Free-to-Play guide

This guide is for anyone that wants to get the most out of Fire Emblem Heroes, but isn't willing to spend much (or any) money on the game. Luckily, this game is very generous to free-to-players, with a significant amount of premium currency and heroes available through its single player campaign. So while you may not be able to compete at the highest levels of the Arena, almost everything else in the game will be accessible given enough time.

To clarify this guide is partially an extension to the Beginners Guide, meaning it assumes players do not have access to any previous rewards or resources available to veteran players.

Is Free Play viable?

While some Free-to-Play games are nearly impossible to enjoy without paying money, Fire Emblem Heroes is not one of them. A free player can easily gain well over 300 free orbs per month. As a comparison, if you paid $75 for orbs, you would only get 140.

Additionally, because your team is limited to only four characters, you don’t necessarily need a huge roster of super powerful characters to be successful. Moreover, by using color advantages and abusing the easily exploited AI, good strategy can allow a free player to even compete in the PvP Arena.

The Free-to-Play Grind and Strategies

There are 2 main currencies in Fire Emblem Heroes that will help players accessing new game content as well as new kinds of game play — namely, Orbs and Hero Feathers. Other currencies are Sacred Coins, Arena Medals, Refining Stones,  Divine Dew, Aether Stones,  Heavenly Dew, crystals and badges. The latter currencies are also useful for player progression. However they tend to accumulate simultaneously as the player grind for Orbs and Feathers without further effort.

Both Orbs and Feathers can be purchased or obtained through in-game content. Although the only way feathers can be redeemed with real-world currencies is through summoning and sending heroes home. Orbs are used to summon new Heroes. For a "collectible card game", orbs are thus the main currency to unlock new game content. Feathers are used to increase "rarity" of heroes, which increases their stats and is useful for merging and skill inheritance — all of which increase the ability of a player's roster and ultimately helps players access more gameplay content. Arena Medals, Refining Stones, and Divine Dew are used for upgrading weapons into better versions or adding additional/other perks to the original. Aether Stones and Heavenly Dew are used to create and level up Structures.

Orbs

Usage

Orbs are primarily used to summon new heroes. The most efficient strategy is to pull only on stones of a focus units color. When any 5  hero is pulled, it is advisable to pull all the other stones as the pity rate for pulling higher rarity heroes returns to zero after pulling a 5  hero.

It takes on average 140-160 orbs to summon a specific 5  hero shown on a banner. To obtain 11 copies of a specific focus unit requires 1500-1800 orbs on average. Remember that there is no guarantee that any amount of orbs will be enough, as pulling is all based on chance.

Additional uses for orbs include expanding Barracks, upgrading the Castle and replenishing items like Stamina Potions, Dueling Crests, or Light's Blessings. Upgrading Castle requires relatively little orb investment while expediting the grind on hero levels. The expansion of Barracks may become necessary as the player progresses, however careful planning can reduce the need to continuously expand the barracks. It is ill-advised to use orbs in place of Stamina Potions, Dueling Crests, or Light's Blessings as they can be easily replenished.

Sources

If you are starting the game, the largest source of orbs is found simply in Story mode. Playing through all the main story maps and paralogues on all three difficulties, as well as the lunatic difficulties of Chain Challenge and Squad Assault gives you a total of around 740 orbs. However the latter two modes are quite challenging without a decent selection of strong units.

Otherwise, there are four main ways to get as many free orbs as possible:

• Daily Login Bonuses: Simply by logging in each day will give you 1-5 free orbs. Surprisingly this is the second largest source of free orbs after completing quests, and requires almost no effort.
• Events: Tempest Trials+ provides the most orbs of the four events currently running.
• Arena: A steady drip feed of about 4 orbs a week. Nothing exciting but it does equate to a free pull every week.
• Quests: Most quests direct you to play new Story Maps, Arena, Special Maps, or Events, so it is possible to complete quest objectives by accident. Nevertheless, avoid putting them off as once they leave they take their orbs with them.

Based on the average of the past 6 months you can collect up to 344 Orbs per month (or 80 orbs a week).

