History VideoGame / FireEmblemHeroes

In Book I, the main enemy was [[TheEmpire Embla]], Askr's rival nation within Midgard, as Princess Veronica leads the charge. In Book II, the [[TinTyrant sadistic king]] Surtr from [[LethalLavaLand Múspell]] invades Askr, as Fjorm from [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Nifl]] seeks help from the Order of Heroes. In Book III, the undead forces of [[BigBoosHaunt Hel]] and their [[GrimReaper queen]] seek to swelter their numbers, as Hel's daughter, Eir, is captured by the Order of Heroes. In Book IV, the Order of Heroes end up in [[LandOfFaerie Ljósálfheimr]], where they befriend the fairy [[DreamWeaver Peony]], all while nightmares from [[AlienLandmass Dökkálfheimr]] and their queen, [[TheFairFolk Freyja]], threaten the Order. In Book V, the Order of Heroes are unexpectedly attacked by the forces of [[TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe Niðavellir]] and their king, Fáfnir. There, after her defeat, Reginn joins the Order of Heroes against his adoptive brother, with the added help of the princesses of Jötunheimr. In Book VI, the conflict between Askr and Emlba reignite when Ash, the retainer to the God Askr, and Elm, retainer to the God Embla, enter the picture. Between every book, [[DragonWithAnAgenda Loki]] and [[WarGod Thórr]] lurk in the shadows, knowing more than anyone else combined in the Nine Realms...

In Book I, the main enemy was [[TheEmpire Embla]], Askr's rival nation within Midgard, as Princess Veronica leads the charge. In Book II, the [[TinTyrant sadistic king]] Surtr from [[LethalLavaLand Múspell]] invades Askr, as Fjorm from [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Nifl]] seeks help from the Order of Heroes. In Book III, the undead forces of [[BigBoosHaunt Hel]] and their [[GrimReaper queen]] seek to swelter their numbers, as Hel's daughter, Eir, is captured by the Order of Heroes. In Book IV, the Order of Heroes end up in [[LandOfFaerie Ljósálfheimr]], where they befriend the fairy [[DreamWeaver Peony]], all while nightmares from [[AlienLandmass Dökkálfheimr]] and their queen, [[TheFairFolk Freyja]], threaten the Order. In Book V, the Order of Heroes are unexpectedly attacked by the forces of [[TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe Niðavellir]] and their king, Fáfnir. There, after her defeat, Reginn joins the Order of Heroes against his adoptive brother, with the added help of the princesses of Jötunheimr. Between every book, [[DragonWithAnAgenda Loki]] and [[WarGod Thórr]] lurk in the shadows, knowing more than anyone else combined in the Nine Realms...

Over the course of each Book, new content gets added to the game. Book II introduced the concept of "Legendary Heroes", special and strong heroes with unique skills that give elemental effects to those with the same elemental blessing. Book II also introduced the Weapon Refinery system, allowing units to be buffed by upgrading the effects of their weapon, or giving them a new weapon entirely and the Aether Raid mode, a new form of player-vs-player in the same vain as the "My Castle" from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates''. Book III first introduced Beast units, units able to transform into any animal besides dragons, such as the Laguz from the ''Tellius'' duology. As well as this, Book III introduced the addition of four new seasons, and a new Hero Type called "Mythic Heroes". Book III also saw changes made to the merging system with the introduction of Dragonflowers as a way to boost the raw stats of units, and Duo Heroes, special heroes that consist of a pair (or more) of characters fighting together with a unique ability to them. Book IV introduced the Feh Pass, a subscription service feature that gave access to things such as special costumes for certain units on a monthly basis, special monthly quests, and other features. Book IV also marks the addition of the Trait Fruit, a way to change a Hero's Asset and Flaw at will. Book V brought a new type of Mythic Hero blessing mechanic that allows a [[SixthRanger sixth ally]] to fight in Aether Raids, and some more changes to the summoning system.

In Book I, the main enemy was [[TheEmpire Embla]], Askr's rival nation within Midgard, as Princess Veronica leads the charge. In Book II, the [[TinTyrant sadistic king]] Surtr from [[LethalLavaLand Múspell]] invades Askr, as Fjorm from [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Nifl]] seeks help from the Order of Heroes. In Book III, the undead forces of [[BigBoosHaunt Hel]] and their [[GrimReaper queen]] seek to swelter their numbers, as Hel's daughter, Eir, is captured by the Order of Heroes. In Book IV, the Order of Heroes end up in [[LandOfFaerie Ljósálfheimr]], where they befriend the fairy [[DreamWeaver Peony]], all while nightmares from [[AlienLandmass Dökkálfheimr]] and their queen, [[TheFairFolk Freyja]], threaten the Order. In Book V, the Order of Heroes are unexpectedly attacked by the forces of [[TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe Niðavellir]] and their king, Fáfnir. There, after her defeat, Reginn joins the Order of Heroes against his adoptive brother, with the added help of the princesses of Jötunheimr. Between every book, [[DragonWithAnAgenda Loki]] and [[WarGod Thórr]] lurk in the shadows, knowing more than anyone else combined in the Nine Realms...

In Book I, the main enemy was [[TheEmpire Embla]], Askr's rival nation within Midgard, as Princess Veronica leads the charge. In Book II, the [[TinTyrant sadistic king]] Surtr from [[LethalLavaLand Múspell]] invades Askr, as Fjorm from [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Nifl]] seeks help from the Order of Heroes. In Book III, the undead forces of [[BigBoosHaunt Hel]] and their [[GrimReaper queen]] seek to swelter their numbers, as Hel's daughter, Eir, is captured by the Order of Heroes. In Book IV, the Order of Heroes end up in [[LandOfFaerie Ljósálfheimr]], where they befriend the fairy [[DreamWeaver Peony]], all while nightmares from [[AlienLandmass Dökkálfheimr]] and their queen, [[TheFairFolk Freyja]], threaten the Order. In Book V, the Order of Heroes are unexpectedly attacked by the forces of [[TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe Niðavellir]] and their king, Fáfnir. There, after her defeat, Reginn joins the Order of Heroes against his adoptive brother, with the added help of the princesses of Jötunheimr. Between every book, [[DragonWithAnAgenda Loki]] lurks in the shadows, knowing more than anyone else combined in the Nine Realms...

Set in the [[Myth/NorseMythology Nine Realms]], you, a Summoner, are [[SummonEverymanHero called]] to assist the Order of Heroes, an organization consisting of Alfonse and Sharena, the prince and princess of the [[TheGoodKingdom Kingdom of Askr]], and Anna, general of the Order of Heroes, in defending the realm of Midgard from any and all all opposing realms and characters that seek the destruction of Askr.

Set in the World of Zenith, you, a Summoner, are [[SummonEverymanHero called]] to assist the Order of Heroes, an organization consisting of Alfonse and Sharena, the prince and princess of the [[TheGoodKingdom Kingdom of Askr]], and Anna, general of the Order of Heroes, in stopping the [[TheEmpire Emblian Empire]], whose princess, [[BigBad Veronica]], and a mysterious masked man have invaded several realms in the ''Fire Emblem'' universe and are bent on building an army to destroy the Kingdom of Askr. You and the Order of Heroes must gather heroes from many ''Fire Emblem'' worlds while stopping the actions of the Emblian Empire.

Towards the end of 2017, Book II of the main story was released with the heralding of patch 2.0. In Book II, Veronica [[BigBadDuumvirate allies with]] the country of Múspell, ruled by the [[TinTyrant sadistic king]] Surtr, after being convinced to by Surtr's strategist [[DragonWithAnAgenda Loki]]. The Order of Heroes joins forces with Fjorm, one of the princesses of Nifl, and enters the conflict to help the losing kingdom of Nifl survive against Múspell, all while trying to find a way to defeat Surtr and stop him from destroying not just Nifl, but the other nations as well. Book II introduced the concept of "Legendary Heroes", special and strong heroes with unique skills that give elemental effects to those with the same elemental blessing. Book II also introduced the Weapon Refinery system, allowing units to be buffed by upgrading the effects of their weapon, or giving them a new weapon entirely and the Aether Raid mode, a new form of player-vs-player in the same vain as the "My Castle" from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates''.

On December 10th 2018, Book III was released. Book III sees Askr being invaded by the forces of Hel, the Realm of the Dead. Lead by Hel herself, they seek to destroy the people of Askr, forcing the people to fight back against forces long dead, including historical figures. They are joined by Hel's daughter Eir, who is captured by the forces of Askr and joins under orders from Hel to weaken them from within. Along with Book III, Laguz units from the ''Tellius'' duology are summonable for the first time, alongside the introduction of four new seasons, and a new summoning event called Mythic Heroes. Book III also saw changes made to the merging system such as the addition of Trait Fruit, the introduction of Dragonflowers as a way to boost the raw stats of units, and Duo Heroes, special heroes that consist of a pair (or more) of characters fighting together with a unique ability to them.

December 5th, 2019 saw the release of Book IV, where the Order of Heroes found themselves in Ljósálfheimr, the [[DreamLand Realm of Dreams]]. There, they will befriend Peony, a member of the Ljósálfar, while being menaced by a pair of Dökkálfar, Triandra and Plumeria, from Dökkálfheimr, the Realm of Nightmares. Book IV introduced the Feh Pass, a subscription service feature that gave access to things such as special costumes for certain units on a monthly basis, special monthly quests, and other features.

On December 7th, 2020, Book V was released. The Order of Heroes are suddenly attacked by an unusual foe: the Dvergar, who hail from the realm of Niðavellir. Armed with powerful {{Magitek}} armor and weapons, and lead by King Fáfnir, they seek to conquer other realms for an unknown reason. After defeating the initial assault, they are joined by Reginn, the adopted sister of Fáfnir who defects to Askr after being defeated by them, in order to stop her brother's tyrannical rule. Book V brought with it a new type of blessing mechanic that allows a [[SixthRanger sixth ally]] to fight in Aether Raids, and some changes to the summoning system.

December 5th, 2019 saw the release of Book IV, where the Order of Heroes found themselves in Ljósálfheimr, the [[DreamLand Realm of Dreams]]. There, they will befriend Peony, a member of the Ljósálfr, while being menaced by a pair of Dökkálfr, Triandra and Plumeria, from Dökkálfheimr, the Realm of Nightmares. Book IV introduced the Feh Pass, a subscription service feature that gave access to things such as special costumes for certain units on a monthly basis, special monthly quests, and other features.

On December 7th, 2020, Book V was released. The Order of Heroes are suddenly attacked by an unusual foe: the Niðavellir, who hail from the realm of Dvergar. Armed with powerful {{Magitek}} armor and weapons, and lead by King Fáfnir, they seek to conquer other realms for an unknown reason. After defeating the initial assault, they are joined by Reginn, the adopted sister of Fáfnir who defects to Asker after being defeated by them, in order to stop her brothers suddenly more tyrannical rule. Book V brought with it a new type of blessing mechanic that allows a [[SixthRanger sixth ally]] to fight in Aether Raids, and some changes to the summoning system.

On December 10th 2018, Book III was released. Book III sees Askr being invaded by the forces of Hel, the Realm of the Dead. Lead by Hel herself, they seek to destroy the people of Askr, forcing the people to fight back against forces long dead, including historical figures. They are joined by Hel's daughter Eir, who is captured by the forces of Askr and joins under orders from Hel to weaken them from within. Along with Book III, Laguz units from the ''Tellius'' duology are summonable for the first time, alongside the introduction of four new seasons, and a new summoning event called Mythic Heroes. Book III also saw changes made to the merging system, the introduction of Dragonflowers as a way to boost the raw stats of units, and Duo Heroes, special heroes that consist of a pair (or more) of characters fighting together with a unique ability to them.

