I'll be switching to Birthright soon, so I don't have the time to just infinitely grind gold bars and get eternal seals for everyone. As I'm using the kids I'll be figuring out below how to optimize each. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions.
Kana: I'm troubled with whom Avatar should marry. On one hand, the children have all had more time to grow than the parents and so they have higher initial stats to pass down. On the other hand, the children uniformly have worse growth rates than their parents. So if I marry Flora (the only 1st gen choice left...stupid me for picking a male avatar), my Kana will have better growths...but be stuck with shittier starting stats, not to mention reclassing to the troubador as an option which I find ok at best. I already have a lot of troubadors.
From my avatar, my Kana will have access to the standard Nohr Noble stuff, as well as Samurai. This grants her Astra, Swordfaire (goes well with Nohr Noble), Life and Death, a
Shigure (Azura/Laslow): Will be a rally unit. Ideally will be a berserker for as long as possible to grab as much HP as possible so that his personal can be of use.
Married: Velouria
Friend: Forrest or none (gets nothing from Forrest, but Forrest gets sky knight).
Final skill set:
Rally Speed (Falco Knight), Rally Strength (Berserker), Rally Skill (Bow Knight), Rally Resistance (Strategist), Inspiration/Amaterasu (Strategist/Kinshi Knight).
3. Dwyer (Jacob/Nyx): The funny thing about Dwyer is that he's quite frail but a lot of his available classes are for the meaty, physical oriented type. I've already got tomebreaker from jakob, so Dark Knight with seal magic could make Dwyer very nice for softening up mages. Tomebreaker also makes Aegis somewhat redundant, giving Dwyer a good excuse to avoid the paladin class (the other paladin skill is quite possibly the worst skill in the game in my opinion). Malig knight's skills could help spread out the damage more, and wyvern lord's swordbreaker and rally defense are both useful. Dwyer's got rally resistance already, if I compromise and make more than one rally unit.
I frankly have no idea where to go with this guy in terms of what class he should spend ths most time in. My first instinct is to recognize that he has good magic potential from his mother but most of his classes seem to rely more on physical damage, so maybe I should keep him in a class more geared towards raising strength.
Married: Nina...? Not Ophelia, she gives the same class as Dwyer's mother. Either Nina or Soleil, but Dwyer's already got a healing skill.
Friend: Percy or none; Ignatius is his only friend option. Percy gives the option of making Dwyer into a more general damage dealer.
Final skill set:
Luna, Tomebreaker, Seal Magic, Lifetaker, Shurikenbreaker or Live to Serve or Armored Blow.
4. Midori (Kaze/Beruka): My Midori's already got replicate and profiteer. Spendthrift has established itself as a devastating skill due to the ease with which gold bars may be farmed; Midori will try to give that to as many people as possible.
Maybe I could combine her high skill with Pavise or Aegis and make her a tank in conjunction with spendthrift? It'd be nice to have two unkillable Midoris running around.
Married: Midori grants two extremely powerful classes, mechanist and merchant, which give replicate and spendthrift respectively. She should marry a unit who is tough enough to withstand damage from being in two places at once. Ignatius, perhaps, or Siegbert.
Friend: Ophelia. Grants Lifetaker to a unit that has scant healing skills. Vengeance synergizes nicely with life and death, and bowbreaker makes Midori, in conjunction with her other skills, a devastating archer killer.
Final skill set: Profiteer (initially, will be dropped), Spendthrift, Replicate, Trample, Savage Blow, ???
5. Sophie (Silas/Selena): Sophie's one of my tougher units, and with her defenses covered for the most part it might be fun to explore more offensive options with her. Currently a Great Knight to pick up Luna and Armored Blow, both useful skills. Hero with its Sol is useful too...Axebreaker might not be needed but is a nice pick-up. Bowknight's rally skill is kind of iffy, I don't want her to be a background support character, but I suspect that Shurikenbreaker will be highly useful. Selena grants her the falco/kinshi knight classes...warding blow could be a nice complement to armored blow, making her good at attacking anyone as long as she can survive the following turn. Selena gave Sophie the interesting choice Sky Knight.
Sophie's ONLY logical friendship set is from Velouria. Axefaire and Rally Strength are both excellent additions. Marrying her to Siegbert/Percy gives her the wyvern sets, which complement her physical prowess well. Her crappy mag growth makes her a poor pairing for Dwyer or Forrest, though I suppose Maid has its useful skill Tomebreaker.
