While Fire Emblem Fates is three different games, all three share the same basic tactical gameplay structure. Birthright is the simplest of the three, but even though you can almost brute-force your way through the game, it's easier if you take the time to learn its systems and how it works. These tips also apply for the Conquest and Revelation versions of the game, and are more useful in those titles since they require more of a tactical approach.
Fire Emblem Fates Tips Guide
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1. Learn the game\'s rock, paper, scissors weapon-triangle battle system.
Fire Emblem Fates expands on the series "weapon triangle" by adding ranged attacks to it. It uses a battle system where swords & magic tomes beat axes & bows, axes & bows beat spears & hidden weapons (shuriken & daggers), and spears & hidden weapons beat swords & magic tomes. This affects the percentage value that indicates how likely an attack is to hit, as well as damage done by the weapon. It's possible to see which weapons units are likely to use on the field screen based on their unit type.
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rnEffectively learning what your enemies' weakpoints are will go a long way towards making combats easier and lend towards more predictable outcomes. Placing the cursor over an enemy unit allows you to see what weapon they currently have equipped and will counter with when you attack.
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rnBy appropriately planning which weapons to match against which enemies, you can make combat much more effective. Some enemies have more than one attack method, but will generally prefer a single attack type.
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rn[Image Caption: Corrin's sword's effectiveness is boosted against Takumi's bow, which is lowered, in this face-off from Conquest. The red and green arrows next to the weapon icons indicate whether a weapon is more or less effective.] -
10. Regularly check back and upgrade your weapons, magical healing items, and the shops where you can acquire them.
Since you build and curate where the resources are in your astral plane base between battles, I highly recommend building weapon armories and healing-item shops first. When upgrades to these shops become available, upgrade them before building new structures or buying other upgrades.
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rnCheck your equipment regularly. Your ability to use stronger weapons builds based on use, not on the level of your character, so if you aren't being careful, you might click through a notice letting you know that a character has reached a new weapon or support item class. Support healing items also have a limited use, so it's worth it to check back and make sure you have enough in stock to make them effective in your next combat. I have had a series of disastrous battles that were the result of my weapons and support items not being adequate to the level of my fighters, which were easy when I restarted and resupplied.
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rn[Image Caption: Building and upgrading the shops in your astral plane fortress is key to maintaining good equipment for your units.] -
2. Pair your physically weak ranged attackers with strong physical meat shields.
Often in combat, enemies will target the physically weaker characters, who in general are ranged attackers who can do a lot of damage from a two-tile range. These include your magic users, bow wielders, and hidden weapon fighters, many who can upgrade to double as healers.
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rnBy placing your stronger physical characters in front, they will take the brunt of the physical damage, while support units from behind can add to the counter-attack. Many battles can be effectively won by planning a strong counter-attack, without even making the first strike to take down an enemy or pair of enemies. By prioritizing which enemies need to be directly attacked, and which can be defeated in counters, you can maximize effectiveness.
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rn[Image Caption: Outlaw Niles, though not in danger in this section of Conquest where he is manning a ballista, pairs well with melee soldier classes during individual combat encounters.] -
3. Regularly pair different characters together to get the bonuses by raising their affinity and bond levels.
Pairing characters together doesn't just allow them to add to counterattacks, it also raises their to-hit percentages and other stats during combat. The better their bond is, the higher the bonus. Successful paired actions, whether they are paired combats, healing actions, or other forms of support, increase character bonds, which you'll notice by the hearts that appear over the units after an action.
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rnThis also adds to game's social aspect, allowing you to see the character's relationships grow and develop with dialogues available between the battles. If the friendships or romances become strong enough, they can have additional effects, including the ability to use special seals to change one character's class to the other character they are bonded with.
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rn[Image Caption: By fighting alongside Samurai Hana, Hoshidan Prince Ryoma gains 10 points to his Hit percentage.] -
4. Romantically pair off characters as soon as you can.
If you have male and female characters who will work well together, make them a combat-effective duo as quickly as possible. If you pair them together and use them often together, eventually they will get married in an in-game dialogue between battles. While, as mentioned above, you can change a character class to a romantically-linked partner's class, marriage has another benefit which may be even greater: the addition of new characters.
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rnMarried characters produce offspring, who are sent to a "deeprealm" world, where due to differences in the flow of time grow to fighting strength almost immediately after the marriage. They can be retrieved in a "Paralogue" side mission and brought into your fighting force. These offspring characters often have upgraded weapon abilities and are already a high-level base class. A pairing of protagonist Corrin with any other hero, for instance, will always produce Kana, another noble fighter who shares his/her ability to turn into a dragon, a highly effective ability in most of the game's combats.
