Crest Market

The Crest Market is where you can buy permanent boosts and unlock skills to specific characters in exchange for materials and a bit of gold. The crests are the same for each character; however, the materials needed to unlock some of them will vary, and will require Bond materials - those you can only get by forming bonds, increasing support ranks of various characters, completing certain History Mode maps, and defeating the characters themselves in some History Mode maps as well.

Attack Crests

These crests focuses on improving the offensive aspects of the characters like additional combos, more warrior gauges, longer stun and awakening gauge duration, and more. Additional attack crests will be unlocked once a character has changed to his/her advanced class with the help of a Master Seal.

Defense Crests

As the name implies, these crests are focused on improving the character’s survival chance against fatal blows, resistance against different types of damage as well as their healing capacity through items and natural fort healing. These crests won’t protect you from extra damage based on weapon properties like Wingslayer, Mountslayer, Plateslayer etc. So for flier units like Camilla and Cordelia, even if they have maxed protection against bows, they’ll still suffer from devastating damage from bows. Additional defense crests will be unlocked once a character has changed to his/her advanced class with the help of a Master Seal.

Boost Crests

Surge Crest changes the character’s class to an advanced class, significantly boosting all stats and unlocks more crests. This requires a Master Seal. Master Seals are limited in numbers in Story Mode so prioritize using it on your favorite characters that you’ll be using often. Additional Master Seals can be acquired in History Mode as S-rank rewards.Like Anna’s Mementos, Master Seals can only be obtained once per stage. Not all stages have Master Seals.

Some characters have unique weapons with powers locked by default. You can unlock these weapons’ true potential by getting the Mastery Crest. This Boost Crest slot becomes available only once the weapon owner has changed to an advanced class.

Once the Mastery Crest has been obtained, you still need to score a required number of kills using that weapon to fully unlock its power. The main component of Mastery Crests are Mastery Scrolls, which can only be acquired as S-rank rewards from high-level History Mode maps.

On top of certain rare materials, Skill Crests require Essences, which are unique materials that you can only obtain by maxing out a bond with another character (A or A+ rank) By default, a character only has 3 skill slots. This can be enhanced up to six slots by getting Talent Crests, which will become available when that character changes to his/her advanced class. If a particular skill is still not available, that means that you haven’t acquired the character with the essence necessary to get the skill. You can get all default characters during the course of Story Mode.

It’s important to choose the skills which will benefit the character the most. It will be a good idea to center your skill selection in their intended role and default stats. For example, heavy attackers like Camilla and Ryoma will enjoy the following skills:

• Str+10 - Increases Str by 10
• Astra - Increases the speed of Regular and Strong attacks
• Luna - Lower’s enemy Def and Res on a hit, Increases with Luck
• Armored Blow - Prevents enemy attacks from interrupting your attacks
• Awakening - Increases damage dealt during awakening mode

You can use the same setup above for heavy magic hitters like Leo, Robin, and Elise, but you can replace Str+10 with Mag+10 instead.

For tanky characters like Frederick, you can consider the following:

• Def+10/Res+10 - Increases Defense / Resistance by 10. Apply it accordingly depending on the character’s weaker def stat. Frederick has excellent defense but very low resistance so Res+10 will help address that weakness a bit
• Pavise - Reduce damage from axes, lances, and swords. Increases with Luck
• Aegis - Reduces damage from bows, tomes, and stones. Increases with Luck
• Dracoshield - Reduces damage the vanguard receives while in Pair-Up
• Max HP+50

For an overall balanced setup, you can consider the following:

• Sol - Recover HP when defeating strong enemies. Increases with Luck
• Pavise - Reduce damage from axes, lances, and swords. Increases with Luck
• Aegis - Reduces damage from bows, tomes, and stones. Increases with Luck
• Astra - Increases the speed of Regular and Strong attacks
• Luna - Lower’s enemy Def and Res on a hit, Increases with Luck
• Armored Blow - Prevents enemy attacks from interrupting your attacks

You can follow the same setup with staff users like Lissa or Lianna, you can follow a balanced setup like the following:

• Live to Serve - Using a staff on an ally heals you by the same amount.
• Pavise - Reduce damage from axes, lances, and swords. Increases with Luck
• Aegis - Reduces damage from bows, tomes, and stones. Increases with Luck
• Astra - Increases the speed of Regular and Strong attacks
• Luna - Lower’s enemy Def and Res on a hit, Increases with Luck
• Armored Blow - Prevents enemy attacks from interrupting your attacks