Hero Feathers

Usage

 Hero Feathers are used to unlock potential, increasing the rarity of a hero by one. The amount of feathers required depends on the rarity of the hero, as shown in the table below:

Rarity	Next Rarity	Feathers Required	Badges Required	Badge Type
1	2	20 Feathers	5	Badge
2	3	200 Feathers	10	Badge
3	4	2,000 Feathers	20	Badge
4	5	20,000 Feathers	20	Great Badge

Due to the high cost of promoting heroes to 5  unlocking potential should be carefully planned, and should only be for 3 purposes (from most to least important):

1. Intent to use the hero to fulfill or provide backup to a specific niche for use in more challenging content such as Arena Assault.
2. Intent to use skill inheritance on a 5  exclusive weapon, special, or skill to a hero that requires that skill to perform its role.
3. Intent to merge the 5  hero as part of their core' team.

A core team is equivalent to the lead team in Arena Assault. Merging is required to earn a higher score in Arena Assault, however it is more important to have enough strong units to defeat all seven teams. Merging should only come once all the specific unit niches have been fulfilled, hence why it is rated as the least important purpose of unlocking potential. Before promoting a hero to 5  to use their skill, check if the skill can be inherited from a 4★ hero.

Sources

There are two main sources of feathers:

• Events: In particular, Tempest Trials+ gives you around 10,000 to 21,000 feathers depending on how you rank among other players. Voting Gauntlet only provides 3,000 to 10,000 feathers but this is still a decent sum.
• Arena: Every week you can get around 4,000 to 9,000 feathers
• Arena Assault: This mode gets you around 500 to 5,000 feathers per week

A decent amount of feathers can be collected by going through daily arena matches, weekly Rival Domains, and Blessed Gardens. Other methods to collect feathers (e.g. Grinding Hero Merit, lower difficulty Chain Challenges) is not worth the effort put into it unless you really need are in extreme need of feathers.

All in all, the influx of feathers is about 10,000 feathers to 30,000 feathers weekly. A player hovering around Tier 18 with only one decent team and performs average at events should expect ~17k feathers a week.

Heroes

Usage

Heroes, or units, make up your teams and barracks that fight for your cause. While there are many different ways to use a hero, similar to the usage of feathers if you want to optimize your heroes then they should be in one of three roles.

1. Intent to use the hero as part of the core team.
2. Intent to use the hero to counter a specific set of enemy unit types (or even one particularly annoying hero).
3. Intent to use the hero for Skill Inheritance, immediately or for future use

Figuring out which hero belongs in which category is impossible as new heroes come out and Weapon Refinery improves previously released heroes. New builds can cause a shift in unit types, prompting a need to build a specific hero to cover this new build. A hero that used to be part of a core team can find themselves used for Skill Inheritance depending as the game evolves. Since heroes are the backbone of the entire game, experimenting with and trying new ideas is key to enjoying FEH. Don't be afraid to play favorites as every hero can be strong with enough time and investment into them.

Sources

While Heroes mainly come from summoning sessions they can also be collected through events, quests, and completing special maps. Given the rate at which new banners are released, you can redeem around 2 free heroes every week.

Spending 80 orbs on banners along with free pulls provides around 22 heroes a week. Assuming the typical 3% pity rate this means you will collect a 5  hero every week (Or if are an unlucky one that need the 90th percentile, every 3 ½ weeks). However, it is advised to concentrate orbs on specific banners for heroes that compliment the core team.

Heroes can also be summoned using Heroic Grails, as explained in the next section.

Heroic Grails

 Heroic Grails are a resource that can be exchanged for Heroes that have been rewarded through past Grand Hero Battles and Tempest Trials events.

Usage

The following heroes can be summoned by spending Heroic Grails:

These heroes can be used for:

1. Inheriting rare or otherwise hard to obtain skills to other units
2. Fulfilling a specific niche
3. Merging units with the intention of using them in a core team

Sources

Simply accessing the Use Heroic Grails Menu will provide you with 200 Grails, allowing you to summon two of the units in the list above. So far, the only way to obtain Heroic Grails is by participating in Aether Raids, which can net up to 90 Grails a week (When starting out, 40 Grails should be expected).

