I’ve picked up the next two tiers for pretty much every weapon type. Some I have a ridiculous number of, like 10 ice swords. Scrolls have been super rare, only one Area Heal 2 spell which is annoying because I have two healers.
You're basically right:
Spoiler:Canopus is your key here. You need to give him the Field Alchemy I skill (50 sp). This allows you to use Mend Leaf +2 which will heal an adjacent unit for 75HP, a good amount at this point in the game and more than a Heal spell. Basically, position him at the front of your group as close as possible to the target. Then rush him forward as you were doing. He's pretty buff on his own so he can take a few hits. And once you manage to get him next to the target, +75HP per round should be enough to keep her up while the rest of the group gets within range. It's not guaranteed, you're still relying on the enemy not getting criticals etc and her dodging one or two attacks early on. But your odds are closer to 50% instead of almost zero.
I definitely agree that this was an unfortunate encounter so early when you're still familiarising yourself with the tactics available to you.
StrayTanooki, I did that battle the way that Mr GT Chris suggests, but I have two others suggestions:
Spoiler:I didn't realize this until recently, but hawkmen like Canopus can actually belong to a variety of classes. So even though Canopus cannot use the heal spell as a "Vartan" (his default class), you could change him to a cleric and teach him heal. You can change him back, after the battle, as long as you have a "Peregrine" classmark.
Also, there is a ranged weapon called the "Lobber" that lets you use items at a distance. I've had one on my cleric, and he can throw healing items about as far away as he can cast the heal spell. Give it to Canopus for some extra range! I know it can be purchased earlier in the game, but I'm not sure if it's available to you yet.
For what it's worth, I think that mission was one of the trickiest I've faced so far.
And, if you want to RP that mission to commit to saving her, it can benefit you later:
Spoiler:Cistina can be recruited in Chapter 2, on the Chaos route, if you saved her in Chapter 1.
EDIT: some slight clarifications.
I do have access to the Lobber. I was just reading about it in-game the prior time I played. I didn't understand it's purpose and had no idea it could throw items, or that items were that powerful.
I'll have to look at Field Alchemy for Canopus. I didn't know that let you use items on others either, although I maybe didn't read that closely. I've been pretty spartan with my spending so far, but skills can be swapped out and SP can be earned from any battle so I assume it can be farmed later if not this early.
I'll see if I can pull it off next time. Overall the battle was going fine aside from the rescue, although the Dragon was a real tank.
I just finished up a pair battle at Coritanae Keep. I’m a little lost on what is happening with the story right now, so I think I’ll need to dig into the Warren Report, review a couple scenes, and come back with story thoughts.
But one additional discovery: apparently the Lobber can also be used to throw grenades at enemies! I discovered this the painful way, when a cleric chucked one at a cluster of units, doing about 75 damage to each. But grenades are available to me, in the shops, so I’m going to start using this tactic.
At the beginning of Chapter 3, I had thought that my guys were getting powerful enough to outpace the difficulty curve. But the game is still keeping me on my toes. More enemies use finishing moves, the game is starting to bring in reinforcement units on certain maps, and then introduces new stuff like grenades. Also, the enemies make liberal use of high-end restoratives like Mend Leaf +2. And the enemy AI functions pretty well. Overall I’ve been pleased with the level of difficulty throughout.
I finally got back to this last night and was surprised at how easy it was to pick up where I left off.
I did the Chapter 1 battle that involves "the choice." Despite intending to go Law with the game, I just couldn't do it. I went Chaos. Law seemed too evil to consider.
Welcome aboard the Chaos route! I think you'll enjoy the next chapter.
I agree, the game's pretty easy to get back into after a break. Sometimes I have a "what was happening in the story?" moment, but the mission-by-mission gameplay is pretty consistent.
Welcome aboard the Chaos route! I think you'll enjoy the next chapter.
I agree, the game's pretty easy to get back into after a break. Sometimes I have a "what was happening in the story?" moment, but the mission-by-mission gameplay is pretty consistent.
I think that has been a factor with why I'm actually making good progress with this game, I usually do one or two battles during weekdays before bed when I'm too tired to play games on the big screen, very happy with this pick for us.
I do have access to the Lobber. I was just reading about it in-game the prior time I played. I didn't understand it's purpose and had no idea it could throw items, or that items were that powerful.
I'll have to look at Field Alchemy for Canopus. I didn't know that let you use items on others either, although I maybe didn't read that closely. I've been pretty spartan with my spending so far, but skills can be swapped out and SP can be earned from any battle so I assume it can be farmed later if not this early.
I'll see if I can pull it off next time. Overall the battle was going fine aside from the rescue, although the Dragon was a real tank.
Interesting, just got past this battle as well. I gave up on saving Cistina after even getting reinforcements over to her the last time was too little too late, but these tips have me considering revisiting my previous save. Especially as I'm not sure which route I'll end up on.
Woot! Chapter 2!
