Battle Mechanics
Map
Character Movement
You can move your characters around the map by holding and dragging them to the grid position of your choice.
The distance your character can move as well as the terrain they can move through is determined by their Movement Type which includes:
Movement Type | Distance Description |
---|---|
Infantry | Can move two spaces. Slowed by forests, etc. |
Cavalry | Can move three spaces. Cannot move through forests. |
Flying | Can move two spaces. Ignores forests, mountains, rivers, etc. when moving. |
Armored | Can move one space. |
Character Actions
Each character also has a set of actions they can do each turn based on their skills. A character with a weapon might decide to attack that turn, or a character who only has a healing skill might decide to heal or buff his/her allies. To initiate a character's action, drag the character to the other character / enemy you would like to interact with.
After dragging the character to start the action, an animation will play displaying your character's action. If you attacked your enemy, this screen will also show your enemy's reaction (Death if killed, counterattack if still alive).
Additionally, these actions also have a set range. For example, archers and mages cannot attack units in spaces adjacent to them. When you select your character on the map, this range will be denoted by red squares.
Enemies
- Main article: Enemy AI
Enemies are essentially just like your character units but controlled by the Computer (AI). They can move and do actions just like your own units.
Similarly you can also view their movement distance and range if you tap their icon. You can also view this by selecting "Danger Area" at the bottom of the map. Utilize this knowledge to successfully position and develop your strategy to beat your enemies!
Additionally, enemy units follow certain "rules" to decide where to move and what to attack. These rules may vary map-to-map, but there are a set of guidelines for how enemy units move in general. For more information regarding Enemy AI Mechanics, refer to Enemy AI.
Terrain
Each map has varying terrain, some of which can be destroyed, others which inhibit movement. For example, forests will slow Infantry units while completely blocking Cavalry units. Flying units can move through forest terrain with no problems.
Another example is a rubble of rock blocking your unit's path. You can only pass through the rubble by destroying it via character action.
Auto Battle
Auto Battle is a feature that can be accessed from the Settings menu in battle. By turning this on, you allow the AI to play for you and automatically control your characters.
Swap Spaces
Swap Spaces is a feature that allows you to swap the starting positions of your units before combat. A unit can swap spaces as long as it didn't take any action (Movement, using an Assist etc.). However, if a unit is in range for an attack, it is possible to check the combat results and plan accordingly.
Combat
Weapon Properties
All weapons will have the following properties to describe them:
Weapon Label | Description |
---|---|
Might (Mt) | How strong a weapon is. This value will be added to a character's base attack to determine damage. |
Range, (Rng) | The range of a weapon. Determines where a weapon can and cannot attack. (1 is melee, 2 is ranged) |
Additional Skill | Not all weapons will have an additional skill, but for weapons that do, these skills range from debuffing the enemy (Fensalir) or being able to deal additional damage to certain types of units (Hammer). |
Color Weapon Triangle
In Fire Emblem: Heroes, all heroes wield a weapon of a certain color. These colors are utilized in a color weapon triangle where each color is stronger than and weaker than one of the other colors.
Weapon Color | Strong Against | Weak Against |
---|---|---|
Red | Green | Blue |
Green | Blue | Red |
Blue | Red | Green |
Using a color strong against another color will grant an additional 20% to the Attack stat, while a color weak against another will reduce Attack by 20%, so it is strongly advised to heed the color weapon triangle when engaging in battle against an enemy.
There also exist neutral (gray) color weapons such as Bows File:Icon Class Neutral Bow.png, Staves File:Icon Class Neutral Staff.png, and Daggers File:Icon Class Neutral Shuriken.png which exist outside the weapon triangle. These neutral weapons typically have specific bonuses. For example, bows deal additional damage against Flying Units and staves have the ability to heal allies while only being able to deal halved damage.
Physical/Magical Damage Weapons
Weapons are split into physical and magic-based damage. Some enemies will take more damage from either physical or magical damage depending on their DEF and RES #Stats. The list of physical and magic-based damage weapons is as follows:
Physical Damage Weapons | Magical Damage Weapons |
---|---|
|
Combat Calculations
- Main article: Damage Calculation
The basic damage calculation formula is where
Atk is the Attack stat of the attacking unit.