Other resources

Events such as Tempest Trials+ and Grand Conquests provide many resources to use. Other than events, it is important to go through both Arena and Arena Assault every single week to gather specific resources that are usually not found in other game modes (e.g. Sacred Coins and Arena Medals).

Summary Table of Resources

Summary of rewards obtained through persistent content.

Content	Reward Type	Rewards
Special Training Maps	One Time (Rotating)	25 Orbs 5 Blessings
Grand Hero Battle Revival	One Time (Rotating)	[From Maps] 28,000 Feathers 42 GHB Heroes (3 copies of 14 different limited heroes) [From Quests] 84 Orbs 14 GHB Heros (1 copy of 14 different limited heros) 14 Blessings
Hero Battle	One Time (Rotating)	24 Heroes (2 copies of 12 different heroes)
Chain Challenge	One Time, Per Challenge (~Monthly)	~8 Orbs ~2,400 Feathers
Squad Assault	One Time, Per Assault (~Monthly)	2 Orbs 1 Sacred Seal
Blessed Gardens	One Time, Per Map (Weekly)	1 Blessing Cycled between: 5 Orbs 2,000 Feathers 20 Divine dew
Rival Domains	Weekly	Easy: 1 Orb Normal: 1,000 shards Hard: 1,000 crystals Lunatic: 500 Feathers Infernal: 10 Divine Dew
Arena	Weekly	[based on rank] 1-5 Orbs 3700-9400 Feathers 20 Sacred Coins 20 Refining Stones 100 Arena Medals
Arena Assault	Weekly	[based on rank] 500-5000 Feathers 10-30 Sacred Coins 10-30 Refining Stones [Per Run] 1-3 Arena Assault Items

Summary of rewards obtained through temporary content.

Content	Time Frame	Rewards
Special Maps	4-14 days	Mainly Orbs, Sometimes Heroes
Tap Battle	~14 days	10 Orbs 500 Arena Medals 5,000 Universal Shard
Voting Gauntlet (~Monthly)	6 days	10 Orbs 3,000-12,000 Feathers 10,000 Universal Crystals
Grand Conquest (Undetermined)	6 days	14 Orbs 9,900-15,600 Feathers 630-1,200 Arena Medals 30 Sacred Coins 30 Refining Stones 800 Badges 400 Great Badges Additional Misc. Rewards by tapping “Help Out” every 2 hours
Tempest Trials+ (~less than a month)	10 days	42 Orbs 11,500-21,000 Feathers 80 Sacred Coin 18,900 Shards 35,000 Universal Crystal 2 Heros (Limited) 1 Blessing

Summary of rewards, collection rate and consumption rate.

Type of Resource	How to obtain	Average amount gained	Consumption
Heroes	Summoning Sessions	2 per week 22 per week if free orbs are spent every week	Varies by person
Orb	Daily Logins	79 orbs per week	5 orbs=1 hero 140 - 160 orbs for 1 focus hero
Hero Feather	Arena, Arena Assault, Events	11,682 feathers to 27,451 feathers weekly (17000 average)	20000 per hero upgraded
Stamina Potion	Quests	6 per day	Varies by person
Dueling Crest	Quests	4 per week	Varies by person
Light's Blessing	Quests	few per week	Varies by person
Sacred Coin	Arena, Arena Assault	90 a week	150-200 coins per full seal
Refining Stone	Arena	65 stones per week	50 stones per upgrade
Blessings	Blessed Gardens	2.6 per week	Typical usage between 14-48
Arena Assault Items	Arena Assault	3 per week	Varies by person
Badges	Training Tower	400+fifth stratum grind	20 for unlocking potential 1300 per full seal
Great Badges	Quests	150+Tenth Stratum grind	20 for unlocking potential 480 per full seal
Shards	Training Tower	> 10000 a month	5108 to level 20
Crystals	Training Tower	> 10000 a month	35019 to level 40

Building an effective team

Regardless of if you are a Free-to-Player or not, you will want to build an effective core team for completing story missions and competing in the Arena. Note that while you can adjust your team composition to suit the maps in Story Mode, any well balanced team should be able to complete all of the single player content even on Lunatic difficulties. A well balanced team is also helpful in arena, because you don’t have prior knowledge of what unit types your opponent will bring. This section will give you tips on building a strong team.