My main character is now a Level 9 Warrior, and I hope they'll be other class options available soon.
I'm slowly building up one character as a berserker. I find whenever I bring him forward he gets drilled by enemy archers and spellcasters and nearly dies, so I've pretty much resigned myself to having him hang out in the back until he becomes a bit more functional.
I've got one dark wizard, but I haven't found him that useful yet. He tends to struggle to get close enough to enemies.
I'm guessing I should start building up a Beast Tamer too? That's the only untrained class I have available at the moment.
I just want to say that I love the Charm spell!
Ran into a pirate town in chapter 4 yesterday, turned out almost like hitting a brick wall, the enemies were 4 levels higher then me, and I had to rescue a guy who refused to shoot the main bad guy. Took two tries but I finally got him, (thanks to the said Charm spell). To my surprise the guy didn't offer to join me right now 
Yup, there's quite a long saga to that guy, one that I haven't completed either. Also found that battle super challenging so nicely done.
I got a couple battles farther. Made my way to Brigantys Castle, but haven't entered yet. Instead I went back to town to see if there were new weapons. Indeed there were -- the Level 13 weapons were available! But the plain level 13 weapons are all worse than the upgraded level 10 weapons (or, level 11 after being upgraded), so I just spent a bunch of money, and left. Hit a random battle before the castle, so I'll have to go through that before I move the story along.
But man, I am really enjoying the way that the Chapter 3 Chaos story is playing out:
At the beginning of Chapter 3, I wasn't really sure why Denam was still fighting. He was disillusioned by leadership on both sides, and didn't seem to be aligned with anyone. But now it's clear: he's fighting to try to protect people hurt by the war. His immediate goal, where I am, is to bring down Xaebos: a knight who served under Balbatos, and who is basically responsible for some heinous war crimes.
What I love is how everyone is questioning Denam's motives, and there's no clear right answer. On his way to Xaebos, Denam runs into another one of the necromancer's apprentices (side note: I love the title "necroprentice"). Denam accuses her of profaning the dead, and she tells him, basically, that the dead aren't so different. Some want peace, but some lust for blood. And Denam's killed a lot of people, and made a lot of enemies -- even in the afterlife. I don't think I've ever seen a game in which a necromancer lectures me on morals quite so effectively.
Then in the next battle, Denam faces off against a knight who was married or engaged to the necroprentice you killed, all the way back in Chapter 1. He makes clear that he didn't like Balbatos's methods, and respects Denam as a warrior, but he loves his family (who Denam has killed) and he also must stay true to his oaths as a knight above all else. This felt like a mirror of who Denam would have been if he opted to stay with Ronwey: essentially, "my county, right or wrong."
I'm a bit confused, for some reason my rune fencer class is getting xp, despite me not using it? I'm using Cerya who is listed as a Valkyrie but I don't see Valkyrie in the xp screen. But the Valkyrie class is not falling behind ether.
It is a little confusing - some classes have different names for males and females, but they’re the same class. Runs Fencer = Valkyrie.
oh, well that explains it then, I guess time to switch out someone to a new class 
Quick update:
I swapped over to Warlock and decided to level my White Knight and new Ranger.
So...I've been grinding for the last 5ish hours and it's taking sooo looong. I'm at around 34 hours and I think I'm about to enter chapter 4.
I have some thoughts about weird class balancing, but I'm going to reserve those for when I'm finished.
How did you get Ranger?
It's a story character! I can't say much more for fear of spoilers!
I squeezed in one battle while traveling, and I realized that I need to figure out a way to damage beasts. There were a couple of octopi that gave me a rough time. I managed to win the battle without losses because the boss game too far forward and I took him out, but had the fight gone on much longer I would have had three or four characters down.
Well finally I can progress in the game. I recruited the Necromancer after much effort to raise my Galgastani Chaos Frame. Each unit has a loyalty that you can view by pressing Select and highlighting their name on the character view screen. But each clan also has a loyalty rating too, Wallister, Bakram, and Galgastan. Clan loyalty goes either up or down based on conversation choices during the game. It goes up each time you resurrect a unit of that clan or at least finish a battle with that unit incapacitated. It goes down each time you kill a unit of that clan in battle. Anyway, my method to restore my Galgastani Chaos Frame was to engage in random battles against non human types with 4 fresh Galgastani recruits with nothing equipped and set to my lowest level class. For convenience, I set them to Melee AI so they charge ahead to get themselves killed. Then I play out the battle, resurrecting the recruits with Blessing Stones (2000 a pop) as required. Rinse and repeat while catching up on some TV shows. Eventually, my chaos frame was enough to allow me to recruit the Necro.
Anyway, I do highly recommend at least following through this somewhat extensive side quest. It’s triggered by viewing “The Balmamusa Dead” in the Warren Report, Chaos Route, start of Ch 4. There are some interesting story beats and it ends with a surprising reunion with a major story character. You may need to check a faq because it’s not always clear how to proceed, or I can try to post some de-spoilerised directions.
