Ooh that sounds very nice. Is there a place I can download this chart?
Stuff in the manual is permissible, yes.
So lemme just ramble then about every character to some degree and my opinions and reasons (that are not spoilers) thereof. Every character recruited so far I guess plus some not recruited.
Anyways.
Eirika
As noted by Ghoul King, a number of fans have a strangely negative opinion on Eirika. Objectively, she's actually among the stronger units, among other things, boasting respectable stats for her starting level and the highest growth total in the game- this isn't saying much, mind, because growth totals in Sacred Stones vary from 250%~ total (someone not yet seen) to Eirika's 350% total. Basically, a 3 stat level up is pretty average, anything better is good no matter who you are. Anyways.
She's held back mostly by being a sword user in a game where swords are mostly not that good. Ephraim largely outcompetes her less on stats and more because lances higher might and lower accuracy is usually a bit better, and axes go farther still.
Ephraim
Mechanically, Ephraim is good, storywise, he's more interesting than I expected. Anything further on his character will have to wait til we have more than one chapter, though, because we really don't have anything other than HE IS A VALIANT TACTICAL GENIUS WHO CARES ABOUT HIS FAMILY.
Most notably, Reginleif is essentially a lance Rapier- Rapiers are a lord staple going back to Marth, and Reginleif has all the core expected properties but as applied to a lance statline. This basically just means it is better, particularly because Sacred Stones is a game where weapon effective damage multiplies the Might of the weapon... and only the might of a the weapon. Thus, every additional point of Might goes three times as far when hitting cavalry and armors, so even if Ephraim is flubbing his strength growths, he can probably kill key cavalry and armors for ages as long as you don't use Reginleif too aggressively.
Seth
Seth is, unfortunately, bad. He's useful enough in the short term, but here's the thing about Seth: a lot of fans consider him to be a specific variation of the Jeigan archetype whereby they actually are good later. I understand why, because he actually has good growths, unlike Jeigan- but his bases are so bad for his level that he's basically worse than everyone who can become a paladin at the same level in paladin.
Making matters worse, Sacred Stones is the first full- second total- example in the series of branching promotions. Cavaliers, like Franz, can become a Paladin like Seth, or they can become a Great Knight (which was actually introduced by Sacred Stones).
Great Knights on the downside boast less movement and the armor typing, making them vulnerable to anti armor weapons in addition to anti horse, but on the plus side can additionally wield axes and have generally better stat caps and greater constitution. Net result, aside tedium, they tend to the better choice. By 'tedium', I mean that, for some reason, Great Knights movement animations are strangely slow, so your turns wind up taking longer to play out.
Anyways, the point is in mechanical terms it's generally optimal to make Cavaliers Great Knights over Paladins, and even if you just make them Paladins, literally every cavalier expects to be largely better than Seth at the same level.
So he doesn't hold up once the rest catch up.
Franz
Franz is a cavalier. He's interesting for reasons you've already noted, complicating the Two Cavalier dynamic by existing alongside it, but he's largely what I can only call unremarkable mechanically. I don't personally find him all that interesting of a character, either, but more importantly he's largely neither particularly good nor particularly bad. If you want a cavalier, he works. if you don't, you can use someone else just fine. he's unexceptional.
Gilliam
Gilliam is great. He's a fun character, but he's also a Knight. Knights have excellent stats, particularly constitution, and great promotions, sharing Great Knight with Cavaliers and having unique access to promoting to Generals, who are arguably the best class in the game.
Gilliam is unlikely to let you down if you use him, but he's also someone who you can reasonably pass up; what's good about him is being a good unit, generic. He doesn't offer essential utility like flight, thief skills, etc.
Moulder
Moulder is forgettable for all reasons but one; his class. Moulder is your first healer, which means you should reliably want to use him until at least Natasha, and really having a second healer if only to healer your primary healer is a big deal, too.
More than that, Moulder's Priest can promote to either a Sage, who use Light, Staves, and Anima magic, or what you should actually generally do, a Bishop. Bishops can only use Light and Staves, but Bishops are one of a short list of classes with a special ability and not just stats and proficiencies, and it's a doozy, so anyone who can be made a Bishop will be good as a Bishop.