Tips on building effective emblem teams are covered in the next section.

Build around your best heroes

The most important tip is simply to focus on building around your best heroes and choose characters that cover their weaknesses. If you already have a powerful Red Sword unit, then you probably don’t need any more red units for your team. If you have a strong tank, then you may want to focus on finding characters that can support a choke-point strategy.

Use strong 4  or 5  Heroes

It is always helpful to construct your team with individually powerful heroes. Each hero has a given potential (represented by stars, ranging from 1 -5 ) that determines their stat growth and their available skills. As a rule, you will only want to focus on leveling characters with at least a 4  potential, as 3  and lower characters will be outclassed at higher levels because of their poor skill pool.

Additionally, different heroes have stats and skills that make them more or less desirable.

Level up Olivia: Blushing Beauty

 Dance/ Sing is one of the most powerful Assist skills in the game. Giving a unit two turns can let a hero with color advantage kill two foes, or kill one and move back from a dangerous counterattack, or just move twice and attack. All refreshers can be built in such a way that they defeat the enemies they have a color advantage over, while being able to pass their turns to teammates if there are no enemies left for them to fight; this means they are never dead units on a team.

However, most refreshers are exclusive to 5 . Of the few that are not, the most-readily available refresher is  Olivia: Blushing Beauty, who is also a free unit. Make it a priority to level her up, using Feathers to Unlock Potential as quickly as possible, while Inheriting solid skills to her ( Moonbow,  Fury 4,  Wings of Mercy 4 or  Swordbreaker 3 are the common choices). She is easily worth being the first Hero you move to 5 .

Even if you pull other refreshers, multiple different refreshers are useful when moving onto some of the more challenging content later on, such as Squad Assault or Chain Challenge.

Color Balance

Color balance is essential to a good team. As the triangle in the lower right hand corner of the combat map shows, different attack colors have a rock-paper-scissors like cycle of advantages. Red beats Green, Green beats Blue, and Blue beats Red. Colorless Units are equally powerful against all opponents (excluding special -Raven tomes). To make the most of this, it’s recommended that all teams include at least 2 different colors to improve opposing matchups. Also, because of how the AI behaves, it is often possible to “bait” the opponents into disadvantaged matchups, so a good color balance is very helpful for abusing the AI.

Magic and Physical Balance

In addition to color balance, it is also good to have a combination of physical and magical attackers.

Damage Type	Red	Blue	Green	Colorless
Physical
Magical

The primary difference between these types of units is the defensive stat they target. Physical attackers are effective against foes with low DEF ratings, while magical attackers do more damage against units with low RES stats. Having at least one unit of each type will help to break through units that have a single high defensive stat.

Mobility and Range Balance

The last thing to consider for a good team is mobility and range differences. In order to focus fire on a single enemy unit it is useful to have a mix of  Infantry units, Armored units,  Cavalry units,  Flying units, close attackers, and ranged attackers. Close‐ranged units can attack most opposing ranged heroes without provoking counterattacks, and vice versa. Flying units or cavalry are often able to flank or attack units that would otherwise be inaccessible. So having a variety of character types can really help build a well balanced team.

Building an effective emblem team

Other than your core team, you will also need to build 4 other teams whose heroes all belong to one movement type (only flier units, only cavalry units, only armor units, and only infantry units). These are generally defined as X emblem teams. Many quests require you to complete content with only one movement type, so starting early allows you to work on these quests as soon as possible.

Emblem teams also have extremely powerful C-skill support buffs that are relatively easy to find, bolstering their overall strength regardless of individual performance. Lastly, you can place all 4 types of blessings on these 4 different teams, saving the hassle of building separate teams for Blessed Gardens maps.

This section is not a definitive or best way of building emblem teams, but rather focused on a minimal investment build that is necessary to complete most of the quests and maps these emblem teams will need to clear. Hence it will focus more on free-to-play and non 5  exclusive units. It is up to the player to determine which heroes can be substituted based on what they can obtain.