On December 10th 2018, Book III was released. Book III sees Askr being invaded by the forces of Hel, the Realm of the Dead. Lead by Hel herself, they seek to defeat Askr, forcing the people to fight back against forces long dead, including historical figures. They are joined by Hel's daughter Eir, who is captured by the forces of Askr and joins under orders from Hel to weaken them from within. Along with Book III, Laguz units from the ''Tellius'' duology are summonable for the first time, alongside the introduction of four new seasons, and a new summoning event called Mythic Heroes. Book III also saw changes made to the merging system, the introduction of Dragonflowers as a way to boost the raw stats of units, and Duo Heroes, special heroes that consist of a pair (or more) of characters fighting together with a unique ability to them.

Set in the World of Zenith, you, a Summoner, are [[SummonEverymanHero called from Earth]] to assist the Order of Heroes, an organization consisting of Alfonse and Sharena, the prince and princess of the [[TheGoodKingdom Kingdom of Askr]], and Anna, general of the Order of Heroes, in stopping the [[TheEmpire Emblian Empire]], whose princess, [[BigBad Veronica]], and a mysterious masked man have invaded several realms in the ''Fire Emblem'' universe and are bent on building an army to destroy the Kingdom of Askr. You and the Order of Heroes must gather heroes from many ''Fire Emblem'' worlds while stopping the actions of the Emblian Empire.

December 5th, 2019 saw the release of Book IV, where the Order of Heroes found themselves in Ljósálfheimr, the [[DreamLand Realm of Dreams]]. There, they will befriend Peony, a member of the Ljósálfar, while being menaced by a pair of Dökkálfar, Triandra and Plumeria, from Dökkálfheimr, the Realm of Nightmares. Book IV introduced the Feh Pass, a subscription service feature that gave access to things such as special costumes for certain units on a monthly basis, special monthly quests, and other features.

Towards the end of 2017, Book II of the main story was released with the heralding of patch 2.0. In Book II, Veronica [[BigBadDuumvirate allies with]] the country of Múspell, ruled by the [[TinTyrant sadistic king]] Surtr, after being convinced to by Surtr's strategist [[DragonWithAnAgenda Loki]]. The Order of Heroes joins forces with Fjorm, one of the princesses of Nifl, and enters the conflict to help the losing kingdom of Nifl survive against Múspell, all while trying to find a way to defeat Surtr and stop him from destroying not just Nifl, but the other nations as well.

On December 10th 2018, Book III was released. Book III sees Askr being invaded by the forces of Hel, the Realm of the Dead. Lead by Hel herself, they seek to defeat Askr, forcing the people to fight back against forces long dead, including historical figures. They are joined by Hel's daughter Eir, who is captured by the forces of Askr and joins under orders from Hel to weaken them from within. Along with Book III, Laguz units from the ''Tellius'' duology are summonable for the first time, alongside the introduction of four new seasons, and a new summoning event called Mythic Heroes.

December 5th, 2019 saw the release of Book IV, where the Order of Heroes found themselves in Ljósálfheimr, the [[DreamLand Realm of Dreams]]. There, they will befriend Peony, a member of the Ljósálfar, while being menaced by a pair of Dökkálfar, Triandra and Plumeria, from Dökkálfheimr, the Realm of Nightmares.

Due to the nature of the game being a crossover from all of the games in the series, spoilers for those games will be unmarked, up to and including ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden Shadows of Valentia]]''.