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rn[Image Caption: After two characters get married, they immediately have a baby, and soon after you can recruit their child into your force.] -
5.
Fire Emblem Fate's Casual mode is the default version of the games that has permadeath turned off. Earlier Fire Emblem games did not have this feature, though it appears in the prior 3DS entry, Awakening. The game seems to have been tuned to be slightly less forgiving than prior entries due to the option, since it's expected that this is the version players will be playing as a default, and it still needs to be challenging.
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rnIf at a later point you want to go back, or if you are already a hardcore Fire Emblem player, you can always restart the game with this mode turned back on.
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rn[Image Caption: Fire Emblem Fates has been balanced for the Casual mode. Don't the name fool you, on normal difficulty, it's still quite challenging.] -
6. Make judicious use of seals.
One staple of the Fire Emblem series is the use of Master Seals. Your characters start with a base-class capable of increasing up to level 20. After reaching level 10, they can use a Master Seal to unlock one of two master-classes with different additional skills and abilities used by other classes. Master classes also have a level cap at 20.
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rnWhile it may be tempting to use a Master Seal as soon as you reach level 10, it may be wise to hold off, or you may find yourself having reached the level cap for the master class before the end of the game. Waiting until your characters are at or near level 20 of the base class will delay them having additional skills, but it will also mean that they will have a stronger set of base stats going in to the master class.
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rnIf a character seems to be particularly ineffective, try using a Heart Seal on them. A Heart Seal changes their class to what they wish to be in their heart (matching their base stats more readily) while not reducing the number of levels they currently have. In the game's first paralogue mission, you can acquire a villager character named Mozu, who is fairly ineffective with a spear, but using a Heart Seal turns her into a highly efficient archer.
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rn[Image Caption: Master Seal class selection for Rinkah between Oni Chieftan and Blacksmith classes. Stat boosts for the upgrade are listed on the left.] -
7. At the start of each combat, check for a Dragon Vein.
Dragon Veins are area-of-effect spells that change the terrain, opening closed passages, healing or damaging units within a large area, or changing the physical conditions of the area. They can only be used by characters with dragon blood (royalty) but as each game progresses, you have access to more and more royal characters to take advantage of these features. rn rnIt's also worth it to check and see if royal enemies have access to nearby Dragon Veins as well, and be sure not to let them take advantage by trapping your soldiers or using a harmful effect on them. In some combats, this is almost unavoidable, and you may have to scramble to heal your heroes after their HP is dropped to 1, but going in forewarned makes this much easier to handle. rn rn[Image Caption: One of the characters with dragon's blood (royalty) has activated a Dragon Vein, producing an area-of-effect spell that can harm or heal units in a large area, or change terrain.] -
8. Make liberal use of the royal family characters.
Royal characters, especially Nohrian Prince Xander and Hoshidan Prince Ryoma, are highly powered when they come into your party, and are super-effective fighters with strong defensive and offensive capabilities. In Conquest, if you are playing a female Corrin, Xander is a romance option (and I assume the other corresponding Nohrian princes or princesses to the opposite gender of whatever you've chosen for Corrin are as well) since he's not blood-related.
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rnOther royal characters are especially effective as members of their particular classes, and at master class levels become even more of powerhouses. Replacing other characters with them may halt those characters' progress, but will give you a definite advantage in the more challenging later battles in the game.
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rn[Image Caption: Prince Xander's fighting ability and his holy weapon Siegfried make him one of the best allies in Conquest.] -
9. Azura\'s
While playing Birthright I made liberal use of Azura's Sing ability, which allows her to give any player character she can stand next to a second turn in the same round. I didn't realize how valuable this ability was, until my playthrough of Conquest where I changed her class from Songstress to a spear-wielding class, in the hopes it would make her more combat-effective, and I lost the Sing ability in the process.
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rnThe Sing ability allows for her to help characters to escape nasty situations if they are locked into a combat where they will be killed when it's the enemy's round or to take an extra combat turn if they were especially effective against a boss or difficult enemy, or remove themselves from combat if it would be more effective to replace them with another more effective fighter. Be careful, however, that in using the ability you do no place her in range of enemy units, who will take her out at their first available opportunity.
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rn[Image Caption: Azura, here in a cinematic cut-scene, is ineffective in direct combat, but her Sing command is an essential support ability.]
