Sakura Fire Emblem Guide

About
Latest Posts

Ethan's first contact with the FE saga was with a Super Nintendo emulator that his father had installed on his PC. The ROM in question? Genealogy of a Holy War. After that, He remembers the first Fire Emblem game he managed to complete was The blazing Blade on a GBA emulator for android and his favorite character of the whole saga is Seliph. Outside of FE, Ethan is a keen indie gaming fan and loves reviewing games when he gets the chance!

Important Information to Know about Sakura

Health: 16
Strength: 3
Magic: 6
Skill: 5
Speed: 7
Luck: 9
Defense: 5
Resistance: 7
Movement: 5
Special Ability: Quiet Strength and Miracle
Weapon: E-Staff
Equipped items: Bloom festal.

(Source: Fire-Emblem-Wiki-Sakura )

The first time you find her is in chapter 5 of fire emblem fates and fire emblem birthright. On fire emblem conquest, you meet her in chapter 6 as an enemy unit. In revelation, you meet her in chapter 8 with similar stats.

She is one of the first clerics (or Shrine maiden as they are called in this version of the game), so she is probably one of your best options at this point in the game. The only bad part is that she can’t attack at all. She is only a unit that can heal other units. She can’t even use any kind of attack staff. That could be a problem. However, you can make her a good unit if you put in some effort.

Sakura’s Background

Regarding the background of Sakura, without going into spoilers.

Sakura was born after Corrin, being the youngest daughter of Sumeragi and Ikona. For a while, before Corrin’s kidnapping, many people thought that she would be kidnapped. Still, Corrin would have been taken away by accident. However, this was really just a rumor. Despite this, she became timid due to her fear of being kidnapped and ending up just like Corrin.

However, after meeting Corrin again, she decided to become a much more outgoing person. She sought to strengthen herself to avoid being separated from her older brother again. She is one of the most friendly characters in the entire game, and it is something you will see in all her interactions with the characters. This is because her extreme shyness puts her in hilarious situations.

Without a doubt, you may end up getting very fond of her. Try to maximize her level of affection, but don’t marry her off to Corrin (that would be a bit strange, really). Instead, be sure to marry her to Kaden or Kaze. It’s one of the best options as far as marriage is concerned. It also allows for a better approach to Sakura’s history and background.

Why Should I Play with Sakura?

Sakura is basically a cleric. Her official class is shrine Maiden, but it’s just the fancy name for cleric in Fire emblem fates. With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why Sakura is a fundamental part of your team.

Being in charge of healing and not having any attack to defend herself, the only thing you can do with her is play defensively. Sakura can be a bit heavy initially because she cannot attack and requires other team members to defend her.

In terms of healing Sakura really is one of the best units, basically allowing the restoration of all the HP of the team in a short time. Another point in her favor is that she has a great range of movement.

Her large amount of evasion points (more than 10 points) and her incredible luck make her a character elusive enough to avoid being eliminated during the first chapters. Still, if you do not start to scale her abilities, she will be eliminated in a relatively simple way.

The ideal is to use two promotion seals on Sakura at the first opportunity. Being a character you have from the beginning of the game, it is effortless to achieve both promotions; you will get enough experience in a relatively comfortable way.

Another critical point is that Sakura, being a cleric, will depend a lot on other characters, which will allow you to increase her affinity level quickly. This means that you will be able to explore her story more profoundly and more straightforwardly and that you will be able to improve specific statistics simply. The characters with which Sakura can obtain affinity are:

Corrin (Male)
Saizo
Kaden (the best husband for her)
Hinata
Azama
Subaki
Hayato
Jakob
Silas
Kaze
Xander (Revelation)
Leo (Revelation)
Ryoma
Takumi
Hinoka
Hana
Azura
Elise (Revelation)

As you can see, Sakura has a lot of routes with emphasis on her story. I recommend you to marry her to Kaden because it will allow her to have one of the best children in the whole game and, in general terms, to get excellent stats.

How to Transform Sakura Into the Best Onmyoji?

One of the two possible classes that Sakura can obtain at the moment of her promotion is that of Onmyoji. But to make her the best Onmyoji of the game is not as simple as promoting her once she reaches level 30.

