It is my understanding that you can use a Second Seal to reset a characters level after they hit 20 so they can keep getting stat boosts, so does that mean I can class up sooner?

When my Donnel became a level 10 Villager, I turned him into a Mercenary and now he's level 10 again and I'm wondering if there's any point to not classing up now.

@blubba: I think in the case of Donnel you probably best to class him up, as he is tough to use as a villager. So think of Donnel like this. lvl1 Villager is actuality -9 Basic class, when he hits 10 switch him to an actual useful class as when he becomes a lvl 1 Basic class he is a more advanced than lvl 1 basic maybe even level 10 basic when he is 1, then save him till he is 20, Advance class him. By my thinking that makes him about a level 30.

I think he would get better stats aslong as you keep going to 20 as when you do the Second Seal you dont get that big boost of stats, you know like +4 health, +2 luck +5def stuff. Since Second Seal just resets it to 1 with 0 Stats boosts.

Took me a while figured out the Second Seal thing once I had someone hit max and went "shoot now what?" so that is usefull.

@blubba: I would say so yeah, you're probably better off getting them to level 20 and then using a second seal to switch to a complimentary base class, base classes get a lot more XP than advanced classes do so you can get more stats faster by levelling through some base classes before using a master seal.

I switched my avatar to Myrmidon when he hit 20 as I generally like the myrmidon / swordmaster classes for their abilities and skill/speed focus.

@blubba: Well, for Villager, and any other Non-Promoting Class like Dancer of Manakete and any Advanced class, you actually want to get them to level 15 first, because that's when they learn their second skill. For Villager that skill is Underdog which gives you +15 Hit/Avoid against higher-leveled enemies which is pretty nice.

Depending on what difficulty you're playing on, Second Sealing sooner can fuck up your stat-curve if you aren't doing much grinding. On Normal go ahead and Promote at 10 and Second Seal at 15 so you can learn skills sooner. On Hard or higher, I would recommend you try to level your Basic Classes up to 20 before using your Master Seal, at least the first time around, for the extra stats. Afterwards hit 15 at least in your Advanced Class so you learn all the skills before you Second Seal.

For your second Basic Class and so-on, you will want to promote between 10 and 20 depending on how your class is sitting on stat caps. Basic Classes have lower stat caps than Advanced Classes. Once you've hit a stat cap your character will no longer be able to gain points in that stat without Promoting/Reclassing. You can tell a stat is capped when it turns Green on the character sheet. If most of your main stats are capped, it may be more sensible to promote earlier.

Keep in mind there's a hidden level modifier effecting your EXP earned that goes up every time you Second Seal. The formula is (Current Level (+20 for Advanced Classes) - 1) / 2, rounded down. So for your Donnel for example, because you used a Second Seal at level 10, whenever he gains EXP it will behave as if he was (10-1)/2 = 9/2 = 4.5 rounded down = 4 levels higher than his effective level. For an Advanced Class at level 15, using a Second Seal increases the modifier by (15+20-1)/2 = 34/2 = 17 levels. After turning a level 15 Great Lord Chrom into a level 1 Archer, he would be gaining EXP as if he was level 18.

This modifier has a cap though, which scales on level. The cap is only 20 on Normal which is why it doesn't really matter all that much, but on Hard the cap is 30 and on Lunatic the cap is 50. On higher difficulties, Second Sealing too soon and getting your level modifier up high too quickly can seriously hamper your rate of level gain later on.

TL;DR

On Normal -

• Promote Basic classes at 10
• Secondary Seal Non-Promoting and Advanced Classes at 15 or 16

On Hard/Lunatic -

• Promote first Basic Class at 20
• Secondary Seal Non-Promoting and Advanced Classes between 15 and 20
• Promote further Basic Classes from 10-20, depending on current state of Stat Caps

You should mostly be focusing on skills. So go ahead and promote if there is nothing left in the last ten levels of their class that you want.