Mit is the Mitigation stat of the defending unit. Physical attacks are mitigated by Def, while magical attacks are mitigated by Res.
For more detail, including application of special skills, see Damage Calculation.
Hero Skills
- Main article: Skills
Weapon Skills
- Main article: Weapons
Weapon skills determine the might (Mt) and range (Rng) of a unit's normal attack, they sometimes come with special effects, for example the Falchion which is effective against (dragon) type enemies.
Assist Skills
- Main article: Assists
Assist skills are skills that can be used on allies, for example the Sing skill, which allows an ally to make an additional action. Assist skills can also apply buffs or be used for positioning.
Special Skills
- Main article: Specials
Special skills are charged by performing actions in combat, each hit dealt and taken decreases the cooldown counter by one. If the cooldown counter is at 0, indicated by the special icon, the unit will activate their special skill the next time it is possible. Special skills can be offensive like Glacies, adding damage to the unit's next attack, or defensive like Buckler, reducing damage taken.
Game Mechanics
Stats
- Main article: Stat Growth
- HP - This is the unit's Health, or Hit Points. Once it reaches 0 he/she is defeated.
- Attack(Atk) This is the unit's overall damage stat. Regardless of Caster/Ranged/Melee this is their primary damage stat. The higher a unit's attack is, the more damage they will deal.
- Speed (Spd) This is the unit's Speed. If your unit's speed is 5 or more speed than your opponent's, you attack your enemy twice.
- Defense (Def) This is the unit's physical damage reduction stat. This reduces how much damage a unit will take from physical damage.
- Resistance (Res) This is the unit's magical damage reduction stat, This reduces how much damage a unit will take from magic and breath effects.
- Skill Points (SP) This is the unit's Skill Points. When killing foes or leveling up, they will gain SP which can be spent on additional skills (See Character Skills and SP below).
- Might (Mt) This is the character's weapons stat. This is added to your attack to determine how much damage your hits will do. You can only increase your MT stat by upgrading the weapon using SP. Most units start with their final weapon equipped and this is only relevant for when a unit upgrades from 1>2>3>4>5
- Movement is split into Infantry, Armored, Flying and Cavalry.
- Infantry can only move 2 spaces on land and will only be able to move 1 space through forests.
- Armored can only move 1 space on land and are able to move through forests.
- Flying can move 2 spaces regardless of terrain, but cannot move past walls or rocks (see Terrain).
- Cavalry can move 3 spaces on land, but cannot move through forests.
Summoning
Summoning is the primary way to get new Heroes to add to your Team. It costs orbs to perform, and guarantees 1 to 5 new Heroes (depending on the amount of Summoning Stones used in one summoning session) with 3 to 5 stars of Rarity.
Summoning Cost
The first Hero you summon from a group of Summoning Stones costs 5 Orbs. After this first stone, however, consecutive Summoning Stones will cost less orbs.
Stones Used | Orb Cost |
---|---|
1 | 5 |
2 | 4 |
3 | 4 |
4 | 4 |
5 | 3 |
Summoning 5 Heroes at the same time will cost 20 Orbs, meaning that you get one more Hero than you would have if you summoned each one individually.
Summoning Focus
Choosing a Summoning Focus from the Summon Heroes page will give you a significantly higher chance to summon 5 star versions of the characters displayed on the graphic for the Summoning Focus.
Appearance Rates
The appearance rates can vary between summoning sessions, but the default rates are as follows:
Rarity | Appearance Rate |
---|---|
5 Star (Focus) | 3.00% |
5 Star (General) | 3.00% |
4 Star | 36.00% |
3 Star | 58.00% |
In total, the chance to summon any 5 star hero is 6.00% by default, although half of that will only be the characters displayed for the Summoning Focus you chose.
The Appearance Rates will change slightly after every 5 summonings that do not result in any 5 star Heroes. Both the rate for 5 Star (Focus) and 5 Star (General) will increase by 0.25%, subtracting from the 4 and 3 Star categories, for every five such summons. This continues up to 115 summons, where the total Appearance Rate of 5 star Heroes will be 17.5%. After the 120th consecutive summon without a 5 star Hero, this total rate increases to 100%. When a 5 star Hero is eventually summoned, the rates will revert to to their default after the summoning session.