As I mentioned before, Sakura requires a lot of help to get a good attack because her stats are rather alarming. Therefore, the ideal is to first promote her to Priestess and then turn her into an Onmyoji.

Why? It allows her offensive capabilities to begin to blossom, which is the ultimate goal of the onmyoji class. In the Priestess class, her direct attack will increase by 5% first, and her magic will increase by 15%.

In addition to that, with the Priestess class, she will be able to obtain some skills necessary for a good performance on the battlefield, such as Miracle and Rally Luck. With these skills, Sakura can survive even with only 1 HP. She will also obtain an additional 8 points in her luck statistic, allowing her evasion and critical hits to increase. It is precisely the critical hits that we are interested in.

Once you reach Sakura’s maximum level as High Priestess, proceed to use a second seal to promote her to Onmyoji. Sakura will get a 20% increase in magic, 10% in skill, and 15% in resistance with this class. With all these characteristics, Sakura becomes a compelling character that hits quickly, critically and is basically untouchable due to her evasion ability.

In addition to that, at levels 5 and 15 of Onmyoji, Sakura obtains two additional skills: Rally Magic and Tomefaire. These abilities increase the user’s magic by 5 points and the allies’ magic by 5 points.

Sakura becomes an incredible alternative to destroy armies due to her attack capacity. She goes from being a weak character to an essential piece of the team.

The Abilities of Lissa Onmyoji Promotion

Sakura starts with two base abilities:

Quiet Strength: All allies within a two-tile radius of Sakura receive 2 less damage from attacks.
Miracle: This allows Sakura to survive any attack that would KO her with just 1 HP (based on her luck).

When she gets to level 10 as a shrine maid, she learns:

Rally luck: luck +8 to all allies within a 4 tile radius from Sakura.

When she gets to level 5 as a Priestess, she learns:

Renewal: This allows Sakura to recover 30% HP at the start of each turn.

And at level 15, she learns

Countermagic: When damaged by magic, the enemy receives the same damage

Once you reclass her to Onmyoji, at level 5, she learns:

Rally Magic: Magic +4 to all allies within a 3 tile radius for one turn
Tomefaire: Magic +5 when equipped with a Tome

How to Play Sakura Onmyoji Promotion

Sakura onmyoji’s final build will look more or less like this:

Health: 45
Strength: 25
Magic: 35
Skill: 32
Speed: 32
Luck: 27
Defense: 24
Resistance: 31
Movement: 6
Special abilities:
- Quiet Strength: All allies within a two-tile radius of Sakura receive 2 less damage from attacks.
- Renewal: This allows Sakura to recover 30% HP at the start of each turn.
- Countermagic: When damaged by magic, the enemy receives the same damage
- Tomefaire: Increases 5 magic points when equipping a tome.
Weapon: B-Staff and Tome A
Items equipped: Mend, Catharsis, and Fire tome. (also, any scroll can work).

With this build, you ensure that Sakura can attack directly, attack fast and perform critical hits constantly, which you need to ensure. On the other hand, it also allows you to have access to a series of healing spells that allows her to support other characters if necessary.

With his abilities, you ensure that she won’t die from a direct attack (because he will recover 30% of his health at the beginning of each turn). She resists magical attacks while destroying enemy mages (because he counteracts passively).

It could be considered a character designed to be placed in the middle of the battlefield. But until Sakura reaches the maximum level, it is best to leave her at the back of the battlefield. Even with her best luck, she can be eliminated relatively quickly because her evasion rate is less than 40%.

What Happens if I Don’t Side with Sakura? (Conquest Only)

There is a possibility that you will not join Sakura. In the Conquest line, she is not a unit you can use, and in the Fates line, you can’t recruit her until later in the game. Therefore, if you don’t choose her, Sakura becomes an antagonist.

In the Conquest line, Sakura is one of the main antagonists. Still, unlike other characters, it is not necessary to eliminate her. On the contrary, the goal of your battle against her is to capture her as a prisoner of war. Unlike other characters that you can capture as prisoners of war, you will not be able to recruit her.

