Unless you have access to a 1-2 range sword based off the user's strength staff that allows you to trigger skills/crit that's not really optimal since corrin unlike the previous mentioned units, will be unable to just tank everything thrown at him and thus being able to switch would be useful, which isn't doable with a pair up bot. Still no clue what talent you even prefer since +mag seems lackluster for main game (probably best for min max though outside +spe azura!selkie!kana lol)Corrin still has no reason to class change until 20/5, jakob is still needed early game as a staff bot since elise can't manage everything at that point.
+Mag is pretty solid if you stick with Nohr Noble since it makes Dragonstones really powerful and you have reliable 1-2 after promotion with the Levin Sword (Horse Spirit is also juicy if you get Odin married and have an Arms Scroll lying around).
I've only used +Mag builds in CQ so far so I'm gonna do a second playthrough in the future with a +Str build and get back to you on that (still gotta finish Rev Lunatic, FE12 Lunatic, FE6 Hard).
? What part of chapter 8 requires any purchases at all. Unless you outright burned your freeze staff uses in ch7 then ch8 should be easily cleared and even if you burned the freeze staff, you can still reach the house before the leftmost soldier. I mean mozu's literally a free deployment slot on that chapter so it's not like you're losing anything for bringing her.
It's not actually free since you only get 6 slots for 6 units iirc (Corrin/Azura/Silas/Elise/Effie (Javelin is good here)/Arthur) and they're all useful there. You probably can do it with no purchases but tonics are always nice and an early Jav helps.
Donnel was bad on virtue of everyone being utter shit outside of Robin/Chrom because lol nosferatu. ._. That logic would be passable if exp gains weren't mitigated the higher your level is, with exp gain being nonexistent with a five level gap and at any time you decide to recruit mozu, if you consider enemies as a resource then mozu gets the most out of each enemy kill than any of your units (alongside each unit having diminishing returns), the only thing you'd consider is turn count but since when was LTC your basis? As far as efficiency is concerned, you're spending 10-20 turns on paralogue 1 babying her to level 6-8 and saving countless turns later on and lowered difficulty due to archers being a very high demand/low supply unit in conquest and even for efficiency you'll have plenty of enemy phase units (felicia, xander, effie/benny, corrin) so that's a relatively moot point.
A moderately efficient (not necessarily LTC) playthrough won't waste any time on grinding. Wasting 10-20 turns grinding someone up would be unacceptable in this context. I don't care about low turn counts myself tbh but I do consider a character overall more useful if they don't need much investment to start contributing. That's pretty much the opposite of what Mozu is - I don't consider the payoff worth the investment into a Level 1 bowlock (assuming Heart Seal is used) when I have a bunch of good units already and you get a competent bow user in Ch 8.
She does have a bit more justification in Conquest since Ch 10 exists and there are admittedly a shortage of bow users (just use Niles's kid lolz), but this isn't necessary enough to make her an essential or even good unit.
Donnel is still worse then everyone else lol, just because pouring everything into Robin with pocket Chrom is the dominant strategy (which I agree it is b/c Awakening's balance is awful, I soloed lategame myself with Armsthrift Sorc Morgan) doesn't make Donnel equal to his competition.
Selena is bottom tier due to shitty personal, meh bases, the best usage she has is either as a pair up bot for ch10 and being benched the rest of the game, OR better yet use the master seal you get in ch10, promote her to bow knight, use her to trivialize said chapter and then use her for a few more chapters before benching/delegating her to pair up bot for the rest of the game due to not having those 10 levels worth of stats. That and pegasus knight classes in general are pretty bad this time around.
Selena's far from bottom tier lol. Reclassing her to early Peg lets her ferry people around and use the more utility oriented Staves post promotion, and she also gets early Rally Speed which is appreciated by so many CQ units (Xander/Leo with a Rally Speed is delicious). Peg Selena is more of a support unit but support units are very useful in this game (since the Royals + Corrin should be filling the offensive juggernaut roles already). If you want to keep her as a Mercenary she has pretty good combat due to naturally high Speed and a solid Defense growth (mine actually capped Defense), and Bow Knight gives her Shurikenbreaker which makes Ch25 so much easier.
I mean half the point of having a magical attacker is to hit those generals, you're not really killing magical units with magic yourself when your magic is struggling to break 20 even with tonics + spirit dust on him. You're better off just going Anna (if dlc is a factor) or just tossing it onto nina. Overall their performance is negligible past early game at best since his damage output really starts lagging behind and it'll take him forever to level that staff rank in addition to being lack luster as a healer due to low mag. Capture is pretty useless outside of Haitaka/ch17 ninjas and even the latter is negligible at best, if you could get staff savant or inevitable end ninjas then he'd probably have more use.
Nina DOES use the Shining Bow better (fair point) but it still requires getting Niles to S with someone so that's a point in his favor. Nina's chapter also provides a free Shining Bow which is icing on the cake. Can't comment on Anna since I don't use DLC.
You sorely underestimate Capture in the lategame - the 4 rally MoA in Ch23 and the free Pass Falcos in Ch 24 would like to have a word with you.
Camilla owns lol
Ryoma + corrin A/S support just clear the whole game which is kinda sad lol. Toss an eternal seal on ryoma because you can and it's actually worth investing since you can enemy phase kill everything in late game. Beforehand you can just stick with DF azama/takumi/corrin/DF filler/1st servant and you're set up till that point. You can toss on hinoka/oboro if you really want.
Pretty much yeah. Ryoma's disgustingly OP and it doesn't take long for Corrin to snowball if he's in a good class (Dark Knight is pretty great here).
I think there are better options for secondaries assuming no Path Bonuses though...I had a lot of success using the Ninjas (Saizo, Kagero), they get great 1-2 with forged Shuriken for the rout missions and even have Armorslaying Shuriken available to deal with Generals.