How to Master Basic Combat in 'Fire Emblem Heroes'

Available as a free download, Fire Emblem Heroes is the second fully fledged mobile game from Nintendo and one that’s very much like its counterparts on the Nintendo 3DS. It allows players to gather heroes from across the Fire Emblem universe to fight against friends and foes alike. Playing smart and utilizing your hero’s strengths is key to victory, but there’s a few key things about combat in Fire Emblem Heroes worth knowing if you wish to master basic combat entirely.

Learn the Weapon Triangle

Combat in Fire Emblem Heroes revolves around the weapon triangle system. Every hero is equipped with one of four distinct weapon types as indicated by the hero’s color. Generally, red is a sword user, green means an axe user, blue means they are a lance user, and colorless means they are a bow, knife, or healing magic user.

Like in Fire Emblem Fates, magic users are also sorted into the triangle by color whether it be red, blue, or green. Each of your heroes receives advantages and disadvantages on the battlefield when fighting enemy units based on their classification. Red beats green, green beats blue, and blue beats red. Colorless characters have specific advantages themselves, such as archers receiving a damage bonus against flying units. No matter where you’re at in Fire Emblem Heroes, always keep these strengths and weaknesses in the back of your mind when fighting on the battlefield to make quick work of opponents.

Build the Right Team for the Job

The second you start up Fire Emblem Heroes, it provides you with a complimentary team of heroes to work your way through the game’s introduction. Once done, you then gain the ability to assemble your own teams of heroes which you can use throughout the rest of the game. Every team you build consists of four different heroes with their own sets of skills, stats, and classification in the weapon triangle — the last of which you should ideally balance out depending on the situation at hand.

Heroes on your team should complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses in combat, but since Fire Emblem Heroes often shows you what you’ll be going up against in upcoming battles, you need to take time to prepare an appropriate team of heroes beforehand if you want to dominate the field. Always make sure to check the enemies’ levels and team composition before heading out into battle.

Use the Training Tower

Once you’ve progressed far enough into Fire Emblem Heroes’s main story campaign, you’ll unlock the Training Tower. The main purpose of this area is to provide you with a place to train and level up your collection of heroes by farming experience points while earning both Shards and Badges, which can be used to further unlock a hero’s potential. While you’ll earn experience from the story missions at first, new heroes you unlock later in the game will start at level 1 and require you to grind them up to an appropriate level to be used in late-game content. As such, you’ll want to drag them into the tower for practice.

At any given point, the Training Tower will have a set of three battles which you can participate in. Usually these range over a set of levels which match your current hero collection, and change in team composition throughout the day. Every stage you clear will reward you with a Shard or Crystal for your first clear each day, which can be used to level up your heroes instead of farming experience points. You’ll also earn a Badge or Great Badge for each clear, which can unlock a hero’s potential once they’ve reached level 20. Leveling up characters this way is expensive, but it can come in handy when you’re trying to catch a new summon up quickly, so make sure to complete your stages daily to save up a hefty sack of consumables for later.