When you have her in your possession, you can learn about her history and way of seeing the world from another perspective. My recommendation is that you play the conquest line at least once.

Sakura as a Boss (Conquest Only)

Sakura is an enemy in chapters 6 and 22 of the conquest line. In chapter 18 and the game’s prologue, she is an NPC, so it is not really necessary to pay attention to her.

In the battle of chapter 6, Sakura is the most manageable unit to eliminate really, because he is a cleric and has no self-defense. The only thing you have to watch out for is Ryoma and Takumi. Both of them are close to Her.

In the case of Ryoma, the only thing you really have to do is to eliminate him by using a Spear because his physical defense will not be developed. In the case of Takumi, direct attacks with an axe or sword to avoid damage with his bow.

Sakura will not oppose resistance, usually the first to fall of all the siblings. The strategy is just that, by eliminating her, the rest of the characters are left without the possibility of healing and recovering HP, which causes the rest of the confrontation three times easier.

Now, the real “challenge” is presented in chapter 22. In this chapter, Sakura will have already raised enough levels to obtain her first promotion, so you will face Sakura using the High Priestess class.

The build sakura has in this level is:

Level 11
Health: 37
Strength: 21
Magic: 25
Skill: 18
Speed: 25
Luck: 31
Defense: 15
Resistance: 23
Movement: 6
Special abilities:
- Quiet Strength: All allies within a two-tile radius of Sakura receive 2 less damage from attacks.
- Voice of peace: User takes 2 less damage from physical attacks made by enemies within 2 squares of the user.
Weapon: B-Staff and B-Bows
Items equipped: Silver Yumi, Wane festal, and spirit Dust
Class: Priestess

It is a better build than her Shrine Maiden one, but it is still relatively weak. One of the things you have to be careful with is eliminating her, preferably in one turn. If you hit her and take more than one turn to eliminate her, she will ask for reinforcements. You have two options to eliminate her:

The first is to hit her directly, at the risk that, with her luck, she evades the hit or that even if it connects, it won’t do much damage due to her voice of peace ability.
The second is to hit her 3 spaces away. The drawback with this is that she will perform a counterattack. In general terms, it is unlikely to generate a lot of damage. Still, it is uncomfortable because the level boss needs you to have all the units with high HP.

Sakura is not the level’s boss, but she really is an obstacle in the level. The ideal is to attack fast and accurately. For this, having Corrin with a critical hit build is a good option. Another option is to use Azura to be able to perform two attacks in a row.
In general, Sakura as an enemy is not so difficult to remedy. You just have to know how to measure the distances and attack properly.

The Best Way to Level Up Sakura

The best thing you can do is use dual attacks by pairing her with other characters (Corrin and Kaden are the best options). This is because she will be able to gain enough experience until she reaches a level where she can defend herself.

Likewise, the other way to obtain experience quickly is using healing other characters using staff. With the staff, Sakura can obtain enough experience to level up quickly.

FAQs

Question: Should I Go for a More Physical Class with Sakura?

Answer: No. You will lose a lot of time if you try to level up a physical build with Sakura. Even if you recast her with a buddy class like a cavalier, her stats are not the best when talking about physical attacks. It is a terrible idea to use that kind of class.

Question: Which Tome is Better for Sakura?

Answer: Wind or fire. Actually, any tome is handy for her once you start using tomes. Primarily because of her high magic points. The only tomes that are not of use for her are the dark magic ones because she is not a sorcerer.

Question: Canonically, who is Sakura’s Husband?

Answer: She doesn’t have a canon husband.

Final Thoughts on Sakura

A character that, at first glance, seems simple but hides a devastating attack. Sakura can be a bit difficult to level up. Like many clerics, she doesn’t seem to be helpful. Despite this, once you manage to unleash her full potential, you will realize how wrong you were.

She is a character designed to make you get attached to her. Her story is one of the best and most enjoyable. You will want her to overcome all her fears and become her best version. This goes hand in hand with the build we recommend in this article because it is designed to get the most attack, turning her (almost literally) into a much braver character by facing her fears head-on.

For more interesting readings about Fire Emblem check out: