Lissa Fire Emblem Guide

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One of the best things to do when starting a new fire emblem game is to get to know the starting party of characters a little better. In the case of Fire Emblem Awakening, the party is relatively small compared to the rest of the games (in chapter one, you only have four characters).

This can be beneficial if it is your first time playing fire emblem, and you need to get used to the information of each unit. Also, each unit has different classes, so you will learn quite well how to play with them.

Lissa is one of those first units. Personally, she is one of my favorite characters in Awakening. If you know how to use her well, she can become one of your most powerful units.

That’s why today, I’m going to share with you a little more information so that Lissa can go from being the team’s healer to the ultimate destroyer of enemy units in the blink of an eye.

Important Information to Know about Lissa

  • Health: 17
  • Strength:1
  • Magic:5
  • Skill:4
  • Speed:4
  • Luck:8
  • Defense:3
  • Resistance:4
  • Movement:5
  • Special Ability: Miracle
  • Weapon: E-Staff
  • Equipped items: Healing baculum and vulnerary.

(Source: Fire-Emblem-Wiki-Lissa)

She is a starting unit (one of the first four units in the game). Lissa is Chrome’s sister and plays the role of healer during the early game.

The reality is that she is your best option at this point in the game, mainly because you have no other choice. However, don’t worry; if you play your cards right, you can make her an essential part of your team.

Lissa’s Background

Lissa Fire Emblem

Before going directly to Lissa’s abilities, let’s talk about her in-game story. Lissa is basically the younger sister of Chrome and Emmeryn (the current queen of the territory), so she is the youngest princess of Ylsse. However, one of the things that characterize her is that she does not have a Brand of the Exalt.

In the royalty of Ylisse, the Brand of the Exalt are basically what shows that someone has the blood of the ancient hero-king Marth (the protagonist of the first fire emblem). In addition, not having a Brand of the Exalt, she could not accede to the throne.

Because of this, unlike her brothers, who are more serious and diplomatic, Lissa is more carefree, playing pranks on most of the characters in the story.

Although, at first glance, she seems to be a bit immature and childish, the reality is that she is many times more mature than Chrome himself. This can be seen especially from chapter 9 onwards. I won’t give you too many spoilers, but Lissa will likely become your favorite character.

Finally, make sure to marry her (either to your avatar or to some other character), so she can play Paralogue 5. There you will learn some interesting info about her future and lineage. With that explained, we can continue.

Why Should I Care about Lissa?

Before we continue talking about Lissa and her importance in the game, you have to know something fundamental, and that is regarding her initial class, which is a cleric.

A cleric is basically the equivalent of a healer in the fire emblem team. It is a class that doesn’t have many defensive attacks and only concentrates on one thing: Healing the other party members. For this reason, they are members who are sometimes seen as a burden because they can’t defend themselves.

Despite not having attacks (in Lissa’s case, she only starts with a heal staff), one of the advantages of this class is its excellent resistance. This means that magical attacks do more minor damage to her.

Likewise, in Lissa’s case, she has pretty high luck. This translates into her making critical hits more often, but more importantly: she has a higher chance of evading and avoiding attacks from opponents. Despite this, her defense is relatively low, working against her.

As far as clerics are concerned, Lissa is a rather curious exception to the rule. Most clerics in the saga are somewhat religious characters, monks with robes and stereotypes. However, Lissa is quite the opposite. She is the main character’s sister (Chrome), so she is a princess.

Besides that, even though everyone considers her weak, she is always ready to prove otherwise. She has much more joking and fun character than the other clerics on the franchises, who go for a more mystical aesthetic.

Being one of the first characters you meet in the game, it is pretty common to get attached to her. Especially considering that she is one of the romance options you can have. What I recommend is that, if you want to learn more about Lissa’s story, you should level up the relationship levels of the following routes:

  • Robin (Your avatar)
  • Chrome
  • Frederick
  • Gregor
  • Lon’qu
  • Ricken
  • Morgan
  • Lucina
  • Owain

Those routes are the ones with the most emphasis on Lissa’s backstory and the ones that might show you a bit more about her personality in the world. I won’t spoil them for you, but my recommendation is that if you choose the male avatar in the game, you should marry her (at least that’s what I did).

How to Transform Lissa Into the Best Cleric?

