With the possibility to truly switch classes for the first time ever in the series, Fire Emblem: Awakening has a lot of starter classes to choose from, allowing players to have a lot of freedom in customizing their army to their liking. While it’s true that characters won’t be able to switch to all starter classes, the choice is so broad that you will soon be forgetting about the limitations of the system. At the end of day, it will be up to you to create a really effective team with the right combination of classes and skills and we’re here to help you making these choices but going over all the starter and advanced classes of the game, with some general features and skills coming as default for the class.
The Cleric is one of the most important support classes of the game: they can heal other characters with the use of the staff weapons, the only weapon they can equip. Aside from healing, this class doesn’t have too much going on: they’re really weak in both offense and defense and in a direct confrontation they’ll die in a few hits. For this reason the cleric must be kept away from battles at all times: keep them well protected but not too much in the back since they may be required to heal one of the fron line fighters and need to reach them quickly enough. The cleric learns the Miracle skill at level 1 and the Healtouch at level 10; they can promote to Battle Cleric or Sage depending on your choice.
While the Cleric class is only available for females, the Priest class is available only to males and aside from this, there’s almost no difference between the two classes: the priest can equip staves and heal characters, with the healing efficacy depending on the magic stat and the power/type of the staff equipped. They have only slightly better attack and defense stats but just like the cleric, they go down easily and must be kept away from the frontlines at all costs. They work best when backed up by some defenders, allowing them to move near the other units without taking a risk and get killed. The Priest learns the Miracle skill at level 1 and the Healtouch skill at level 10; they can promote to battle monk or sage, depending on your choices.
