Favorite teams?

Of course! Half the glory of fire emblem is the characters. I run my -atk Hinoka and a healer (Elise) because I like them so much. Luckily, my dear Tharja is borderline broken :D

Honestly just enjoy running my favourite characters like you do. There was a point where I was looking to optimise teams and IVs but you have to realise you're not really competing against others but just AI. Then on top of that even if you optimise there's always going to be somebody better than you through merging and all the shenanigans. So currently I was fortunate to collect my favourites and have been using Bridal Cordelia, Celica, Sanaki, and Ike.

I never run with my best team. I usually use the heroes I want to level as well.

I am having a blast with a new setup that I just tried for the first time this morning:

Celica
Ninian
Bridal Lyn
JAFFAR!

Bridal Lyn's candle weapon opens up so many options for Jaffar. Before he couldn't really attack much of anything other than strictly melee units that didn't have Distant Counter (I am not even sure those exist anymore). Even if you don't kill a target, your heroes are all full health and I've found that they can usually tank a hit on retaliation.

I've been just using Poison Strike 3 for extra damage, but now I want to really dial it up and put Savage Blow on him for even more mahem (perhaps on multiple characters even!). It also makes it safe for Ninian to attack more often, and I use Dark Breath for even more debuff potential. Bridal Lyn is a game changer for me!

Super fun - not something you'll want to chase super high arena scores with, but I haven't lost any units with it so far on my current run.