishops for the healing. The added attack option is a nice extra.

@BengaBenga: Barst either Warrior or Berserker is the same really. Reclass him to Hero once promoted, he´ll be much better. But if you don´t want to reclass, then Warrior. Segdar, Wolf are great as General/Hero throughout the game until the last 5 chapters. Better to use them instead of Jaigen, Draug and other promoted units. I don´t like Minerva really, she´s good once you get her, but her growth rates are slow and Catria becomes much better even unpromoted. I´m using Julian right now to see how he´ll turn out, he has a high growth rate. I still prefer Linde over Merric, they are both good really. I also reclassed my promoted Maria, Lena to Sages, they don´t lose their staff rank and gain one rank in books.

Pirate gets +1 to Defense and Fighter +1 to speed, +2 to HP I think. That´s it really. I use Pirate instead of Fighter because they can cross rivers and such.

There´s up to 15 units per map max and lowest should be 10.