Fire Emblem Heroes is celebrating its third anniversary in 2020. It might seem intimidating to hop into a mobile game at this point. Especially if you only are a recent fan of the series who has been pulled in by Fire Emblem: Three Houses. What’s great about it is that it is a very welcoming title that is easy to pick up. Also, if someone is coming to it because of the Nintendo Switch’s entry, they’ll find some of the Fire Emblem Heroes Three Houses characters are very newcomer friendly. They come with movesets that you could leave unaltered and succeed with, and some tend to have really great stat spreads. Granted, it might not be easy or guaranteed to pull one of them. But if you could get one of these four characters, they might help with building up your army.
Byleth: Tested Professor, the male version of Byleth, is a good example. If someone has a Fire Emblem: Three Houses copy registered to their Nintendo Network ID and play Fire Emblem Heroes by June 29, 2020, they get the five-star unit for free. He’s a great infantry unit that boasts high attack and speed stats. He also has the Creator Sword, which helps him ignore enemy units’ attacks that would keep him from using a follow-up attack, allow an enemy to have a follow-up attack, or alter special cooldown charges, while also decreasing his own special attack trigger. His Ruptured Sky special will deal extra damage based on 20% of his own attack stat for normal human foes and 40% when he’s facing a beast or dragon. His other base moveset attempts to guarantee he’s faster than foes, as Chill Speed will inflict up to –7 to the speed of the fastest enemy and give +6 speed to himself and the teammates next to him at the beginning of every odd-numbered turn. His major downside is his resistance stat is very low. So even though he comes with Distant Counter, which lets him counter at any distance, you probably want to protect him from any non-colorless ranged unit.
With Byleth: Proven Professor, the female version of the character, you have something of an either/or situation. You don’t really need to have both of these sword-carrying infantry units around, especially since both have the same Creator Sword weapon and Ruptured Sky special. Her speed is naturally higher than his, but they share the same low resistance stat. Her base moveset means there’s a bit of a risk/reward system at play, since Fury 4 boosts all of her stats by four, but she takes eight damage after each fight. (If her health is at one, it won’t go any lower.) Wrath also encourages her health to be low, since it rewards people with a reduced special cooldown count and an addition +10 damage every time she does use her special. She’s also more offensively focused, giving her and adjacent allies up to +6 attack at the beginning of every turn with her base moveset. With both versions of Byleth, you could almost consider their Wave skills as being a means of “instructing” the students adjacent to them. In addition, as pointed out by one of our Contributing Editors, both of the Byleths have movesets where their skills would be great for other units to inherit.
Both versions of Sothis are also great additions for a Fire Emblem Heroes Three Houses fan who is new to the game and wants to have a familiar and capable face. Since Sothis: Silver Specter is the winter unit and isn’t available at all times, we’ll focus on the standard Sothis: Girl on the Throne. She’s a red dragon unit that, ideally, you put on the field and let her take care of herself. (Dragons in Fire Emblem Heroes tend to have great base stats, at the expensive of some units having weapons effective against their nature.) Her resistance isn’t great, but it is better than both Byleth versions’ stat.
Sothis’ Sublime Surge weapon removes the “dragon” weakness, allows her to counter regardless of the enemy’s range, and uses a ranged foe’s defense or resistance stat, whichever is lower, to determine damage. She’s also a unit you want to leave alone in the field. Atk/Speed Solo gives her attack and speed each up to a +6 boost if she doesn’t have anyone right next to her. Wrath will increase her special cooldown and let her deal +10 damage when her special, Sirius, takes effect and she isn’t at optimal health. Sirius deals extra damage based on 30% of her speed and heals her by 30% of the total damage she dealt. Time’s Pulse also constantly reduces her special cooldown as the battle goes on, so her special triggers more often. (Someone may want to eventually replace Wrath, since Sirius will keep her healed up.) Time’s Pulse is a direct reference to the Divine Pulse used to rewind time in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, while you could see the Solo skill as a reference to her isolating situation.
Edelgard is another Fire Emblem: Three Houses unit for beginners. It takes her take charge attitude and applies it to her moveset. She’s great at being alone on the field. In fact, every part of her base build encourages it. Victorious Axe makes it easier for her special, Luna, to trigger. (That acts as though an opponent’s defense and resistance are half of what they normally are.) It also ensures she’ll get a follow-up attack if there are more enemies around her than allies. Like Sothis, she has a Solo skill, though her Atk/Def Solo gives her up to +6 to both attack and defense if there are no allies right next to her. Rouse Atk/Def also gives her an additional +6 to attack and defense if none of your other party members are right next to her. She also has Dull Close to increase her survivability, which treats any enemy who is using a melee, close-range attack method as though they have no bonuses applied to them. Her only weakness is her resistance, which is as low as both versions of Byleth, but she starts out with already exceptional neutral attack and defense stats. Take this infantry unit, let her dash out into the field, and hope that there are no mages around her.
While Fire Emblem Heroes might seem intimidating, don’t let it scare you away. There are a lot of great units in there that have good starting movesets, and you can make a lot of progress with them while you adjust to the game and find your footing. This is especially true for Fire Emblem: Three Houses fans. These four units are only the start, as there are plenty of familiar faces here and more will be on the way. While there can be a chance of Byleth, Edelgard, or Sothis showing up as a five-star on any banner, note that it will be easier to get them if they are a named focus character on a banner. And, even if you don’t get one of these three specific characters for your team, you could always end up getting a Claude, Dimitri, Hilda, Hubert, Mercedes, or Petra from a banner or Death Knight or Kronya from a Grand Hero Battle.
Fire Emblem Heroes is available for Android and Apple iOS devices. Fire Emblem: Three Houses is available for the Nintendo Switch.