Stone Color
After the initial 5 Orbs are spent, 5 Summoning Stones will appear, with four different possible colors. The color of the Summoning Stone indicates what kind of unit will be summoned if that stone is picked.
Stone Color | Possible Units |
---|---|
Red | Sword user, red tome user, or red dragon |
Green | Axe user, green tome user, or green dragon |
Blue | Lance user, blue tome user, or blue dragon |
Gray | Staff user, dagger user, or bow user |
When all 5 Summoning Stones are used, the summoning session will end. If you desperately want a unit of a specific color, you will have to spend 5 more Orbs to start a different session if the stone color of the unit you want didn't appear, or all stones of that color are used.
Player Resources
Various items and resources can be viewed either at the top of most menu screens (in the case of the Stamina bar, Dueling Swords, Hero Feathers, and Orbs) or in the Inventory menu (found under the Miscellaneous page in the main menu).
Orbs are the premium currency of Fire Emblem Heroes. To get more orbs, you must either purchase them using real-world money in the store, or earn them in-game through various methods. The simplest way of obtaining Orbs is by completing story maps, with 1 Orb being awarded for every map on each difficulty level (for a maximum of 3 Orbs per story map). Orbs can also be gained as a reward for Quests or other events.
Orbs can be used for a variety of things, but the primary use is summoning heroes. It is suggested to wait until you have at least 20 orbs before summoning, as the cost is lower if you summon more than one Hero at the same time.
In order to play a map, you must use a number of stamina points out of a maximum of 99 points, with the cost varying by map. In general, the stamina cost is approximately equal to half the overall level of a map, with a few exceptions. For special maps, the cost is always 5 for the Normal version and 10 for the Hard version. Arena Duels do not cost any stamina.
Stamina can be restored instantly using a Stamina Potion, which can be bought in the store or obtained as a reward for various Quests or events. Using a potion will add 99 points to the total count, and can temporarily exceed the maximum value, so it is not necessary to wait until Stamina is 0 for the optimal results. Alternatively, Stamina will also refill at a rate of 1 point every 5 minutes.
Instead of a stamina cost, playing a map in the Arena Duels section will cost 1 Dueling Sword, out of a maximum of 3 swords. Dueling Swords can be restored instantly using a Dueling Crest, which can be bought in the store or obtained as a reward for various quests or events. Alternatively, Dueling Swords will automatically refresh every day at 2:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.
Hero Feathers are used to increase the Rarity of a Hero in the Unlock Potential page. They can be obtained by talking to your units on the Home page (when he or she has hearts around them), by receiving greetings from friends once per day, by selling units using the Send Home feature, or as rewards at the end of each season of the Dueling Arena.
Light's Blessing can be used at any time during a battle to restore all allied units' HP, movement, and Special countdowns. If all of your units are defeated, you will also be prompted to use or purchase a Light's Blessing to continue the battle.
Badges are also used along with Hero Feathers to increase the Rarity of a Hero in the Unlock Potential page, found in the Advanced Growth section of the Allies menu. There are four different colors of badges used for each color of unit (Scarlet, Azure, Verdant, and Transparent) as well as two tiers, regular and Great. The standard badges can be collected as rewards for completing the lower maps in the Training Tower, and are used for upgrading all Heroes between 1 and 3 stars of rarity. Above the Sixth Stratum of the Training Tower, Great Badges will be earned instead, and are used to upgrade 4 star Heroes.
Shards and Crystals can be used as an alternative to experience points to level up a Hero in the Level Up page of the Allies menu. There are five types of both Shards and Crystals, one for each color of unit (Scarlet, Azure, Verdant, and Transparent) as well as Universal, which can be used on all units. Shards are used for lower leveled units, and Crystals are used for units at level 20 or higher. When leveling up a unit, their respective colored Shards or Crystals will be used first, before Universal Shards or Crystals are used. The closer a unit is to leveling up, the less Shards or Crystals will be used.