Update here: I’ve taken Coritanae AGAIN, and had an epic one-on-one duel
against Leonar
I’m still in Chapter 3, but I think I see where things are going to take a turn when I get to the end. I wonder if the three paths meet, going into Chapter 4, or what.
The duel took me two tries, but ended up being easy with the right approach. My Denam is a ninja, and it really helped to apply stun-bringer to my weapon before closing to melee range. But the first time I attempted the battle, because it took two rounds, I applied two effects: stun on hit, and silence on hit. Rather than stacking, the second overwrote the first. So, I didn’t stun my enemy the first time, and I lost. As soon as I corrected that mistake, I had no trouble.
GB, you should check out the Dragoon class. They have skills called Beastslayer and Dragonslayer, which cost TP to apply and guarantee a super-powerful, 100% hit against those enemies. I think the last couple times I used the skill, I did 150+ damage.
Regarding the Dragoon class, I ended up with (mild recruitment Chaos Route Ch 3/4 spoilers):
Cerya
in my party who is the sister of
Cistina
.
Since they are both Valkyries (Rune Fencers), a class I don't even like that much, and specialise in spears, a weapon I don't like, I changed her over to Dragoon with Sword weapon specialty and now she's kicking ass. The Chaos route doesn't have a Dragoon story character (I don't think) so this worked out for me. In terms of trying to make Rune Fencer useful, I've given them Divine magic (instead of Air) which gives them access to Heal (not Multi Heal), Spiritsurge for attack, and Boon of Swiftness. Spiritsurge doesn't do a lot of damage compared to say what Catiua does but maybe I'll be able to work on their stats a bit. Boon of Swiftness is pretty handy though.
A small tip for those annoying Ninjas who keep casting Evade (immune to one physical attack). Instead of wasting one of your regular attacks on them, if you have anyone in a literal stone's throw whose action you won't be using that turn, say an advancing melee fighter, just use their ranged action to throw a stone at the Ninja. Even though it would normally only do 1HP of damage, it's perfectly adequate for wasting the Ninja's Evade skill.
A small tip for those annoying Ninjas who keep casting Evade (immune to one physical attack). Instead of wasting one of your regular attacks on them, if you have anyone in a literal stone's throw whose action you won't be using that turn, say an advancing melee fighter, just use their ranged action to throw a stone at the Ninja. Even though it would normally only do 1HP of damage, it's perfectly adequate for wasting the Ninja's Evade skill.
I was doing the exact same thing. Gave my support characters something new to do.
Necromancer
I think I'm on the final battle of that quest, I will probably not be able to recruit her, but I'm still trying to save her during the fight. So far that has proven difficult as the units are good 2 levels above my best fighters, and I'm having a hard time to get someone to revive her AND heal her in the 3 turns provided. I may just go and grind the forest a bit and then try again.
I used something like 3 Mending Seeds plus an item to give her the Fortify status effect before she finally gave up on charging the enemy line and wandered off for the rest of the battle. My rescue squad was 2 Ninjas plus Canopus as an Archer. All of them had Move +1. I had my Cleric following behind with a Boon of Swiftness here and there. I needed to rewind quite a bit because I had to make sure I had a second unit available to heal her straight after being resurrected so she wouldn't get one shot killed. Arycelle did some sniping from below. Good luck!
I'm struggling with the lack of Move +1, what level are you able to get those? The closest I got so far is to get a ninja, Canapus and a cleric within striking distance, but as soon as 1 character gets close the enemy clogs up the pathway.
I just checked on the wiki:
Swiftfoot I-II 20/40 460/790
Didn't even know there was a Swiftfoot II skill, can't wait to get my hands on that.
Might need to close the level gap, you said there was a 2 level difference. Also, spending some time crafting some upgrades could help.
On the Chaos Route, Ch 4, the 4 sisters are united at last! Last time I played the game, I wasn't able to achieve this so it's satisfying. Also, you get quite a lot of dialog in the battle with the 4th sister if you deploy the other 3 sisters.
Ok, so I'm couple levels away from that, I'm around level 17, while the enemies are in the 19 range
If anyone needs any extra motivation to get a Dragoon in their party, I did this damage earlier today:
Cheating a bit because the dragon was undead and I was using a weapon that does extra damage against undead. But you get the idea :).
That is badass!
My dragoon has evolved from terrible (as any new character) to a decent damage dealer, but fragile and frequently targeted. But I'm planning to sacrifice him in my first experiment at transferring a dead character's skills. He's down to one heart now.
I think I'm going to make one of my Warren Report knights a dragoon after that. So either Voltare or Folcurt -- probably Folcurt, because he's got some pretty high natural defensive stats. But I want to wait until I hit level 15 and can learn the skill that increases the rate of TP gain during battle. If I am reading the information correctly, that skill can only be learned by knights, or maybe a couple other classes, but can be used by anyone.
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