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:A]]
* AbortedArc: Book I ended with the Order of Heroes learning that a dark god has cursed the Emblian royals, and is the reason for Bruno and Veronica's bloodlust, in addition to Loki finding the [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones Naglfar]] tome for her master to use. As of the end of Book II, there's been no further development on that front, Veronica has [[TookALevelInKindness Taken A Level In Kindness]], and Bruno is still searching for a cure and is thus absent from the storyline until showing up briefly in the last chapter.
* ActionInitiative:
** Combat order is resolved with the attacker going first, then the target (assuming their weapon's range allows for it or they have Distant/Close Counter), and then, if one unit's Speed exceeds their opponent's by at least 5, they get to perform a follow-up attack. However, several skills and weapons alter this.
** Vantage allows the user to counterattack first before their opponent’s attack, depending on whether the user's HP is at 25%/50%/75% or less. The Mysterious Man's personal tome Valaskjálf has the second tier of this effect, while Phina's Rapier has the third tier. Kronya's Anthame has this effect as well, except it activates if the opponent isn't at full HP before combat.
** Brash Assault guarantees that the user will make a follow-up attack (ignoring the normal Speed rules) if their HP is at or below 30%/40%/50%, they initiate combat, and the opponent can counter. Sol Katti's exclusive refine grants it this effect, except with an HP threshold of 75% or less, and Gustav's Glitnir has this effect, except without the HP requirements.
** Wary Fighter prevents follow-up attacks from both its user and enemies as long as the user's HP is 90%/70%/50% or higher.
** Windsweep and Watersweep prevent the user from making follow-up attacks when initiating battle, and the opponent may be unable to counterattack, depending on the difference in speed and whether the opponent is wielding an applicable weapon.
** The "[Weapon]-breaker" skills allow the user to make a follow-up attack and prevent the opponent from doing the same depending on the latter's weapon type, ignoring the normal Speed rules, as long as the user’s HP is above 90, 70, or 50 percent.
** Quick Riposte allows the user to perform a guaranteed follow-up attack if an enemy initiates combat, as long as the user's HP is above or at 90/80/70 percent. This doesn't affect the enemy's follow-ups, so if the opponent has a Speed advantage, both units will attack twice. Regular Hector's Armads has the second tier of this effect. The Binding Blade's and Bow of Devotion's exclusive refine and Brave Hector's Maltet possess an equivalent of a fifth tier of this effect, wherein the HP threshold is 50 percent or higher.
** Desperation lets the user strike twice before the target can react when the user initiates combat, but requires the user to have HP less than or equal to 25%/50%/75% and they still need to follow the normal Speed rules. When unrefined, regular Lyn's Sol Katti has the second tier of this effect. Lyn's Sol Katti and Athena's Concealed Blade gains the third tier upon refinement, whereas the inheritable Sketchy Summer weapons have the third tier regardless of refinement. Legendary Celica's Soul of Zofia, in addition to having Null Follow-up built into it, also has the third tier effect. Thrasir's Killing Intent also has this effect, except it activates if the enemy is either not at full HP or has any debuffs on them. The unique refine for Brave Ike's Urvan allows the ''enemy'' to attack twice before the user attacks, but to compensate, it reduces the damage of the first attack by 40%, while still having the 80% damage reduction for any enemy consecutive attacks onwards.
*** The Daring Fighter skill is an armor-only skill that is stronger than Desperation, where in addition to having the threashold go up to 80% to have their follow-up attacks go before their foe can counterattack, but if they initiate, they can negate any skills that deny any of the user's follow-up attacks.
** Brave weapons follow normal Speed rules, but also allow their wielder to strike twice before the opponent can counter. Brave weapon wielders can even attack four times in total if they have a speed advantage. However, Brave weapons have lower power compared to other weapons of their kind, reduce their wielder's speed by 5, and their consecutive attack effect can only work if their wielder initiates combat. Dire Thunder is a magic variant exclusive to regular Reinhardt and regular Olwen, and currently the ''only'' magic variant. Regular Elincia's Amiti, World of Thracia Reinhardt's Meisterschwert, Cherche's Axe, Klein's Argent Bow, Keaton's Wolfskin Fang, Luke's Rowdy Sword, Dancing Ishtar's Mögþrasir, Dancing Reinhardt's Vafþrúðnir, Legendary Leif's Meisterbogen, and Altina's Ragnell•Alondite are all stronger variants of regular Brave weapons. Amiti, Argent Bow, and Mögþrasir reduce Elincia, Klein and Dancing Ishtar's speed by a mere 2 points, whereas Meisterschwert, Wolfskin Fang, Meisterbogen, and Ragnell•Alondite has the usual 5 speed penalty, but enables them to attack twice regardless of phase, and in the case of Ragnell•Alondite, allows the user to counterattack regardless of range. Cherche's Axe and Luke's Rowdy Sword have the benefit of receiving refinements, on top of having higher power than a regular Brave weapon.
** The exclusive refinement shared by Palla's Whitewing Blade, Catria's Whitewing Lance, and Est's Whitewing Spear allows the wielders of these weapons to attack twice in succession if the wielders initiate combat and have at least two flying allies within two spaces. No speed penalty is inflicted due to the flying ally requirement for the consecutive attack effect.
** The exclusive refinement for Cain's Bull Blade, Abel's Panther Lance, Stahl's Panther Sword, and Sully's Bull Spear allows the wielder of these weapons to attack twice in succession if there is a Sword, Lance, of Axe wielding Cavalry ally within 2 spaces of them, with Cain and Abel to do so if they initiate combat, and Stahl and Sully to do so if the enemy initiates combat.
** Firesweep weapons completely prevent counter-attacks in combat — for both the user and the opponent. Follow-ups are still possible and obey regular Speed rules.
** The Hardy Bearing Seal can disable the user's and enemy's priority skills. However, at tiers 1 and 2, it requires its user to be at a certain HP threshold (100% at tier 1, 50% or more at tier 2) at start of combat, while it has no HP threshold requirement at tier 3. The Festival in Hoshido weapons and Dragonslasher+ dagger have the third tier of this effect.
** The B-skill Follow-Up Ring, exclusive to Arden, grants him a follow-up attack no matter the phase as long as his HP is 50% or higher at the start of combat.
** The exclusive refine for regular Ephraim's Siegmund allows him a follow-up attack if he initiates combat with 90% HP or more.
** The Flame Siegmund (introduced by Legendary Ephraim and later obtainable by regular Ephraim via weapon refinement) and Edelgard's Victorious Axe gives its wielder a follow-up attack as well if the number of enemies (barring whoever the wielder is fighting) within two spaces of the user must equal or exceed the number of allies also within two spaces.
** Bold Fighter and Vengeful Fighter both guarantee their users a follow-up attack (on top of enhanced special charge), but work differently depending on the phase. Vengeful Fighter works if the enemy initiates combat and its user is at or above 90%/70%/50% HP, whereas Bold Fighter works if its user initiates combat and is at full HP or 50% HP or higher, or regardless of how much HP its user has.
** Myrrh's Great Flame prevents her opponent from making a follow-up attack if her defense is greater than or equal to the opponent's plus 5.
** If Leo has the exclusive refine for his Brynhildr, he can deny his foe a follow-up attack if his defense is higher than theirs and they use a ranged weapon.
** Legendary Hector's Thunder Armads prevents his opponent from making a follow-up attack if he has more allies within 2 spaces of him than foes (barring the opponent).
** Brave Ephraim's Garm allows him to have a guaranteed follow-up attack if he has any StatusBuff applied to him before combat, such as Hone, Rally, or even increased movement either from Armor March, Armored Boots Sacred Seal, or the Infantry Boots item in Arena Assault.
** Brave Celica's Double Lion grants her attacks a brave effect if she initiates combat and is at full HP. However, it cannot be stacked with a Brave Sword, as it already has that effect built into it.
** Legendary Marth's Binding Shield grants him a guaranteed follow-up attack and prevents enemy counterattacks and follow-ups if his opponent is a dragon.
** Lewyn's Forseti, Fallen Mareeta's Shadow Sword, and Summer Laegjarn's Worldsea Wave allows them to perform follow-up attacks before their opponent can counter attack if they have at least 50% HP, provided they have enough speed to double the opponent or is using a weapon-Breaker skill.
** Flora's Hoarfrost Knife allows her a guaranteed follow-up attack (and +20 Def) if she initiates and the opponent has a sword, lance, axe, dragonstone, or beast weapon and can counter attack.
** Halloween Myrrh's Spirit Breath allows her to have a guaranteed follow-up attack if she initiates combat and her defense is greater than or equal to the opponent's plus 5.
** Null Follow-Up disables enemy skills that guarantee a follow-up attack for the enemy, as well as enemy skills that prevent Null Follow-Up's user from performing any follow-ups attack. Both Byleth's Creator Sword has the same effect, as well as Legendary Celica's Soul of Zofia. Mareeta's Sword, in addition to +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, also has the same effect, but only if the user is not adjacent to an ally.
** Hríd's Gjöll grants him a guaranteed follow-up attack and prevents enemy follow-up attacks if the target has a negative status effect, such as a stat reduction, Panic, or Gravity.
** [[UnusableEnemyEquipment Líf's Sökkvabekkr]] grants him a follow-up attack (and +4 in-combat Atk/Spd/Def/Res) if he is within 3 spaces of an ally.
** Thrasir's Ífingr, among other effects, disables skills on the enemy that guarantee follow-up attacks if Thrasir is within 3 spaces of an ally.
** Eir's Lyfjaberg allows her to deny her opponent a follow-up attack if she initiates combat.
** Sturdy Impact and Mirror Impact, in addition to giving the user +6 Atk, as well as +10 Def and +10 Res when initiating combat, respectively, negates any enemy follow-up attacks. The unique refine for Blazing Durandal, on top of giving +1 special buildup for the user and inflicting -1 special buildup for their target and giving +7 Spd and +10 Def when the user initiates combat, also negates any follow-up attacks.
** Null C-Disrupt, in addition to ignoring status effects such as from Panic and Flash, allows the user to also ignore enemy skills that prevents the user from counter attacking.
** Tibarn's Hawk King Claw allows him to have a guaranteed follow-up attack if he initiates combat and the enemy is at full HP before combat.
** Duma's Fell Breath denies his foe any follow-up attacks (and grants him +6 in-combat Atk/Res) if his foe is not at full HP.
** All Cavalry Beasts when they transform denies any enemy follow-up attacks if they initiate combat (and inflicts the enemy -4 Atk/Def during combat).
** The Pegasus Carrot allows the user to ignore any enemy skills or weapons that prevents the user from performing follow-up attacks if the user has a weapon triangle advantage over them.
** Yune's Chaos Manifest gives her an guaranteed follow-up attack, alongside +6 Atk, if the enemy is inflicted with a negative status effect, such as a stat reduction, Panic, or Gravity.
** Fallen Berkut's Kriemhild allows the user to deny any of the foe's follow-up attacks if they're ranged attackers, as well as counter attack them, but requires the user to be within 2 spaces of an ally and inflicts 20 damage to the nearest ally after combat.
** Nah's Oracle Breath denies any enemy follow-up attacks if she has a field boost such as from Rally or Hone skills.
** Dimitri's Noble Lance grants him a guaranteed follow-up attack if at the start of combat either both the user and the target are at full HP, or neither both the user and the target are at full HP.
** Death Knight's Scythe of Sariel allow him to deny any enemy follow-up attacks if the target has any stat or movement buffs before combat, in addition to giving him +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat as well.
** The Odd/Even Follow-Up skills allow the user to gain a guaranteed follow-up attack and deny any enemy follow-up attacks depending if it is an odd or even numbered turn.
** Legendary Leif's Meisterbogen, in addition to always attacking twice even on the enemy phase, denies any enemy follow-up attacks if he initiates, but only if Leif is under the player's control.
** Duo Ephraim & Lyon's Reginleif grants the user a guaranteed follow-up attack if the user either has more Atk than the enemy during combat, or has extra movement granted onto them.
** New Year Duo Alfonse & Sharena's Imbued Koma allows the user to deny any enemy follow-up attacks, as well as gaining +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, if the user has their special ready at the start of combat.
* ActorAllusion: Legendary Julia's clicked lines sometimes tells the Summoner to rest. Considering [[Creator/CassandraLee who voices her in English]], it may be a tongue-in-cheek joke on [[Memes/{{Persona 5}} a talking cat that tells players to stop doing activities and go to sleep.]]
* AdaptationalBadass:
** Jagen and Gunter were {{Crutch Character}}s who were quickly obsoleted in their home games, but are now great cavalry support units.
** Cecilia from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' is also one of the units that were OverratedAndUnderleveled in the original game. Here, she is capable of becoming a deadly cavalry mage.
** Ninian in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' is purely a SupportPartyMember that could only give extra turns, and her dragon form only existed to be (temporarily) killed by Eliwood. In this game, she's now a full-blown Manakete who can use her dragon form to kick some tail.
** Karla was given a bad case of CantCatchUp from Lyn and Karel, who did her job better and were around longer. Here, time is no object and her kit makes her one of the best swordmasters available.
** Elincia in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' was more of a healer than a fighter, despite having the legendary weapon Amiti. Here, she is nearly ''all'' fighter with very high Attack and Speed with said legendary weapon, and Death Blow 3 to add to it.
** Several characters have notable stat distributions which may not correspond with their home game. For example, Innes is a powerful MageKiller with respectable Resistance, even though in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones The Sacred Stones]]'' his Resistance isn't too impressive.
** Deirdre in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' is a normal Light mage saddled with overall bad stats and limited availability. Come this game, she is equipped with a souped-up Naga tome when canonically she never got the chance to wield that tome (Julia would wield that instead).
** Several [[MagikarpPower Est archetype characters]] were derided back in their home games because of their late availability and limited room to train. Here, some of them become great offensive units when availability becomes a non-issue. In particular, [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade Nino]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Tailtiu]], since both of them have the powerful [[GameBreaker -Blade tomes]] and solid stats.
** The herons from ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'' were completely incapable of fighting without using cards, which are items instead of weapons. In this game, they can fight back by using their wings to create gusts of wind.
** Tethys wasn't able to fight in ''The Sacred Stones'', but she can use daggers in this game.
* AdaptationalWimp:
** Lucius in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' was a light mage who started out using a tome and could become a powerful end-game unit. In ''Heroes'', he's solely limited to a staff, which prioritizes healing units over damaging enemies. Lachesis from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' suffers the same fate; she started as a pseudo-Lord class (Princess) and became a very powerful Master Knight, but here she is relegated to being a mere staff user.
** Many legendary weapons are weaker than their home games because they lost their stat boost, like the Omega Yato's +4 to attack, speed, defense, and resistance, and the Tyrfing's ridiculous +10 Skill and Speed and +20 Resistance and only give certain attributes. Some of the legendary weapons, such as the Binding Blade, lost the ability to attack from range for melee weapons or from melee for ranged weapons due to how ''Heroes''[='=] mechanics works.
** Downplayed with the Book of Naga (and Divine Naga). It's still a powerful weapon on its own, but its niche of being the sole counter of the Loptous tome is heavily reduced in effectiveness since it's now using the Weapon Triangle system (previously, Light and Dark tomes were unaffected by the Magic Triangle in ''Genealogy'') and is a Green Tome, and therefore loses out to Loptous (a Red Tome). Although its dragon-slaying effectiveness still remains against it, it's not quite the anti-Loptous weapon anymore (especially since there are dragon-slaying ''swords'' like the Falchion variants and Loptous cannot counter at close range unless given Close Counter). Later averted with Legendary Julia and her Virtuous Naga, which is Blue to dominate Loptous' Red, as well as being effective against dragons, bypassing Loptous' Atk reduction.
** Downplayed with Caeda: ''Heroes'' turned her into a swordswoman when she's primarily known as a lance user and stuck her with the Armorslayer sword while her low ATK score really hampers her otherwise excellent Speed. While Skill Inheritance can turn her into something at least decent, this is by far one of the weaker renditions of Caeda when compared to the days she used a spear in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' (able to snatch Jagen's Silver Lance right at the beginning) or ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem]]'' (thanks to her Wing Spear). Once she's able to obtain the Wing Sword, she pretty much averts this as she becomes a solid unit all around.
** Fallen Takumi was the insanely difficult FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates: Conquest'' that could multiply himself, took half damage thanks to Dragonskin, and had an absolutely ludicrous 1-4 range thanks to his unique bow Skadi. Here, he's a rather mediocre MasterOfNone, and that same Skadi is gimmicky and situational.
** Azama from ''Fates'' had ridiculous strength growths and was a far better physical attacker than a healer once promoted in his home game. Although he can attack and heal in his base class in this game he has ''the'' lowest Attack stat of any unit as of this writing and is strictly a bulky healer with good defense and decent HP.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: The April 2018 Voting Gauntlet was called the "Bunny Battle Ballot."
* AllThereInTheManual: The [[https://fire-emblem-heroes.com/ official website]] includes some non-combat voice clips from regular Veronica.
* AloneAmongTheCouples: The seasonal event "A Splendid Soiree" features couples Berkut and Rinea along with Reinhardt and Ishtar, with Nephenee joining the event without a partner.
* AlternateContinuity: Brave Camilla is from a version of Nohr in which she became its queen. In ''Fates'', however, none of the paths end this way: Xander is crowned king in the Conquest and Revelation routes, while she was offered the crown but declined it and passed it off to Leo in the Birthright route.
* AlternateSelf:
** Being Avatars with no canonical gender, the male and female incarnations of Robin and Corrin exist side-by-side as separate units. Both Robins are mages, but Male Robin is blue while Female Robin is green. Male Corrin is a swordsman while Female Corrin is a blue dragon, being able to fight in her dragon form.
** Outside of the Anna from Askr (i.e. the playable one), there are Annas in the Worlds of Awakening and Conquest that indirectly interact with the cast via letters.
** Tempest Trials boss units are noted as not being the "correct" versions of the characters. In the aftermath of Tempest Trials: Moment of Fate, Ike notes that the Black Knight you fought didn't feel right.
** Spring Alfonse, Spring Sharena, Brave Veronica, Adrift Mikoto, and the summonable Generals of Múspell and Loki are not the ones you are familiar with, but ones from different worlds.
* AmbidextrousSprite: All character artwork and sprites are simply mirrored to face the other direction. It's particularly noticeable with Niles and Saber, whose eyepatches switch eyes.
* AnAssKickingChristmas: The Tempest Trials "A Gift of Peace" takes place during the [[YouMeanXMas Ylissean Winter Festival]] and sees Winter Chrom, Robin, Lissa, and Tharja team up with Masked Marth to save it from the Tempest.
* AncestralWeapon: Certain characters can unlock legendary weapons that can only be equipped by them. Some, like Tyrfing or Siegmund and Sieglinde, were passed down from generation to generation in their respective home games.
* AndYourRewardIsClothes: As of the 2.6.0 update, units can be equipped with cosmetic accessories, including a Feh doll and a variant of Bruno's mask. Golden versions of already existing accessories are rewarded to players who clear Legendary, Mythic, or Grand Hero Battles on Abyssal.
* AntiAir: As in the series proper, fliers (sans units with Iote's Shield) take extra damage from bows. Merric's Excalibur [[BlowYouAway wind tome]] also deals additional damage to them.
* AntiArmor: Units equipped with an Armorslayer, a Heavy Spear, or a Hammer deal extra damage to armored units (sans units with Svalinn Shield), just like in the main series. There are also their enhanced versions, the Armorsmasher, the Slaying Spear, and the Slaying Hammer, as well as the Sky Maiougi, Nephenee's Dauntless Lance, Bartre's Axe of Virility, Florina's Lance, and Est's Whitewing Spear. Caeda's Wing Sword, regular Micaiah's Thani, Clair's Rhomphaia, and Yukata Micaiah's Dawn Suzu are anti-armor ''and'' anti-cavalry weapons. Kinshi Hinoka's Warrior Princess is a bow that also has anti-armor properties.
* AntiCavalry: The -wolf tomes, Keen -wolf tomes, Zanbato, Ridersbane, Poleaxe, and Dusk Uchiwa deal extra damage against horse-mounted units (sans units with Grani's Shield). Caeda's Wing Sword, Regular Micaiah's Thani, Clair's Rhomphaia, and Yukata Micaiah's Dawn Suzu are anti-cavalry ''and'' anti-armor weapons.
* AntiInfantry: The Poison Dagger weapon is effective against infantry units, and even reduces their Defense and Resistance.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** The chance to get a 5-star Hero gradually increases the longer you go without drawing one. If you somehow reach 120 summons without getting one, the next summon will be guaranteed to be 5* (but it applies only to one summoning banner and resets when it ends).
** If your summon session ends up having a pity-breaker but you still have stones left to summon from, you can roll on said stones and the appearance rate will remain the same until you end the summoning session or you summon all five units. This means that while a five star pity-breaker might occur, you can still summon on other stones to at least get the chance of more five stars before the pity rate resets.
** Unlike the main series, battles don't rely on RNG at all — attacks are guaranteed to hit, there are no random critical hits, and skills that triggered randomly in the main ''Fire Emblem'' games instead activate every few actions or based on the unit's current HP.
** Compared to the main games, where a character could have a series of unlucky level-ups that leaves them with low stats at the level cap, characters will always get their maximum stats upon reaching level 40.
** Character-specific quests also include allies that are borrowed in the Voting Gauntlet, Rival Domains, and Grand Conquests.
** The Arena and Aether Raids will always include a panel of bonus heroes, comprised of units from a new ongoing banner (plus the new Legendary Hero on occasion), units from Grand Hero Battles (whether new, reran, or in the daily rotation), and regularly summonable units chosen at random. While bonus heroes slightly differ between the Arena and Aether Raids, the last of the bonus heroes for both modes will always be one of the Askr trio (Anna, Alfonse and Sharena) or Fjorm (before Book III took full swing). The player will always have them, as they are default/free units, so that means the player will always have at least one bonus unit for every Arena season. Many of the randomly selected heroes also have a habit of turning up units that you would have gotten for free from the weekly events, further widening your choices if you chose not to roll in the current banner.
** The higher levels of Training Tower draws from a selection of random heroes drawn from the regular summoning pool. At the top level of Training Tower, some of the most powerful heroes in the pool, like Ayra and Zelgius, do not come with their best default skills or weapons. For example, Zelgius with a Silver Sword+ or Wo Dao+ instead of his usual Alondite. [[note]](However, if the stage is marked as Level "40+", like in the hardest Tempest Trials, the CPU Ayra ''will'' show up with her unique special attack Regnal Astra instead of just Astra like in the Training Tower.)[[/note]]
** Enemy Dancers units will never spawn in modes where units are randomly generated, to prevent unpredictability when training units in the Training Tower, and battling enemies in the Tempest Trials.
** If you don't fill your entire brigade in Rival Domains, any empty slots are filled randomly from a pool of units. They always come at 5 stars, have their base skills, and their weapons are refined if possible. This means that you can try the mode even if you don't have twenty high-level units ready to go.
** All of the Staff + support skills, which use half the unit's Atk for healing (with some of them using an additional modifier), have a minimum number of HP recovered on an ally, to prevent certain cases where they could heal less than their prerequisite skills, such as a unit having less than 16 attack for Physic+ healing less than Physic's fixed 8. The +1 special cooldown their prerequisite skills had is also removed.
** Because Bridal Lyn was available for a limited time and was initially released before the 2.0.0 update, which gave upgrades to all staves--including Candlelight--the 2.0.0 update gave Candlelight the ability to evolve into Candlelight+ with the use of refinery stones. Players who let other staff users inherit Candlelight could do this without having to wait for a re-release of Bridal Lyn. Mikoto's eventual ''Heroes'' debut in the Adrift banner can also count as this, since her staff Flash+ has the same effect as Candlelight+, and she is not a limited time unit like Bridal Lyn.
** Voting Gauntlet:
*** Starting with the "Bunny Battle Ballot" Voting Gauntlet in April 2018, if you lose or quit out of a Voting Gauntlet battle, you can try again immediately instead of waiting 30 minutes like before, reducing the annoyance of getting screwed over by unfavorable matchups.
*** Starting with the "Destructive Forces" Voting Gauntlet in April 2019, replacing the time-based half hour battles to vote, voting now requires ballots to consume, which replenishes 1 per hour and can go up to 8 stored, where the score multiplier increase for each one used after battle, letting players stock up on ballots and battle once every few hours instead of every half hour whenever possible to score highly.
** As of the 2.5 update, when your units are KO'd they no longer lose all SP and EXP gained, and replaying completed maps now grants units appropriate EXP and SP rather than half.
** If you exceed the 999 Orb limit, the game will still keep track of the extra Orbs and prevent you from buying any more until the extra Orbs are used up first. With the cap of the orbs raised to 9999 in version 2.8.0, the purchase limitation on 999+ no longer applies, only stopping at the new cap.
** The 2.6.0 update added an option for a unit to auto-learn several skills at once. Not only does it account for inherited skills but for tiered skills as well, meaning the highest available rank of a skill can be learned without having to go through learning the prior skills first.
** Enemy heroes outside of modes where player-generated units are fought with randomly generated skills will never have skills that can counterattack at any range if they did not have them in their default kits, so that you can memorize and spot who exactly has Distant Counter, Close Counter, or a weapon with Distant Counter as its unique effect when you face against them. Enemies will also never be randomly generated with certain skills outside of their default skill kit that makes them annoying to fight, such as Cancel Affinity and Null Follow-Up, so you can spot certain heroes who have them in their default skill kit.
** The 2.7.0 update allows players to reset the map with those with 0 stamina costs, like the Grand Hero Battles, allowing less down time exiting and selecting the map again.
** Version 2.9.0 brought the new Combat Manual feature, an alternative to Send Home that allowed the player to clear up barracks space by turning as many as ten units at a time into manuals. While units turned into manuals can no longer fight, they can still be used for merges and skill inheritance. If the player ends up not needing certain manuals, they can instead exchange these manuals for feathers, and the player will receive feathers relative to the rarity of the manual(s) exchanged, as if the player were sending units home. Combat Manuals also came with a change to Unlock Potential, wherein units can be promoted without leveling up, letting the player conserve stamina, shards, crystals, and time, if they wish.
** In Forging Bonds, when you max out a support score on a certain character, their matching support color will not show up again in battles for the rest of the event to allow the other characters to gain points without them being wasted on the maxed out ones.