Vanessa
Vanessa is a pegasus knight. Vanessa has some interesting character bits, but none of them really come up until you meet other characters or have her support enough to start jabbering about them independently. Pegasus Knights are respectably useful, given flight, and for the moment she's the only option you have, so in spite of the weaknesses the class tends to bring she definitely has a clear place in the team
Somewhat bizarrely, in Sacred Stones Pegasus Knights can promote to ride Wyverns. This may be in part a callback to early fire emblem treating Wyverns as the advanced form. Anyways, you either make them Falco Knights who are Pegasus Knights that can sword, or Wyvern Knights who... well, they're what Valter is, actually- Glen is not, incidentally, he has a different sprite which marks him as the other promoted Wyvern class, the Wyvern Lord, which only Wyvern Riders can promote to.
Wyvern Knights can only wield lances but have the upshot of having a chance to ignore defense entirely on any attack at random. It's a solid option, especially as they boast higher constitution than Falco Knights and the pegasus knights tend to suffer from low constitution.
Colm
Colm is a thief, and the statistically best in the game. This means you'll want to use him, probably, unless his stats happen to turn out really badly, in which case you can bench him later.
Important note: Thieves, like nearly every class in Sacred Stones, have two promotion options. The Rogue, and the Assassin. When the time comes, save yourself the headache and make him a Rogue; Rogues can do everything Thieves can do and more. Assassins can do
some of the things Thieves can do, and have a very small chance to instantly kill enemies when attacking them as their sole significant advantage over Rogues. Given that this is not very important and certainly not reliable, it does not make up for your thief no longer being able to do all the important thief things.
Neimi
You basically want at least one of every weapon user because reasons. Archers are the only unpromoted class to wield bows; the Ranger, Sniper, and Warrior are the only promoted classes. This leads to a very short list of characters that can wield a bow at all, and for some of them you have to promote them in questionable ways to get it.
Basically, out of your current character list, Neimi is the better candidate for long term bow use, and only Garcia can otherwise fill in.
You'll want to promote her to a Ranger, generally. Snipers, unfortunately, are bad in Sacred Stones. They have an ability that makes them automatically hit- sometimes. And by 'sometimes', I mean it happens a percent of the time equal to their skill, which means if it's likely to happen they were already likely to hit. Rangers meanwhile boast the ability to use swords and, for some reason, cross rivers? I don't get it. Point though is that Neimi because vastly more reliable if she can SET BAYONET AND CHARGE and will still use a bow only very slightly maybe arguably worse than as a sniper.
Garcia
Speaking of Garcia, I seem to have forgotten him and Ross for a second, was trying to do this in order. Ah well. Anyways, Garcia is on a somewhat short list of axe users and an even shorter list of options for using a bow. He's a fun guy and statistically he's... well, he's also forgettable. Not so terrible as to warn against using, not so great as to be a given. Still, axe users are nice, and his promotion options are both respectable. Like Gilliam, he boasts excellent constitution, so can use most weapons with no penalty.
He will tend to be outshone by his own son in the long term, though.
Ross
Ross is an experiment. Ross is the first example in the game of a concept new to sacred stones; what people usually call trainee classes. This is a set of three classes that are effectively a sort of level 0 class. When Ross reaches level 10, he stops gaining experience, and at the end of that mission, announces some variation on I FEEL STRONGER and force promotes himself- your choice between a fighter, like his father before him, or a water walking pirate. Given Pirates can become Berserkers and berserkers are great, generally I would recommend denying his character arc and not making him like his father before him, sailing the high seas instead, but it's hardly like he'll pan out to weak if you go fighter. Just less optimal overall.
At which point he's a level 1 unit probably stronger than most normal level 1 units would be.
Artur
Artur is a monk. This means, like a Priest, he can promote to a bishop. In the meantime, he's a light mage, in a game with evil monsters, where light beats dark. You do the math, dude tends to be a solid contributor even before you make him a bishop, plus he's a nice fella. Not much to say otherwise.