Infantry Emblem

Infantry Emblem is the easiest emblem to build for, and it practically builds itself. There are only 5 heroes from the pile of free infantry heroes you need to concern yourself with:

Hero	Where to Obtain	Importance
	Complete Xenologue 3	Sword  Infantry unit that can counterattack at any distance, and his unique special  Radiant Aether provides massive sustain through many fights.
	Free hero from the Free Summon: Arrival of the Brave banner	Sword  Infantry unit that can attack twice thanks to  Double Lion, comes with  Astra and  Galeforce, and  Death Blow 4, the first tier 4 passive.
	Complete Chapter I Part 5 of Book II	Lance  Infantry unit that can counterattack at any distance, and has the unique special  Ice Mirror, useful for taking down mages.
	Hero Battle (cycles every 12 days)	Sword  Infantry unit that allows other heroes to act again.
/	Hero Battle (cycles every 12 days)	Staff  Infantry units that keeps other heroes at high HP.

 Ike: Vanguard Legend and  Fjorm: Princess of Ice both come at 5 ,  Olivia: Blushing Beauty unlocks the  Dance skill once promoted to 3  and  Lissa: Sprightly Cleric/ Wrys: Kindly Priest get  Rehabilitate at 4 . Due to the sheer strength of Legendary Ike and Fjorm, most content in the game can be completed with just these two heroes. It is suggested to inherit  Quick Riposte 3 to Legendary Ike, equip the Quick Riposte Sacred Seal to Fjorm, and upgrade the Close Defense and Distant Defense Seals for Legendary Ike to choose between. A promoted 5  Lissa can be an offensive threat by softening up enemies and greatly hindering their mobility with  Gravity+, however her primary job is still to keep Legendary Ike and Fjorm at full health.

While there is not a huge need to upgrade this team as F2P if you are looking for other infantry that are easy to pull and can perform very well then consider  Nowi: Eternal Youth and  Fae: Divine Dragon. Dragons have great stats and can inherit  Lightning Breath+, a weapon with  Distant Counter built in. DC weapons are not very common, which makes dragons more valuable than most other infantry units.

Cavalry Emblem

Otherwise known as Horse Emblem, Cavalry benefit from being able to move 3 spaces greatly enhancing their attack range. The following table lists skills that are important for a cavalry team to inherit and the common heroes that hold it. When you acquire these heroes use Inherit Skill to give your main horse team these buffs. The suggested C-skills is to have 2 heroes with  Hone Cavalry and 2 heroes with  Fortify Cavalry so that every horse on your team can receive +6 in every stat.

Skill Type	Heroes with skill
Cavalry C-Skill Buffs for all cavalry
Reposition for all cavalry
Brave Bow+ for  Lyn: Brave Lady
Death Blow 3 or  Death Blow 4 for  Reinhardt: Thunder's Fist

The following table lists some of the important free Cavalry heroes and where to obtain them:

Hero	Where to Obtain	Importance
	Free hero from the Free Summon: Brave Heroes banner	Fast  Colorless bow  Cavalry unit able to attack sword, lance, and axe units without fear of being attacked
	Free hero from the Free Summon: Arrival of the Brave banner	A  Staff  Cavalry unit that can attack without being attacked back, applies massive debuffs on the enemy, and provides massive buffs to allies when healing or attacking
	Heroic Grails Menu	Lance  Cavalry with a skill set that can debuff enemies' def and res from a distance. She also sports a lot of defense and speed for melee duels.
		Red Tome  Cavalry that comes with the rare skill Attack Resistance Link, which adds buff utility to movement assist skills. She is also the only source of red magic damage for cavalry that is not 5 -exclusive.
	Grand Hero Battle Revival (Sunday UTC), Heroic Grails Menu	Sword  Cavalry that, when promoted, can counterattack at any distance, and sports a lot of defence to take on many physical units.
	Grand Hero Battle Revival (Thursday UTC), Heroic Grails Menu	Blue Tome  Cavalry to provide powerful magic damage (until a unit like  Reinhardt: Thunder's Fist is pulled)
	Grand Hero Battle Revival (Tuesday UTC), Heroic Grails Menu	Lance  Cavalry that, when promoted, can counterattack at any distance.
	Hero Battle (cycles every 12 days)	Axe  Cavalry that comes with the  Hone Cavalry skill, which is an integral skill to boost cavalry team performance.
	Hero Battle (cycles every 12 days)	Green Tome  Cavalry to provide some green magic damage. She is also the only source of green magic damage for cavalry that is not 5 -exclusive.