Lissa Fire Emblem

First of all, forget about transmuting her class with a second seal. It’s tempting because Lissa can become a troubadour and a pegasus knight.

But the truth is that at least I don’t recommend it; why? Well, as I mentioned above, the reality is that Lissa’s defense is quite deplorable. Unfortunately, one of the problems that come with being a cleric.

Even though using a second seal, her hp goes up relatively high, the reality is that it doesn’t alter her defense level at all, nor her resistance. Lissa is not a character that is made to withstand damage. And both pegasus knight and troubadour are direct attack classes, which is a problem when Lissa doesn’t have a good defense.

Let Lissa naturally raise her cleric level to 20 and then use a master seal to promote her to sage. Why sage? Well, the other option is a warrior cleric. This class is quite physical, having as default weapon the axes.

This means this class use mostly direct attacks, something that, as we have already mentioned above, does not get along well with Lissa.

I used this class in my first run of the game, and I had a pretty bad result… Let’s say that Lissa was KO after chapter 18 due to improper management on my part. Do you want to avoid that happening to you? Then ideally, you should evolve her to sage.

First of all, my recommendation is to let her get the Healtouch skill that will allow her healings to be superior to the other alternatives at level ten.

After that, let her promote to sage; instead of having an imbalance between attack and magic, Lissa will make the most of her magic abilities because this promotion emphasizes her magic.

Besides that, being promoted to sage, Lisa gets a substantial improvement in her direct hits and evasions ratio due to an increase in her luck. My recommendation is to equip her with a Wind Tome to have something to attack with and take advantage of her tomefaire ability to increase Lissa’s magic attack by +5.

The Abilities of Lissa Sage Promotion

Lisa has one base ability:

  • Miracle: Allows her to survive any attack that would KO her with just 1 HP (based on her luck). 

At level 10, she learns:

  • Healtouch: Restores an extra 5 HP when healing allies

Then when she becomes a sage, she can get: 

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

(Source: serene-forest)

How to Play Lissa Sage Promotion

Lissa Fire Emblem

Lissa Sage’s final build will look more or less like this:

  • Health: 70
  • Strength:25
  • Magic: 55
  • Ability: 50
  • Speed: 55
  • Luck: 65
  • Defense: 20
  • Resistance: 45
  • Movement: 6
  • Special abilities:
    • Healthtouch: Restores an extra 5 health points when healing allies.
    • Tomefaire: Increases 5 magic points when equipping a tome.
  • Weapon: A-Staff and Tome A
  • Items equipped: Mend, Catharsis, and wind tome.

As you can see, it’s mostly a magic-focused build. The main strength is magic attacks. Therefore, if you are looking to get a good performance, you should concentrate on taking advantage of her attack through tomes and healing your party using staves.

Do not try to put Lissa in the front lines because her low defense makes her a focus of possible critical hits from the enemy.

Although her luck makes up for it, even at level 20 of her second promotion, she will only have a 65% chance of evasion. Ideally, keep her away from enemy fire and only use her wind tome if any enemy units break through your lines.

The Best Way to Level Up Lissa

Lissa Fire Emblem

At first, leveling up Lissa will be a little slow because the only way to level up her is to cure other characters using staves. However, once you gain access to tomes, it will be a lot faster than before because you will have the chance to attack.

The primary strategy is to pair Lissa with another character (ideally Chrome or your avatar) and make a Dual attack. That way, both will get experience, and at the same time, the support level will grow. 

FAQs

Question: Should I Go for War Cleric Lissa?

Answer: That is a really personal decision. War cleric Lissa is a good class because of her use of axes. However, you will find that she can get KO very quickly because of her low defense. If you like to play with risk, it may be for you.

Question: Which Staff is Better for Lissa?

Answer: Physic staff is one of the best options because you can use it on units far away from her. However, if you want her to heal better, go for mend or catharsis. 

Question: Canonically, who is Lissa’s Husband?

Answer: She doesn’t have a canon husband. 

Final Thoughts on Lissa

Overall, Lissa is a great character, even if, at first glance, she is a little bit weak in terms of defense. She can become one of the most essential parts of your party and is an excellent character in the game. Her personality is fascinating and charming.

You will have a blast of laughter every time you get a new support level because of the shenanigans she and the other characters will be going through. She is one of my favorite characters on Awakening and in all the franchises.

For more interesting readings about Fire Emblem check out:

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