Married: Sophie's not really lacking anything; I might not get her married at all. Percy/Siegbert/Ignatius if I have to marry someone.
Friend: Velouria.
Final skill set: Luna, Armored Blow, Axefaire, Axebreaker, Sol, Warding Blow, Air Superiority, Trample, Savage Blow.
6. Siegbert (Xander/Charlotte): Kind of like Sophie right now, which is unsurprising since they're both Great Knights (I really don't like the paladin class). Siegbert is geared up to be the epitome of physical strength thanks to his mother. The Wyvern line offers a bunch of good offensive skills. The Berserker/Hero line also help increase his survivability and damage, particularly with axes. Given his high offensive power and toughness, he's a good candidate to marry Midori and take advantage of the replicate skill...tentatively. He has some really interesting marriage/friendship sets which I need to think more about.
Married: Midori
Friend: Ignatius (...or Forrest?)
Final skill set: Pavise, Aegis, Replicate, Armored Blow, Axefaire, Axebreaker, Sol, Luna, Trample, Savage Blow, Tomebreaker
7. Forrest (Leo/Felicia): Sometimes you'll have a unit that's completely lopsided in growths which makes them simulteanously very useful and very risky. Forrest is this kind of unit. He's got the best mag of any unit in my army right now, so skill-hunting will be used to promote his survivability as top priority, followed by ways to make him even more destructive.
Since Forrest is so prone to taking gouts of damage due to his awful defence, it's tempting to make use of vengeance. However in most circumstances I've seen he simply dies before he gets to take advantage of this skill. In light of this, I want to focus on grabbing as many breaker skill as I can. The Great Knight's armored blow, General/Paladin's pavise and aegis, and Hero's Sol are all good choices, but Forrest will want to get out of these classes ASAP due to Forrest's horrible strength.
Married:
Friend:
Final Skill set:
8. Ignatius (Benny/Peri): I made Ignatius a General, thinking to pick up Wary Fighter. Alas, I did not factor in Peri's speed boost she grants to Ignatius. If he keeps getting speed levels at the rate he's currently going, I can drop Wary Fighter for something else.
My Ignatius, in his current state at least, is nice and unkillable physically. This could make certain skills like armored blow redundant. I COULD go all the way with all the defensive skills and make him unkillable, or I can pick up some offense if I friend him with Percy for the wyvern line, and marry him to someone like ophelia to introduce some more offensive skills.
9. Nina (Niles/Mozu): Thanks to Mozu's aptitude, Nina has had amazing growths practically across the map. She is still rather fragile, however.
Her mom being Mozu, Nina has some interesting options other Nohr children don't have. She can pair Life and Death together with Spendthrift to generate a whopping +20 damage. From Niles, Life and Death goes well with Vengeance. She gets a couple of useful breaker skills as well. She can marry Percy to further expand her devastating offensive potential, or she can marry the others for a mix of offensive and defensive skills. Armored Blow from Great Knight would nicely counteract Life and Death's drawbacks.
10. Ophelia (Odin/Elise): Elise hurt me. Her skill growth was absolutely abysmal despite her good growths (she currently has 5 skill, which is her base skill even though she's nearly level 15 now...this means she spent nearly 10 levels not getting a single skill level. For those that are curious, there's a 0.03% chance that this can happen). Coupled with Odin's poor skill, this results in an Ophelia who, granted, has very good magic, but sometimes suffers poor hit rates. Anyway, Ophelia's main draw is her good luck and decent magic, speed, and skill.
Her alt class from her dad is...samurai. Interesting. Had I promoted Odin before he had Ophelia, I probably would have gotten Life and Death or Astra. Duellist's Blow and Vantage are useful also, and they're still good choices.
My friend makes an interesting case for Ophelia to pick up Vantage, Astra/Vengeance, Life and Death, and friendship set her with Midori and grab Spendthrift. This way, she can hypothetically deal a +50 damage if she activates Astra with a gold bar on hand. I could either go vantage/vengeance, or lifetaker/something else to complement this combo.
If that doesn't pan out, I plan on making Ophelia my Witch. I have no other female classes that are particularly good at magic. If I don't, I'll save Azura for being a witch. Warp+Dance sounds like fun.
11. Percy (Arthur+Effie):
Percy's poor strength growths are nicely countered by the fact that his mom had ridiculous amounts of strength that she passed down.
12. Soleil (Laslow+Azura):
My Soleil's turning out decently enough, a hardy unit that also deals good damage.
13. Velouria (Keaton+Camilla):
For reference:
http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/nohrian-classes/growth-rates/