Start off cavalry emblem with a team consisting of 5  Brave Lyn, 5  Brave Veronica, 5  Xander, and 4  Ursula. Promoting a Xander to 5  is important as he is one of the few F2P heroes that can counterattack at any range, and has a good stat line as well. Although  Camus: Sable Knight also a free hero that can counterattack at any range, he has a weaker stat distribution and is competing heavily with other blue cavalry. Camus can be promoted if you can not find a suitable unit to replace him.

Your cavalry team should eventually have a 5  Brave Lyn with an exchangeable  Brave Bow+ and a 5  Reinhardt with  Death Blow 3 or  Death Blow 4 inherited. The remaining cavalry heroes are flexible but they are generally fill the role of tanks protecting the above two heroes or are specific counters to dragon, armor, or cavalry units. Such heroes can include  Xander: Paragon Knight,  Ares: Black Knight,  Cecilia: Etrurian General,  Frederick: Polite Knight,  Gunter: Inveterate Soldier, or  Titania: Mighty Mercenary but this is by no means exhaustive. Calvary Healers can also be used with great effect if you have any.

Flying Emblem

Flying heroes supports the most diverse types of play-styles, from explosive rush-down tactics to impenetrable airborne fortresses. However, many unique fliers and flier skills are locked at 5  so the options for F2P players just starting out is a lot more limited. The following table lists skills that are important for a flier team to inherit and the common heroes that hold it. Note that while the upgraded versions of the weapons perform better, they require some investment.

Skill Type	Heroes with skill
Flier C-Skill Buffs for all fliers
Reposition for all fliers
Hit and Run/ Drag Back for all Fliers	/
Firesweep Lance+ for  Cordelia: Knight Paragon
Brave Axe+ for  Cherche: Wyvern Friend*

*Note: If Cherche herself is upgraded to 5 , then she doesn't need to inherit a Brave Axe. Her 5  exclusive weapon  Cherche's Axe bears the same effect but with more might, as well as refinery upgrade options.

Here are a few of the free fliers available to pick up until you find a better flier:

Hero	Where to Obtain	Importance
	Complete Chapter 1 Part 5 of Book III	Colorless Dagger  Flying unit that applies debuffs and passively heals both herself and allies.
		Colorless Dagger  Flying unit that comes with the rare skill  Hone Fliers.
	Heroic Grails Menu	Red Tome  Flying unit that, when promoted, applies debuffs and the panic status effect on most enemies. She is also the only free source of flying magic damage.
	Heroic Grails Menu	Axe  Flying unit that comes with an inheritable weapon that is effective against  Cavalry units.
	Grand Hero Battle Revival (Monday UTC), Heroic Grails Menu	Axe  Flying unit with a skill set that is useful against blue units, particularly  Lance units.
	Grand Hero Battle	Blue Beast  Flying unit with a skill set that is useful against foes with low spd.
	Hero Battle (cycles every 12 days)	Lance  Flying unit that, when promoted, provides a source for the  Quick Riposte 4 skill.

Most fliers with ranged weapons, all fliers with  Dance or  Sing, and most colorless fliers are locked at 5  rarity. Any of these fliers are an extremely powerful addition to flier emblem. A recommend mid-stage flier team to build up would be  Cordelia: Knight Paragon,  Cherche: Wyvern Friend, and  Caeda: Talys's Heart. They cover all three colors, are available at 3  and 4  rarities, and have strong low investment builds that are effective until stronger fliers are pulled.

Fliers also have class specific Sacred Seals assigned to them that can be created and enhanced:  Iote's Shield, Flier Formation, Aerobatics, and Guidance. Fliers can also be broken up individually and put into other teams as they can help ferry other heroes across terrain.

