How to Make the Most of Orbs in 'Fire Emblem Heroes'

The latest mobile game from Nintendo, Fire Emblem Heroes, features a similar set of gameplay mechanics to the previous Fire Emblem games. Throughout Heroes, players work to gather new heroes from across the Fire Emblem universe to then take them into battle. The easiest way to obtain better heroes is by using the rarest currency in Fire Emblem Heroes: rainbow-colored Orbs. Knowing how best to use them is super important.

You won’t find too many Orbs outside of the game’s story missions, where you’ll earn one Orb for each mission you complete for the first time. The key to collecting them without spending money is persistence. To celebrate the launch of the game, logging into Heroes each day will net you two free Orbs to spend. You can also earn Orbs by completing special launch celebration battles which are being released regularly on the app. But if you’re looking for a free boost to your Orb reserve, make sure to link your Nintendo account for ten free Orbs. After saving up a sizable collection of Orbs, don’t go spending them all in one place — make sure to use them wisely. Here are a few tips on doing exactly that.

Summon Heroes as Package Deals

Summoning is how you’ll recruit new heroes to fight at your side throughout Fire Emblem Heroes. As you might expect, it’s one of the most expensive things to do within the game. Summoning a single hero to fight for you will cost five Orbs at a time, pulling up a set of five different hero icons you can choose from. Provided you have enough Orbs, you can summon every single hero from a set at a slightly reduced Orb cost; for 20 Orbs, you can pull five heroes at once from the set to add to your collection instead of using 25 Orbs in separate summons. Whenever you can, make sure to save up 20 Orbs for new summons to get the most out of your hard-earned currency.

Don’t Expand Your Barracks

When you first start your Fire Emblem Heroes journey, you’ll only be able to hold 200 heroes total on the roster. While it may appear that you’ll hit this cap quickly while summoning new heroes, reaching a collection of 200 plus characters takes quite some time provided you arent spending real money on Orbs. With the ability to merge heroes to increase their stats and ability power, reaching the cap with the basic barracks is a goal that will take weeks of play to achieve. Hold off on the expansions for now, and use the Orbs to summon new heroes or level up your castle instead.

Upgrading Your Castle

In the top right of your home menu in Fire Emblem Heroes, there’s a small green castle icon which allows you to upgrade your castle for a set number of Orbs. By spending the Orbs and upgrading the castle, you’ll increase the amount of experience points each of your heroes earns in every battle they participate in. This makes getting started with your base set of heroes much easier and will increase the speed you can level up new heroes in the long run, but will cost more and more Orbs with every upgrade. While investing a hefty number of Orbs into it at first is a good idea, consider only upgrading it two or three times so that you can build your team of heroes with your starting Orbs first.

Don’t Use Orbs for Stamina Regeneration

Every battle uses up some of your stamina pool to complete it. When your stamina has been completely depleted it must recharge before you can head out into battle once again unless you use Orbs to immediately refill it and continue. Don’t waste your Orbs on filling up your stamina, however, because you can do so with Stamina Potions too, which you can earn from specific story missions and completing quests each week. You’ll also be able to redeem Nintendo reward points for them provided you have your Nintendo account linked to the app on your phone.