Lute
Lute is incredibly popular among the fans. I'm not personally super fond of her, but Sacred stones is very much a mage's playground, so she's a good choice.
If you do use her, it's generally better to promote to Sage than Mage Knight, because Mage Knights lacking light magic and being vulnerable to horse slayers is not a good trade off for what little they get in areas like movement.
Joshua
Joshua is the first myrmidon in the game. A mercenary, and following in a fine fire emblem tradition, he's... actually kinda mechanically bad? He does well intially, and he's okay long term, but he's held back by the fact that character growths tend to be similar totals and he has such high bases and growths in skill and speed in specific that he... well, he tends to cap those stats and then wind up with dead growths, in practice. So he underperforms what his stats should theoretically mean.
He's short term fine though. One special note, the manual erroneously indicates Myrmidons (swordfighters there) can only promote to swordmasters. This is not true, they can also promote to Assassins. Assassins are not very good, overall, but if you want more thief ability they technically have parts of the package, though I forget exactly what- I think they could use lockpicks, but not steal? Anyways.
Natasha
Natasha is a good person and a surprisingly deep character, at least in the supports. In the short term, she's a second healer, she usually winds up stronger than Moulder as I recall, and she too can become a Bishop, and Bishop is such a good class you should generally be of the opinion you can't have too many Bishops, so she's definitely a good choice mechanically.
She can also become a Valkyrie, but why would you do that to yourself? They're mounted Bishops, in effect, except they don't get the special skill that's why Bishops are so good.
Trivia note: Valkyries and Mage Knights are both arguable new. In the preceding GBA games, Sages, Bishops, and Druids each used staves plus one part of the Anima/Light/Dark trinity, and then you had Valkyries, who used anima and staves from horseback.
Sacred Stones made it so Druids can use Anima in addition to Dark and staves, sages can use Light in addition to Anima and Staves, Bishops picked up a new special skill in lieu of a weapon type, and now you have Valkyries who use
light and staves from horseback and Mage Knights who use Anima and Staves from horseback. So basically the Mage Knight is the old Valkyrie by mechanics and the Valkyrie by name.
Kyle and Forde
Kyle is big. I mean that literally, for some reason he has one more constitution than Franz, Forde, and if in the same class, Seth. This is not a large advantage but does mean Kyle is likely to be slightly mechanically better but luck matters more to who to use.
In mechanics terms Franz, Forde, and Kyle are all pretty interchangable. They all usually but not invariably turn out well, they all have the same class which makes it easy to drop an unfavorite in favor of one of the others, etc. I don't particularly like Kyle, though I'm a little more fond of Forde, buuut they're also my favorite iteration of the red/green cavalier dealie in the series (that I'm familiar with) which I usually actively dislike, so they have that going for them.
The Grado Generals
Duessel, Selena, and Glen do indeed have their own gemstone titles, which I believe all get dropped eventually in the story? In any event, they do indeed have them, though I can't remember if you have to dig into character descriptions and such or if they actually have those titles see use.
Otherwise, no comment yet on them.
So How About Those Stats
Stats in Sacred Stones have different caps between classes, mostly. By mostly I mean 'well, for promoted classes'. For all player classes HP caps at 60, and Luck at 30. For all unpromoted classes, everything else has a cap of 20. Promoted classes increase the cap on those stats to anywhere from 21-30, except constitution which still always caps at 20 but this doesn't matter bar strange edge cases and exploits because constitution is only gained on promotion or through stat increase items.
Anyways, this affects what classes are good to a degree, because eg Generals have better potential strength and defense than most classes etc. It's only to a degree, though, because most characters have to be fed stat boosters or get tremendously lucky to cap a stat.
Still, this is one reason Seth is bad, actually- as noted, HP caps at 60, though enemies can ignore this and bosses later on often do. But Seth starts with only 30 HP, and can only gain at best 19 from level ups, which means he almost always winds up behind in HP, and usually by a large degree, compared to the various Cavaliers by the time they catch up.
By contrast, Ross is extremely likely to cap his HP between a high growth and the extra levels he gets to gain, plus the extra round of promotion gains.