Armor Emblem

Unfortunately, Armor emblem is the hardest to build up properly as F2P because the skills that make them useful are extremely hard to obtain. The best advice is to preview upcoming banners that feature armored heroes and pulling for them:

Skill Type	Heroes with skill
Distant Counter (or weapons with built in DC)	* * ** * *
Ranged Weapons	* ** * * * * *
Armor March 3	* * * * * * *

*Hero does not appear on most banners Having at least 2 heroes that have these skills will make short work of the quests you need to complete, as well as making armor teams more enjoyable to use. As for armor buffs  Draug: Gentle Giant,  Sheena: Princess of Gra, and  Gwendolyn: Adorable Knight can be pulled pretty easily. Most Armor teams favor the  Ward Armor buff from Draug.

For better or for worse, there are only 7 armored units that can be obtained for free:

Hero	Where to Obtain	Importance
	Free hero from the Free Summon: Arrival of the Brave banner	A  Lance  Armored unit that comes with a stronger version  Distant Counter called  Ostian Counter, an excellent skill set for an armored unit, and relatively balanced stats.
	Heroic Grails Menu	Sword  Armored unit that, when promoted, has  Black Luna, one of the strongest specials in the game, has a weapon with  Distant Counter built in, and is surprisingly fast and mobile. He is one of the better armor units regardless of his 'free' status.
	Heroic Grails Menu	Sword  Armored unit with the highest HP/defense combination in the game, making him an excellent physical wall. Due to his low Resistance, he is weak to attacks from  Magical weapons. When promoted, he also possesses  Follow-Up Ring to guarantee attacking twice (or four times on offense with his default  Brave Sword+), making him an excellent defensive and offensive threat.
	Grand Hero Battle Revival (Monday UTC), Heroic Grails Menu	Sword  Armored unit. Trades offensive power and utility for more consistent walling and tanking ability compared to the other free sword armor options.
	Heroic Grails Menu	Lance  Armored unit that comes with the rare  Goad Armor skill.
	Heroic Grails Menu	Axe  Armored unit with one of the highest attack stats in the game, and solid defense and HP stats. Also comes with the rare  Sturdy Stance 2 skill.
	Heroic Grails Menu	Colorless Dagger  Armored unit that comes with the rare skills Attack Resistance Bond and Defense Ploy. The only free armored unit with a ranged weapon and access to colorless damage.

Note that  Heroic Grails are a valuable resource, so these armored units may not be worth investing in (excluding  Hector: Brave Warrior and  Black Knight: Sinister General).

What Free-to-Players (May) Miss Out On

While this guide should help any players looking to play without spending money, it is still good to know what goals are going to be difficult or impossible to achieve without buying orbs. Here is a list of things you won’t be likely to do.

Arena Rankings

A free-to-play player can easily compete in the Arena to earn feathers. Achieving a top-rank on the leaderboards, however, is very unlikely. Because of the way that matchmaking and scoring behaves, players with optimized teams and multiple merges have a higher potential number of points in a single Arena run. As a result, only players willing to spend large amounts of money or devotion are likely to earn spots in the top 100.

Non-Focus 5  Heroes

Getting 5  heroes is very possible without spending money. In fact, a free-to-player has a high chance of summoning many 5  Heroes throughout the lifetime of the game. The chances of finding a specific non-focus hero though is very low. So if there is a specific hero that you really want, expect to fork over a lot of cash.

Large Hero Collections

As stated before, you will get about 30 heroes from summons with your free orbs. Since this includes some 3  heroes, you won’t have an expansive collection with all of your favorite Fire Emblem characters. Instead of trying to complete your collection, it’s better to focus on having at least one very competitive team.

Merging 5  Heroes

While the competitive meta is not fully developed, it seems likely that merged heroes will eventually dictate the upper levels of competitive play. Considering the expense and difficulty of obtaining specific 5  heroes, getting duplicates that can be merged together is prohibitively expensive.

See also

• Beginners Guide
• Basics
• Frequently Asked Questions