** Starting with the "Dueling Desires" Forging Bonds event, you are given the option to automatically equip any friendship-boosting accessories you have to your team before you set out to battle.
** Past Grand Hero Battle and Tempest Trials units can now be summoned using Heroic Grails, giving players who missed out on these units an opportunity to get them outside of those units being reran or gifted. There are a few catches to Heroic Grails, though: each unit summonable with Grails can only be summoned twenty times, at 4* only, and each summon of the same unit until the tenth raises the summon cost by 50 Grails.
** Since launch, summoned Heroes will have Assets and Flaws on two of their stats, with neutral taken into account as well. Flaws, however, would sometimes make certain Heroes weaker than other identical Heroes, especially with certain build. In February 2019, the first merge will now increase the Flaw stat by +3/4 (depending if it's a superflaw) as well as the two highest stats by +1, meaning players now will only need the Asset they want if they want to merge units, instead of worrying about their Flaws as well. Neutral stat Heroes will also have the benefits of +3 stat increase from the first merge as well, albeit spread out on their top three stats.
*** With update 3.2.0, players can see the Assets and Flaws of their and other players' units.
** In 3.1.0, Legendary and Mythic Heroes will now give the other stat boosts if they're sharing a season, with Mythic Heroes giving Legendary ones the stat boosts while also fulfilling extra lift gain and reduced lift loss conditions in Aether Raids, and Legendary Heroes giving the Mythic ones the stat boosts in all other modes, excluding the Blessed Gardens due to blessing restrictions.
** Aether Raids:
*** The first battle after a daily reset will always be free, due to the fact that the amount of Aether you recover every day might not be enough to spend on your next raid in higher lift tiers. The 3.2.0 update would later remove the free daily battle, in favor of halving Aether costs per raid, capping out at 50 Aether per raid, meaning that the player will always have enough Aether per day, even if the player did not upgrade their Fountain.
*** After failing a defense battle and losing lift, you will not lose any more lift for the next 20 hours, preventing a chain of defense losses from reducing your lift to a lower tier, but any more successful defense battles within that time will not reset the pity cooldown. There is also a threshold at 4000 lift and under where you do not lose any lift for losses at all.
*** Update 3.0.0 gave players the option to build the Escape Ladder for the offensive team in Aether Raids. This structure refunds Aether when the offensive team loses a raid (and before the 3.2.0 update, gives you another free attack if the daily free raid fails), and it can be used up to four times per season (depending on its level).
*** Players can have the option to double down on Aether Raid attacks, where they can gain twice the lift and Aether resources at the cost of double of the Aether used to make maximum use of the player's Escape Ladders while also reducing the amount of time players need to play Aether Raids.
** Røkkr Siege:
*** You will still deal full damage and gain score even if the Røkkr is at 1 HP.
*** If you made a Røkkr go down to 1 HP and there are no more players in the queue to deal the final blow, an Anna will deal the last HP of damage to let you earn rewards and switch it to the next Røkkr boss.
** When an Idle Scout and Strike mission is finished in Lost Lore, which can take up to 20 hours, the game will notify you that it's finished, even with the game closed, and has an option to collect the rewards immediately as the notification pops up in-game.
** Completion on the quests for rewards in Heroes' Path will automatically count certain quests already completed for those who already cleared certain maps and reach certain tiers in competitive modes.
** Hall of Forms:
*** The randomized enemies will always have at least one of each different weapons color to allow all of your Formes to have at least one favorable matchup to allow any of them to have the first kill, and therefore be rewarded with acquiring skills after battle.
*** There is an option to skip shaping your Forme to prevent overwriting any of their skills if any of the choices are undesireable and they are at the merge limit.
** In update 4.0.0, bonus units in Arena now need to eliminate at least 1 enemy hero in order to gain the 12 bonus points on the arena score, rather than have them need to eliminate all four enemy heroes to get the maximum score, which were worth 3 points each, and cutting down many unfavorable matchups as a result.
* AntiGrinding:
** Characters [[ExperiencePenalty won't get any experience or SP]] if they defeat an opponent that's at least five levels lower than them. An update toned this down so characters can still gain some experience after defeating a low-level enemy, with more experience gained the lower the character's star rating is.
** There's a limit on how many times a healer gains experience for healing allies per map, with experience gain dropping for each use. Once that limit is reached, the healer stops gaining experience or SP through healing until a new map is started.
** Experience gained by damaging enemies, but not defeating them, will gradually lessen the more a character attacks, until they won't get any experience by attacking at all until a new map is started.
** Maps reward less experience if they're beaten on a difficulty they were already cleared on. This doesn't apply to the Training Tower or the Arena though, and was even later removed in the 2.5.0 update.
* AnyoneCanDie:
** Averted in Book I, where despite Veronica's numerous attempts to kill the protagonists, the closest she got was when she cornered the Summoner, only to be saved by a friend.
** Book II is when the deaths start, with the Queen of Nifl being killed by Surtr when he conquers the kingdom of ice. Then Gunnthrá comes next when they are ambushed by the Múspell army. And when they finally get to the Múspell stronghold, Laegjarn is the first to go, [[HeroicRROD succumbing to Múspell's flames]] in place of her sister. A few battles later Helbindi dies via an offscreen SuicideByCop[=/=]YouShallNotPass trying to exact revenge on Surtr, who ravaged his hometown, killing his family. And in the ultimate battle of the book, Surtr's Rite of Flames is nullified and he is killed by Alfonse's army.
** In the interim after Book II, it is revealed that [[spoiler:Fjorm]] only has a little time left due to the [[spoiler:Rite of Ice using her life as a sacrifice]] to nullify Surtr's Rite of Flame. She chooses to live what little time she has left with the Order of Heroes.
** With DarkerAndEdgier Book III dealing with the realm of the dead, this should not come as a surprise. [[spoiler:Gustav is killed not long into the story in an attempt to save Alfonse from Hel]].
* ApologeticAttacker: Some characters, such as Alfonse, Palla, and Celica, have a PreMortemOneLiner in which they apologize to their foe.
* AprilFoolsDay: On April 1, 2019, a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpRWwtr05yQ mock trailer for a Legendary Feh]] is released. The other eleven slots are Feh reenacting various signature weapons. In addition, a wearable Orb is given out as an accessory.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit:
** On most maps, you can only deploy up to four units due to the smaller map size. However, the computer is not subject to this restriction.
** Rival Domains allow you to deploy eight units at once plus twelve reinforcements.
** Relay Defense has 5 units on your side with 15 in reserve, switching out with the next 5 units within your brigade every 2 turns.
** With upgrades, Aether Raids lets you use five units for raiding parties and six for defensive teams.
** Heroic Ordeals restrict you to two units, one of which must be the featured unit.
* ArbitraryMissionRestriction:
** Some maps, like Grand Hero Battles and Blessed Gardens, require your entire team to remain alive; let one unit fall, and you fail.
** Brigades can only have one unit that has Sing or Dance and are not allowed to have duplicate units.
** The character-specific Heroic Ordeals not only requires no casualties, but also the featured unit to personally KO at least two enemies.
* ArcHero: All three books past the first introduce a new character that serves as a major protagonist for that book. Book II has Fjorm, Book III has Eir, and Book IV has Peony.
* AreaOfEffect:
** The Smoke Dagger, Dark Breath, Clarisse's Bow, and Grima's Truth inflict stat debuffs on enemy units within 2 spaces of their target. The Smoke Dagger lowers Defense and Resistance while Dark Breath, Clarisse's Bow, and Grima's Truth lower Attack and Speed. Refinements for all aforementioned weapons sans Grima's Truth make the debuffs affect the target as well.
** Daggers released since 2.0.0, including refined ones, inflict stat debuffs on the target and enemies within 2 spaces of the target, with certain daggers also applying field buff to the user and allies within 2 spaces.
** The Rising, Growing, and Blazing Specials deal damage to all enemies in specific tile formations (differing depending on the individual Special) when the user has the charge ready and they initiate combat.
** The "plus" upgrades for staves causes their debuffs to also spread to other enemy units within 2 spaces of the targeted unit instead of just that unit, with only Gravity+ affecting units ''adjacent'' to the target.
** Many buildings in Aether Raids provide specific effects in an area. For example, the Bolt Tower, at the start of turn 3, deals 10/15/20/25 damage to all enemies within 3 columns with the building in the middle, while the Catapult destroys all destructible buildings in a single column (excluding ornaments, traps and Aether resources) if they're the same or lower level than itself.
** Traps in Aether Raids affect all units, including enemies, in its area of effect whenever a player unit stops on them. The Heavy Trap inflicts the Gravity status on all units within 2 spaces of the trap if they're at or below a certain HP threshold (from 40 up to 60 HP), while the Bolt Trap inflicts damage on all units within 3 spaces of the trap (from 10 to '''50''' damage done).
** Halloween Hector and Lilina's Duo Skills have the user deal 20 damage to all enemies within the 3 columns they are centered in.
* ArmorPiercingAttack:
** Moonbow, Luna, and Aether all treat the foe's Def or Res as lower when they activate. Moonbow pierces through 30% of the foe's defenses, but has a quick charge time. Luna and Aether pierce through 50% of the foe's defenses, but have a longer charge, especially Aether since it also has a LifeDrain effect.
** [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance The Black Knight]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Zelgius]] have a variant of the Luna skill aptly titled Black Luna that pierces through ''80%'' of a foe's Def, which is enough to cause some immense damage to their opponents.
** Legendary Eirika's Lunar Brace deals damage equal to 50% of the enemy's defense when her special activates, but increases her special's cooldown by 1. The damage can also stack with Moonbow or Luna (the former incidentally being her default special), so she can basically have up to ''100%'' of the enemy's defense ignored when her special activates.[[note]]The truth is more complicated, however: Lunar Brace has the "deal" keyword, meaning that 50% of the enemy's Def is used as true damage, so if Eirika has 20 Atk but the opponent has 50 Def, she would deal 25 damage when her special activates, so activating with Luna with that Atk would make her deal 25 damage, instead of 20 damage if the 100% piercing damage is assumed[[/note]]
** All dragon breaths released at update 2.0.0 and after, including refined ones, target the lower of an enemy's Defense or Resistance if the enemy's attack range is 2 spaces. Felicia's Plate, Sorcery Blade, and Inf. Hexblade have the same effect, except they work on every unit regardless of attack range, though Sorcery Blade's user has to be adjacent to a tome-wielding ally to take advantage of the effect, and Inf. Hexblade grants it to adjacent sword, lance, axe, bow, or dagger Infantry allies.
** The +10 damage on combat skill activation effect on weapons and skills has the extra damage be added after defensive stats and triangle advantage and disadvantage are calculated, which means the user will deal at least 10 damage to their foe when they activate their special, even if they would have dealt less damage if the addition was reduced by the foe's defensive stats.
** Weapons such as Leif's Light Brand and the Shining Bow will deal +7 damage if the enemy has 5 or more Def than their Res, which means that they will always deal a minimum of 7 damage for every attack they do, even if they're at a weapon triangle disadvantage and the enemy has very high defenses if the activation requirement for the +7 damage is met.
** Weapons such as Karla's Vassal's Blade and Naesala's Raven King Claw will deal damage equal to 70% of the difference in the user's and enemy's Spd if they have higher Spd, up to +7 damage done, which means that they will always deal damage for every attack they do if they're faster than the enemy, even if they're at a weapon triangle disadvantage and the enemy has very high defenses.
** Legendary Alm has two exclusive skills that have this effect:
*** His weapon Luna Arc, in addition to giving him +3 Spd, when he initiates combat, deals damage equal to 25% of the enemy's Def, which stacks with other Special skills such as Luna, which on activation would ignores ''75%'' of the enemy's Def.
*** His special Lunar Flash, in addition to boosting his damage equal to 20% of his Spd on activation, reduces the enemy's Def/Res by 20%.
** Brave Alm's Scendscale has the "deal" keyword, meaning that he will deal 25% of his Atk during combat as true damage per attack, even if his Atk is lower than the enemy's Def during combat.
** Legendary Celica has Saintly Seraphim, which, in addition to giving her +3 Spd, when she initiates combat, deals damage equal to 25% of the enemy's Res, which stacks with other Special skills such as Luna, which on activation would ignores ''75%'' of the enemy's Res.
* ArmorPiercingResponse: Before the final fight of Paralogue 10, Seth comments that he sincerely hopes Veronica can become a good ruler, both for her people and for her own sake. It startles Veronica enough to make her ask [[spoiler:Loki]] if their king is a good ruler, before revoking her question and [[BlatantLies saying it doesn't matter]].
* ArrangeMode: Hall of Forms is a mode that mixes up the ''Heroes'' gameplay. You have a fixed team of four units that you use for the duration of the event, and instead of learning skills through SP and gaining merge levels through duplicate units, the unit that gets the first KO on a map will have the chance to learn a skill from a randomly selected set or gain a merge level.
* TheArtifact:
** While "Shurikenbreaker" has been renamed to "Daggerbreaker" to reflect the lack of shuriken in ''Heroes'', the Skill's icon still depicts a throwing star due to being recycled from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates''.
** Any duplicate Sacred Seals you receive are converted into 300 feathers instead. This was more useful back when special quests and Tempest Trials were the only ways to get seals and sometimes awarded the same ones in different events to give latecomers more chances at getting them. Since then, however, the Sacred Seal Forge was added and a promise was made that future Tempest Trials would have no repeat rewards, so it's highly unlikely that you'll get a duplicate seal now.
** The 8 Heroes[[note]]Marth, Lucina, Male Robin, Camilla, Young Tiki, Takumi, Roy, and Lyn[[/note]] featured on the pre-2.5.0 downloading screen and on the first-ever focus banners (''Legendary Heroes'' and ''Deep Devotion'') were given special summoning movies. However, since launch, no other hero has gotten one. According to some sources, plans were made to have more videos put into the game, but it proved too time consuming for it to be done, and the developers didn't want the movies to take too much space in the game's files.
* ArtifactAlias:
** Even though Prince Bruno's identity was revealed in Chapter 10 of Book I, the in-game data still lists him as "???" and uses the Mysterious Knight description, with no reference to his status as Emblian nobility. The description still doesn't change when Chapter 13 confirms he's Zacharias. After that chapter, the characters continue to refer to him as Zacharias rather than Bruno, [[spoiler:even Prince Hríd]].
** The "Fell Reincarnation" and "Fell Vessel" Robins, while called "Robin" in gameplay, are quite clearly Grima's Hierophant meat puppets and outright state their true identity when summoned, complete with their usual [[CardCarryingVillain character]] [[HopeCrusher quirks]] displayed loudly and proudly. Not even the manga bothers to hide their true identity.
* ArtifactTitle: Though Regular Male Corrin uses the Yato, and Legendary Marth has the Binding Shield and his exclusive special, the game lacks a plot-relevant Fire Emblem.
* ArtificialBrilliance:
** Enemy units will focus on heroes weak to them on the [[TacticalRockPaperScissors weapon triangle]] and also utilize their movement skills to keep themselves out of reach of your stronger units, such as shoving a flier away from your archers.
** Enemy units will also ignore weaker units that pose almost no threat to them, in favor of attacking your stronger units if they are capable of finishing them off.
* ArtificialStupidity:
** The enemy will always attack any unit within their reach. This can lead to downright suicidal moves such as attacking a hero they will deal little damage to at the cost of their own life in the counterattack, or set themselves up for a deadly ambush.
** Enemy units tend to prioritize attacking units they have weapon triangle advantage against, sometimes even ignoring grey units who can't counter them at close range.
** When no opposing units are within attack range, certain Assist skills can cause the AI to get stuck in an endless loop unless and until interrupted by player interference, since the AI favors using a Assist skill over taking no action even when the Assist skill provides no immediate advantage. It's not uncommon to see an enemy unit advance only to be Repositioned back the other way by one of their allies, or for a pair of enemy characters to get stuck endlessly buffing one another rather than moving toward your characters.
** The AI can potentially get itself trapped if a ranged unit is sandwiched between two melee units in a tight space and doesn't take any damage. The AI for whatever reason won't move the ranged unit out of the way, grinding everything to a halt if you're using the Auto-Battle mechanic.
** The AI also has a habit of doing things that can nearly [[GameBreakingBug break the game]], or at least the map. For example, if a unit has a skill that allows them to move to where another, friendly unit is, but the location is isolated due to a flier unit being present, said unit that moved will become stuck and unable to move. If the player lacks a flier unit to go after them, this will require the player to forfeit the fight.
** If you set the game to auto-battle on maps with {{Hopeless Boss Fight}}s such as Ike or Surtr, you can point and laugh as the AI has your units derp right into the jaws of death at the hands of your immortal foe.
** The AI is perfectly willing to use Rally skills on an ally that has the Panic status, which reverses stat buffs. Staff units with potentially devastating abilities also have higher priority in healing units with very little health damage or even debuffs if they have Restoration in their belt.
** Tempest Trial bosses that involve an Armor March setup can be easily broken up due to how the units behave. Sometimes, they'll just spread throughout the map, making the boss a lot less threatening.
* ArtEvolution:
** Applies to the majority of characters from any game predating the [=GameCube=] or DS. In older ''Fire Emblem'' games, any character who wasn't a lord had a headshot for their profile as the extent of unique art. All map and combat sprites were just a PaletteSwap of a basic unit. Here, though, every character gets a full-body profile artwork, a 'healthy', 'special', and 'wounded' combat portraits, and a unique chibi map sprite.
** A notable example occurred with regular Chrom, whose art was done by Ebila. Regular Chrom's art was somewhat infamous for being a bit OffModel due to his arms being extremely thin, even though Chrom himself is very fit. Ebila later produced art for Chrom's spring and winter alternates, both of which are marked improvements over his regular self's art. Here is an [[https://i.redd.it/hptbk3z9n1401.jpg side-by-side comparison for context]].
* ArtShift:
** As the character artwork is done by [[https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Artists_List many different artists]], the art style for each unit is all over the "realism vs. cartoony" spectrum. Of particular note is Arthur from ''Fates'', who is drawn as if he came straight out of ''VideoGame/CodeNameSteam'', another title by Creator/IntelligentSystems. This can also happen when two artists with clearly different drawing styles draw versions of the same character, such as the regular and Trick and Defeat versions of Jakob.
** The character icons for the first batch of special ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriors'' maps use the 3D models from that game instead of ''Heroes''' standard 2D art.
** Arden is realistically drawn in terms of his appearance compared to the anime-influenced characters, to match his {{Gonk}}ish appearance.
* ArtisticAge:
** Lachesis's exact age is unknown, but in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'', she has the appearance of a late teen or young adult, which is reflected by her voice actor giving her a mature voice. However, [[http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/File:Lachesis_Heroes.png her design]] in ''Heroes'' makes her look more like a preteen or at most in her early teens.
** Downplayed with Elincia. While not as extreme as Lachesis, Elincia still looks a bit younger than her 18 year-old self from ''Path of Radiance'' thanks to her head and eyes being bigger and her more cheerful demeanor contrasting the more reserved expression she has in her home game.
* AscendedMeme:
** Brave Roy and Brave Ike each say a line that references a popular ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' meme -- "Roy's our boy!" and "You...like Ike?", respectively.
** Arden in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'' was infamous, to the point of being a meme, for being benched as early as the first level due to his horrible speed and movement, as well as the fact that his best job was to stay put and defend the castle he starts in. In Paralogue 13 Veronica criticizes him for how slow he is and has him dismissed after losing, and his character description mentions him being good at defending castles.
** Dorcas from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade Blazing Blade]]'' and Lute from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones Sacred Stones]]'' scored very high in the Choose Your Legends event due to their MemeticMutation. They got into ''Heroes'' together (along with Joshua from ''Sacred Stones'' and Mia from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]]'', who are by default popular without the meme factor), breaking away the trend of 'non-seasonal banners usually consist of heroes from the same game'. Additionally, some of Dorcas' lines refer to ''Blazing Blade''[='=]s hilariously misaimed advertisement that was the source of his memetic popularity, including "Trust nobody" and referring about eating some 'bad mutton'.[[note]]At least it's not poisonous.[[/note]]
** Innes has a signature weapon in the form of Nidhogg, which supplies boosts if you're surrounded by allies. This is a reference to the obscure Japanese meme "Save me Eirika!", referring to how Innes tended to get surrounded by enemies.
* AsskickingPose: Each player-controlled unit assumes one at the beginning of every player phase; weapon-wielders brandish them at the ready, mages take a casting stance, Manaketes and dragons (with the exception of the Adrift Corrins, who hold their dragonstones close to them) hold up their dragonstones, while other shifters with default weapons lacking a visible stone strike attack poses.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** Generally, Specials with a cooldown charge of 5 are rather impractical. While they often have flashy effects and can be quite helpful when they activate, their long charge time hardly makes it worth it due to how short maps can be, alongside other factors. The only way this is averted is with skills like Steady/Warding/Fierce Breath, Bold/Vengeful/Special Fighter, Heavy/Flashing Blade, and weapons that accelerate the cooldown of specials, but they only work in certain situations and do not stack.
** The area of effect Specials (e.g. Growing Light and Blazing Flame) allow their user to hit all enemies caught in a certain area for up to 1.5 times what their Attack would have done before combat begins. Unfortunately, this otherwise useful effect is hampered by the Special's affected area being odd patterns like diamonds, lines, and crosses that may not actually hit too many enemies at once. Furthermore, as the damage is done before combat, this can bring down enemy HP to certain thresholds, allowing a skill like Vantage to activate, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard which can let the opponent get the jump on the player]]. Damage done through these area of effect attacks also can't directly KO an enemy, always leaving them with at least 1 HP.
** Galeforce allows the user to take another turn, letting them perform another action. However, it has its drawbacks: first, it can only be used by units with melee weapons (barring breaths), so a unit has to get up close and personal to build their charge. Second, the user has to initiate combat for it to activate, meaning it can't be used on the enemy phase. Lastly, the users that engage in the most rounds of combat tend to be [[GlassCannon fragile, but hit hard]], and thus are unlikely to survive five attacks. Use of Brave Weapons, Heavy and Flashing Blade, and Bold Fighter can make this special [[DifficultButAwesome more usable]], but for most units, it's not worth it.
** Skills like Defiant Attack, Speed, Defense, and Resistance give a nice boost to a unit's specified stat when they drop to a certain health threshold. The problem is that if said unit is low enough to activate it, chances are they will be dead before it can be used, since it has to be after the combat turn that reduced them to low health for the skill to activate. Furthermore, most of these skills aren't useful on Enemy Phase since, unless your unit has Vantage, they cannot survive long enough to use said stat increase.
** Certain character builds can be very hilarious and ridiculous in performance but there are some setbacks that prevent them from being useful in certain scenarios. For example, a build which gives Raven the highest Attack and Speed stat but the lowest Defense and Resistance stat.[[note]]The exclusive upgrade for the Basilikos gives Life and Death 3, giving him Attack and Speed by 5 while lowering his Defense and Resistance by 5, and giving him the Life and Death 3 skill in his A Slot.[[/note]] So while Raven can (essentially) kill a single foe, unless he has some support, he'll likely die on the enemy phase or if he failed to kill a melee unit.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:B]]
* BackFromTheDead:
** A couple of Sigurd's lines have him talk about his betrayal and Seliph's responsibilities, [[ImpliedTrope implying]] that you've somehow summoned and recruited him after his death in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]''. Similarly, Greil's lines about how he ''used'' to command a mercenary troop and that he told Ike to forget about revenge indicate that he comes from after his death.
** In Book III, Chapter 13, [[spoiler:after Hel is defeated for good, Lif and Thrasir are shown alive with Lif telling Thrasir about a dream he had. Xenologue 5 revealed they came back to life.]]
* BadassAdorable: The cast is full of all kinds of badass warriors... shown as incredibly cute chibi sprites.
* BadassBaritone: Plenty of returning characters from ''Awakening'' and ''Fates'' already sport deep voices. However, most of the characters in the game are taken from previous, unvoiced ''Fire Emblem'' games and are voiced here for the first time in many years, if at all. With this, characters such as Ogma, Barst, Hector, and Draug add to the mix.
* BadassesWearBandanas: The 6/27/2019 Voting Gauntlet focuses on badasses that wear bandannas (Olivia, Sanaki, Mia, Sue, Tibarn, Gray, Barst, and Jeorge).
* BadFuture: In Chapters 7 and 8 of Book III, [[spoiler:the ruined Askr that the heroes explore turns out to be this. The Order of Heroes in this realm discovered a way to defeat Hel, which resulted in the end of all life in the kingdom. It is also revealed that the Lif who works under Hel isn't the resurrected first Askran king, but in fact the Alfonse of the future, who enlisted under Hel in exchange for having his memories and grief erased.]]
* BaitAndSwitchBoss:
** The 80th floor in most Tap Battles have one unit appearing to be the boss, but get taken out in 2-3 hits. The actual boss comes afterwards. It's taken UpToEleven with the fourth Tap Battle "Formidable Foes," which has Bartre (who was the first boss in the first Tap Battle) as a boss, who gets easily offed. Then comes Arthur, who lasts only slightly longer, with the true boss, Dorcas, showing himself afterward.
** October 2018's "Heir of Light" Tap Battle in particular has all of the first generation parents of ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' be this for their children. However, unlike most of the other Bait-and-Switch bosses, it's not PlayedForLaughs, due to the circumstances of why the children take over the fight in their home game.
** The Extra Stage 2 of the "Heartstring's Ties" Tap Battle is notable with Fallen Celica being the boss, who has slightly lower than average HP of a Tap Battle boss at that point, and then Regular Celica shows up... who has even ''less'' HP.
* BalanceBuff:
** The Book II update gave all 5-star staff units new offensive and healing staves with stronger effects, and access to Weapon Refinery upgrades. The update also reduced the cooldown for AreaOfEffect Specials, Daylight-based Specials (Sol, Noontime, and Daylight itself), and Night Sky-based Specials (Astra, Glimmer, and Night Sky itself) by one.
** Some updates improve older units by allowing them to refine their exclusive weapons or giving them a new refinable exclusive weapon.
** Since October 2017, "Gen 2" units have gained extra stats in their level 1 base stat total and growth points compared to their "Gen 1" equivalents, depending on what movement type, attack range, and gimmick they have, with Melee Armored units gaining the most stat increases. The only units who do not gained the stat increases are Dancers and Ranged Cavalry.
** Since Late Februrary 2019, "Gen 3" units have more extra stats than their "Gen 2" and "Gen 1" equivalents, but only a selected few unit types gain these stats, being Infantry, Ranged physical Cavalry, and Ranged Armor.
** Since September 2019, Dancers now have increased stats matching "Gen 3" stat distributions compared to their "Gen 1" and "Gen 2" equivalents.
** The February 2019 update buffs Legendary Azura's Prayer Wheel. Before the update, the weapon was bugged so that when support animations are on, Prayer Wheel's effect takes place before stat-boosting skills like Earth Dance, meaning the target gets +5 Def and nothing else. With support animations off, the effect takes place after said skills, meaning the target gets +5 to all their stats. While the version with support animations on was the intended effect, the update makes the version with animations off the standard.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: None of the male characters have nipples when they go shirtless.
* BattleAura: All of the Fallen Heroes have purple miasma in their map sprites.
* BeachEpisode: Paralogues 8, 9, 21, and 22 each feature four units dressed in swimwear, in addition to Anna trying to turn a profit for the summer. Paralogue 22 is notable in that the generic enemies are also in their HolidayMode, as they are wearing goggles and snorkels ''over their helmets and hoods''. They even wield the weapons that come from the first two summer banners, such as the Deft Harpoon and Melon Crusher.
* BeeAfraid: Occasionally in the Aether Resort's Field, a bee will show up, prompting the heroes to run off. PlayedForLaughs, as even the bravest or most fearsome hero is not safe from this.
* BellyDancer: Returning from ''Awakening'', Olivia returns to the roster, offering her dancing skills for players to use in-game. During the Performing Arts event, an [[https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/media/feheroes.gamepedia.com/8/80/Full_Portrait_Olivia_%28Performing_Arts%29.png alternate]] dancing outfit for Olivia was revealed, and the game finally introduced a [[https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/media/feheroes.gamepedia.com/1/12/Full_Portrait_Inigo_%28Performing_Arts%29.png dancing outfit]] for Inigo, which is fitting considering that his future mother is Olivia and decides to take up dancing in her place in-game.
* {{BFS}}: Alm's artwork shows his Falchion as disproportionately large. The blade is wider than it needs to be and the hilt is notably over-sized.
* BilingualBonus: A few of the character artworks have writing in the fictional language from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''.
** Tobin's sword has the phrase "Doma o theos tou polemou prostatevei ton ploiarcho tou spathiou" inscribed onto it, which translates to "Doma, God of war protects the owner of the sword". This refers to Duma, the War Father who was worshiped as a god in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'', the game where Tobin is from.
** Brave Lucina's Geirskogul has the phrase "Anime Project Success" inscribed onto it.
* BirdsOfAFeather:
** In Paralogue 24, Ephraim and Hector quickly hit it off due to their shared love of fighting and lack of tact.
** In Paralogue 26, Loki and Aversa quickly hit it off due to their shared love of manipulation with their feminine wiles.
* BittersweetEnding: Book II. [[spoiler:Surtr dies, but Gunnthrá is dead, countless innocents from both Nifl and Múspell are dead, Laevatein is devastated and traumatized by the deaths of her family, Embla and Loki are still threats, and Fjorm has only months to live due to a gambit [[SenselessSacrifice that was ultimately meaningless]].]]
* BizarroEpisode: InUniverse. Paralogue 27 is easily this to the Askr Trio. [[spoiler:The whole thing is all about a young Azura's dreams calling forth her visions of friends and family to reality, spurned by Loki, who sees great potential into such a method and exploits it for her amusement.]]
* BlackBeadEyes: The chibi sprites use a variation, the eyes are simple, beady, and doll-like, but rather than just being black, they come in a wide variety of colors.
* BlackComedy:
** Quan's weapon effect grants him buffs against every type of enemy movement type ''except'' fliers. This references the fact he is murdered by fliers in his home game.
** Flora's weapon is a red dagger type - heavily associated with fire and dark elements - despite the fact she is from a tribe of ice and said weapon is blatantly named after ice. The color references her suicide by burning alive in ''Birthright''.
* BlatantLies: Spring Kagero says in one of her voice lines that she has nothing to be ashamed of, being dressed the way she is. Her words betray her, however; in her idle art, she seems to be trying to suppress her breasts with her right arm, has her left arm at her side, is clenching her left hand, and is blushing.
* BlowYouAway: A number of Green Tomes let the user attack with wind magic, such as Elwind and Excalibur.
* BonusBoss: The Grand Hero Battles. They're normally only around for a week, and often have very powerful enemies to face, usually with very inflated stats on higher difficulties and just the right skills to destroy the player. These maps must be cleared without a single ally falling, otherwise it's game over. Clear these maps however, [[DefeatMeansFriendship and you get a unit that is unobtainable anywhere else]].
* BoringButPractical:
** Using units with neutral stats, so no Assets or Flaws. While they lack a boosted stat, they come with no stat being weakened by a Flaw at the same time, thus meaning the player avoids getting a unit with their best stat being lowered or a DumpStat made higher at the cost of another, and are usually free units like Grand Hero Battle Units or Quest Rewards. Not only that but they have room to be groomed by the player into the unit they want rather than having to waste orbs or money on a good IV of a unit, and because they have neutral stats, any merging they receive means the unit will be a JackOfAllStats in terms of that unit, making them more viable in the long run.
** Free units will always have neutral stats, and while they may not be as strong as 5* exclusive units, they're still more than sufficient to get through in-game content just fine. Some strong and helpful free units in particular include the Black Knight, Fjorm, Legendary Ike, Eir, Olivia, and Ninian. The first three have Distant Counter built into their weapons, Eir has a unique skill that can help keep her allies healthy, while Olivia and Ninian can grant their allies an ExtraTurn with their Dance ability.
** Seals that merely increase a stat, e.g. Attack + or the Squad Ace seals. They don't give flashy effects like other seals, but that extra stat boost just might be what your units need to eke out that one-shot KO or survive an otherwise deadly blow.
** Stat refines being chosen over unique ones for personal weapons is this, as they increase more stats to boost their performance and durability, and give +5 HP for melee units and +2 HP for ranged (as opposed to +3 HP on unique refines on melee and no HP gained for ranged), while sometimes gaining the new effect as well. For example, going for the Spd refine on Male Corrin's Yato will give him +5 HP/Spd and +2 Atk/Def/Res, which will boost his combat performance, as opposed to +3 HP, +2 in all other stats, and giving his support partner +4 in all their stats during combat when in support range.
* BoyishShortHair: Shanna, Amelia, Katarina, and Hinoka, who were the "Short-Haired Ladies" of the "Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents" Voting Gauntlet.
* BossInMooksClothing: The Grand Hero Battles usually include nameless mooks that are just as bad, maybe worse than the particular hero in question. A lot of them are extremely powerful and generally have skills that will screw you over if you make a wrong move. Doesn't help that you have to have all of your allies survive the whole battle.
* BraggingRightsReward: Beating the [[HarderThanHard Abyssal]] difficulty of Legendary, Mythic, and Grand Hero Battles yields a golden version of an existing accessory. No feathers, no orbs, no free hero: just the accessory.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Most Heroes under the service of the Emblian Empire are heavily implied to be brainwashed as part of the contract they were forced to agree to. Many will act like aggressive enemies, only to become friendly after being defeated. Some of them are aware they are under contract and inform the protagonists that the only way to free them is to defeat them in battle.
* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: Faye mentions that her interests include sewing, flowers, and sewing flowers.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Some characters will talk as if the player is messing with them if they are tapped in the status screen. Loki does this too, but will also sometimes say, ''"Looking forward to what I'll say next?"''
* BreathWeapon: To fight, Dragon units fire magic attacks of various elements from their mouths.
* BreatherEpisode:
** Paralogue 4, "Spring Festival" - Rather than fighting to free heroes under the spell of an Emblian contract, the Order of Heroes participates in a competition to celebrate Spring's arrival. The prize for winning said competition? [[spoiler:A year's worth of carrots.]]
** Paralogue 6, "Bridal Blessings" - As in the Spring Festival, the characters aren't fighting to free anyone or to oppose any villainous deeds. Instead, they're competing for a magical bridal bouquet that guarantees the recipient a happy marriage, with the Order of Heroes involved at Anna's insistence [[spoiler:because she wants to auction the bouquet and blessing off to the highest bidder]].
** Paralogue 8, "Ylissean Summer" - Anna takes the Order to the beach so that she can take pictures of Heroes in swimsuits to sell off. Even though the Heroes are being compelled to fight, they all treat it as nothing more than a nuisance getting in the way of their beach day. Notably, this comes right after two of the more serious paralogues: "The Brink of Chaos," which introduces [[HiddenAgendaVillain Loki]] and the Tempest Trials, and the CharacterDevelopment-heavy "Echoes of Mystery." This continues into Paralogue 9, which is the same thing [[RecycledINSPACE Recycled IN NOHR!]]
** Paralogue 14, "Trick or Defeat", continues the trend of seasonal paralogues with a Halloween-themed "Harvest Festival", where the prize is pumpkins and possibly a [[SeriousBusiness legendary candy]].
* BribingYourWayToVictory:
** Players can spend real life money to purchase orbs to spend on gacha pulls for better units. Orbs can also be used to buy the following items:
*** Stamina Potions, which fully restore Stamina.
*** Dueling Crests, which reset the number of times players can use the Arena.
*** Light's Blessing, which can be used in a map to completely heal every ally, revive fallen allies, ready every ally's special, and allows every ally that moved to move again. However, they can't be used during battles against a Grand Hero or in the Arena.
** Players who have linked their [=MyNintendo=] accounts can also purchase these items using reward coins. However, the Light's Blessing can only be obtained this way a maximum of three times, and the gift of ten orbs can only be obtained ''once''.
** There are several packs you can purchase that give you bonus items along with orbs. These include a Starter Support Pack which gives Stamina Potions, Light's Blessings, and a 5-star Black Knight unit, and two limited-time New Year's 2019 packs which gave Aether Stones, Heroic Grails, and a specific 5-star New Year's 2019 unit.
** Starting in April 2018, monthly special Orb promos are put up for sale, which include a bonus like feathers or Sacred Coins along with the orbs.
** Mythic Heroes provide substantial benefits for Aether Raids. They boost lift gain depending on how many times they've been merged and how many allies have the corresponding blessing conferred to them. This encourages summoning multiple Mythic Heroes in order to get far in the mode. Later downplayed in 3.1.0, where Legendary Heroes sharing seasons with Mythic Heroes will be treated as if they received the Mythic Blessings.
** Legendary Heroes from Roy: Blazing Lion onwards are capable of pairing up with other units in certain modes. They can switch even after they've taken their action, leading to plenty of shenanigans that can be performed. It's a pretty good incentive to keep pulling for Legendary Heroes.
* BrokenWinLossStreak: Since its induction, the Voting Gauntlet has had female characters from either ''Awakening'' or ''Fates'' as the victor. This was cut short in the Choose Your Legends Gauntlet, in which Ike, from the Tellius series, defeated ''Fates'''s Camilla in the finals, making him not only the first male victor but also the first victor hailing from a pre-''Awakening'' title.
* BrutalBonusLevel:
** Special Maps can be ridiculously difficult on occasion, especially the Grand Hero Battles and Bound Hero Battles. They often employ units with impossibly inflated stats and dangerous skill loadouts, have map layouts designed to make approaches difficult, and some throw in reinforcements to prevent the player from having any breathing room. However, these maps usually yield good rewards, like a few Orbs, Feathers, or even a free unit.
** The Abyssal difficulty of Legendary, Mythic, and Grand Hero Battles is certainly this trope taken to its logical conclusion. The stat inflation is taken to ridiculous levels, with some units reaching the HP cap, and those same units will even have Sacred Seals equipped just to rub it in. To put it into perspective, the lowest HP possible in Infernal is 41 HP, being around the average HP of player units; in Abyssal, it's '''65''' HP, where only a select few can even reach 60. What is your reward for clearing the maps? [[BraggingRightsReward A golden version of]] [[CosmeticAward an existing accessory.]]
* TheBusCameBack:
** Some obscure characters from older games return to the franchise here. The character with the longest absence from the franchise to return in ''Heroes'' is Lukas, who hadn't appeared in-game in ''25 years''.
** With the release of Micaiah, Light magic as its own separate category returns after a little under 11 years.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:C]]
* CallBack:
** When Sharena mentions the prize for the Harvest Festival being a year's supply of pumpkins, Anna says "We've been eating carrots every day...", the carrots likely coming from the Spring Festival.
** Talking to Halloween Nowi will have her point out that witches did exist a long time ago. Her home game ''Awakening'' takes place many, many years after the events of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'', where witches were one of the many enemies that Alm and Celica faced off against.
** At the end of the Spring Festival Paralogue, Spring Camilla tells Sharena that she needs to "wear a springy costume" since she was the winner of that year's festival, embarrassing Sharena. Come the Hares at the Fair Paralogue, we see her costume, and she's still embarrassed about it.
** Brave Celica and Alm's art are an homage to their ''Gaiden'' attire, except done in Hidari's style.
** Tempest Trials+: Familiar Faces is named as such because the Mia and Dorcas seen here are the same ones from Tempest Trials: Less Than Heroic. "Marth" recognizes them and remembers how Dorcas wanted to get paid last time, and is especially grateful to Mia, who convinced the other Farfetched Heroes to help "Marth" for free.
** 2019's Valentine units, like 2018's Valentine units, feature:
*** 2 Cavaliers units (Roy and Lilina, Mist and Soren), and 2 Armored units (Hector and Lyn, Greil and Ike).
*** A Father and Daughter pair that is an Axe and a Green Tome user (Hector and Lilina, Greil and Mist).
*** The Axe unit being the Father who also [[spoiler:died in their home game (Hector and Greil).]]
*** One unit with Distant Counter who also takes the festival tournament seriously (Hector and Ike).
** 2019's Spring units, like 2018's Spring units, feature:
*** A sibling pair of ''Heroes'' original characters (Alfonse and Sharena, Bruno and Veronica).
*** A Whitewing sister (Catria and Palla).
*** A flying dagger unit (Kagero and Palla).
*** A unit voiced by Connor Kelley (Catria and Marisa).
*** A flying, colorless ranged unit who's quite buxom (Kagero and Loki).
*** A 3:1 female-to-male unit ratio on the banner.
* TheCameo: While Lilith from ''Fates'' doesn't appear in person, Nohrian Summer Xander wields a floatie of her dragon form as a weapon. Lilith eventually gained another cameo as a mask being worn by Yukata Xander. The mask would soon enough go on to become an accessory that can be worn by any other unit, barring Yukata Xander himself.
* CameraAbuse: Bridal Charlotte carries a comically oversized spoon as a lance with an equally comically oversized spoonful of wedding cake on it. The icing splatters everywhere whenever she attacks, with some globs ending up sticking to the screen.
* CanonName: The Summoner's name defaults to Kiran.
* CantCatchUp: {{Defied}} as much as possible. The game is very flexible with units thanks to their Asset and Flaw meaning their stats can very from each copy of a unit. Due to this, even mediocre units can be very strong with some investment, and the developers actively go out of their way to make this viable by creating new weapons for old units that get a unique refinement option, as well as introducing mechanics such as Dragonflowers, Heroic Grails, and updating the Merging system. The result is that almost every single unit can be competatively viable, just some more then others.
* {{Cap}}:
** The maximum level for every Hero is 40, and every Hero can gain up to 10 bonus levels by being merged with copies of the same rarity. Getting a five-star Hero to level 40 also triggers a special conversation.
** The cap for HP is 99.
** The cap for SP is 9999.
** The cap for Orbs is 9999.
** You can hold at most 999,999 shards or crystals of one type.
** Generally, the cap for Hero Merit is a multiple of a thousand, though this is raised through major updates. The current cap is 6000 HM.
** The cap for the Barracks' size is 1100.
** A Hero that can be summoned with Heroic Grails can be summoned up to 20 times. The Grail cost to summon a particular Hero gets increased by 50 every time that Hero is summoned; it stops increasing after 9 summons of the same Hero, with the most expensive Grails summon costing 500 Grails.
** Almost all units can move as far as three spaces (outside of using Infantry Boots in Arena Assault), whether they have that much movement by default (as cavalry or a transformed flying Laguz) or due to an enhancement (as an infantry or a flier under the effect of Grey Waves). Armors, however, are limited to a maximum possible movement of two spaces, whether it's through Armor March or Armored Boots.
** Dragonflowers can be used to increase the stats of an ally (spread evenly), introduced before 3.2.0, with the limit up to 10 stats on infantry, and 5 on flying, cavalry, and armored.
** In Røkkr Sieges, the amount of damage you can deal to a Røkkr in one session is capped to 15000-25000 damage times the number of siege stamina spent, depending on difficulty.
* CardCarryingVillain: Surtr, the BigBad of Book II, spends all of his screentime trying to kill someone (sometimes succeeding) and loudly enjoying every minute of it. In terms of playable "heroes", Grima (as Fallen or Legendary Robin) makes absolutely no effort to hide their true nature as a [[HopeCrusher hope-crushing]] DestroyerDeity and they want everyone to know it.
* CastFromHitPoints:
** Fury grants a character a boost to attack, speed, defense, and resistance, at the cost of losing a few HP after every combat. The bonus to stats and the HP lost depends on the Skill's tier: "Fury 1" boosts by 1 and costs 2 HP, "Fury 2" boosts by 2 costs 4 HP, "Fury 3" boosts by 3 and costs 6 HP, and "Fury 4" boost by 4 and costs 8 HP. The 2019 Halloween weapons have the "Fury 3" effect as well. Keep in mind that the HP cost this skill inflict ''stacks'' with any of the weapons listed below.
** Ardent Sacrifice gives the owner the ability to heal an ally for 10 HP without needing to be a Staff user, but it costs 10 HP per use to do so. Micaiah's Sacrifice takes this further, wherein it drains Micaiah's current HP until she only has 1, and restores an ally's HP equal to the amount that Micaiah lost. Sacrifice can also turn debuffs on that same ally into buffs, though this does not cost Micaiah any HP.
** {{Inverted|trope}} with Mystic Boost, which allows the user to negate skills and weapons effects that target the user's lower defensive stat and calculates full damage for staves, and gain 6 HP after combat, even if the user did not attack. Notably, it can even counter the HP costs of skills and weapons, sometimes even allowing the user to gain HP instead of losing it.
** The exclusive refinement for Eldigan's Mystletainn, Bartre's Axe of Virility, and Hinata's Katana for Hinata essentially gives them Fury 3, with the same boost and HP cost. With Fury 3 also equipped on their A slot (which is included in all of their default skill kits), they gain +6 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, but also lose ''12'' HP after combat.
** Valter's Cursed Lance increases his Attack and Speed by 2 and gives him -1 special cooldown, but he loses 4 HP after combat.
** All the Ylissean Summer weapons gives the user +2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the user is at full health before combat, but the user loses 2 HP after battle if they attack and were at full health before combat.
** Celica's tome Ragnarok gives her +5 Atk/Spd during combat if she is at full health before combat, but she loses 5 HP after battle if she attacks and was at full health before combat. Refining her Ragnarok removes the full HP requirement, so she always has +5 Atk/Spd during combat, and loses 5 HP after battle if she attacks.
** Fallen Celica's Beloved Zofia is similar to the Ylissean Summer weapons in that it gives her +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res if she enters combat at full health, but she loses 4 HP after battle if she attacks and was at full health before combat.
** The exclusive refinement for Regular Alm's Falchion grants it a Brave effect if he initiates combat at full health, but he loses 5 HP after battle if he was at full health.
** The Push skills are a {{Downplayed|Trope}} example, increasing 2 stats by 5 when in combat at full health, and costing the user 1 HP if they attack and were at full health before combat. Played Straight with the 4 version, where if the user is at 25% HP or greater, they gain +7 to two of their stats during combat, but lose 5 HP after combat if they attack.
** Brave Celica's Double Lion is another {{Downplayed|Trope}} example, which allows her to attack twice consecutively no matter what weapon she's wielding, but only at full HP and if she initiates combat. She then loses 1 HP afterward.
** [[UnusableEnemyEquipment Líf's Sökkvabekkr]] is a unique case. The wielder gains +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res in combat as well as a guaranteed follow-up attack if the wielder is within 3 spaces of an ally, but ''20'' damage is dealt--not to the wielder, but the ally nearest to the wielder.
** Fallen Berkut's Kriemhild is another unique case. If the enemy is a ranged attacker and initiates combat, the wielder is able to counterattack them as well as deny any of their follow-up attacks if there is an ally within 2 spaces of them, but ''20'' damage dealt--not to the wielder, but the ally nearest to the wielder.
** Eir's Lyfjaberg gives her, if she's at 50% HP or above before combat, +4 Atk/Spd during combat and. if she initiates, negates any enemy follow-up attacks, but lose 4 HP after combat if she attacks and was 50% HP or over before combat.
** Fallen Delthea's Death give her +3 Res and +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, but loses 4 HP after combat if she attacks.
** Brave Alm's Scendscale makes him deal 25% of the user's Atk as damage, but loses 7 HP after combat if he attacks.
* CastingGag:
** Deirdre is listed as being 17 years old at her first encounter. In Japan, she's voiced by Creator/KikukoInoue, who likes to claim she's 17 years old.
** Creator/HoukoKuwashima is known for [[ChronicallyKilledActor voicing characters with rather high mortality rates.]] So her first ''Fire Emblem'' role is in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'', the game with the highest good guy death count in one generation, and she's voicing Tailtiu, the character with arguably [[TearJerker the most tragic]] and [[KillTheCutie heart-wrenching death]] in the series.
** In Japanese, Myrrh of ''Sacred Stones'' is voiced by Creator/MaiKadowaki, whose [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight most famous role]] is another little girl who is older than she looks and has difficulty understanding her feelings.
** Shigure starts with the skill 'Noontime'. Amongst the characters voiced by Creator/MatthewMercer, [[VideoGame/{{Overwatch}} one of them likes to state the time, "It's high noon..."]]
** Lilina being a young, [[TheIngenue ingenue]] BadassAdorable that wears majorly red and specializes in [[PlayingWithFire fire magic]], while [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair having unnatural hair color (blue).]] Her English voice actress is Creator/JulieMaddalena, and her favorite role also happens to be [[Manga/MagicKnightRayearth a young, ingenue Badass Adorable that wears majorly red and specializes in fire magic while having unnatural hair color (red).]]
** Ced's voice actor, Phil Reich, gained notice with his role as [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Giorno Giovanna]], son of [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders DIO]], who was voiced in Japan by Creator/TakehitoKoyasu, who voiced the strongest candidate for Ced's father (and canon in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776''), Lewyn. Even if the language barrier must be leapt on, the family reunion of the bizarre family will still commence!
* CerebusSyndrome: The first several chapters of Book I were fairly lighthearted and somewhat humorous, having you break the contracts of characters from various ''Fire Emblem'' games, all controlled by what is pretty much a young brat. However, by Chapter 10 and onward, it shifts to a more serious story involving the mysterious Bruno -- and even Veronica gets more serious. This goes full throttle by Book II, where very dark and dangerous villains and an AnyoneCanDie fervor start to show up.
* CharacterClassSystem:
** There are four main movement classes: Infantry, Cavalry, Flier, and Armor. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses:
*** Infantry: Has 2 movement and is slowed by tree tiles. The only class without any dedicated StatusBuff support (outside of Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash), but only one AntiInfantry weapon exists compared to the other classes having several dedicated anti-unit weapons, and have families of skills exclusive to them, or share with one other movement type.
*** Cavalry: Has 3 movement, cannot cross tree tiles, and slowed by trench tiles. Stat totals are slightly smaller than other classes to compensate for the movement advantage.
*** Flier: Has 2 movement, is not slowed by tree tiles, and can cross otherwise impassable tiles like water with no penalty. Weak to bows.
*** Armor: Has 1 movement, but is not slowed by trees. Has the highest stat totals of all classes to compensate for their lower movement.
** Units are also divided into different weapon types, with 2 attack range units having lower Base Stat Total than 1 attack range units to balance their larger attack range. Certain skills are exclusive to each attack range, as well:
*** [[HeroesPreferSwords Sword]]/[[BladeOnAStick Lance]]/[[AnAxeToGrind Axe]]: Physical weapons that have 1 attack range. Divided into the 3 primary colors and target the enemy's Defense.
*** [[BreathWeapon Breath]]: Magical weapons that have 1 attack range and are categorized as Dragons. Available in all colors, not restricted to color for weapon inheritance, target the enemy's Resistance if they have an attack range of 1, and the lower defensive stat if they have an attack range of 2[[note]]Without refinements, breath weapons released before 2.0.0 target the enemy's Resistance only for all attack ranges[[/note]]. Like the non-infantry movement classes, breath users have unique skills such as the Goad and Ward class skills.
*** [[VoluntaryShapeshifting Beast]]: Physical weapons that have 1 attack range and are categorized as Beasts, and currently all Beast weapons are unique to each Beast character in ''Heroes''. Available in all colors, and if the user either starts their turn only adjacent to other Beasts or Dragons, or alone, they transform, gaining +2 Atk and specific effects: +1 movement for Flying beasts, +10 damage for combat specials for Infantry beasts, denies any enemy follow-up attacks and inflict -4 Atk/Def to the enemy during combat if the user initiates combat for Cavalry beasts, and can counter-attack regardless of range for Armored beasts. Like the non-infantry movement classes, beast units have unique skills such as the Goad and Ward class skills.
*** [[SpellBook Tomes]]: Magic weapons that have 2 attack range. Divided into the 3 primary colors and target the enemy's Resistance.
*** [[ArcherArchetype Bows]]: Physical weapons that have 2 attack range and are effective against flying units. Available in all colors, not restricted to color for weapon inheritance, and target the enemy's Defense.
*** [[KnifeNut Daggers]]: Physical weapons that have 2 attack range and apply stat debuffs after attacking. Available in all colors, not restricted to color for weapon inheritance, and target the enemy's Defense.
*** [[MagicStaff Staves]]: Magic staves that have 2 attack range, can inflict certain negative effects effects after attacking or at the start of their turn, or have effects that supports other allies, and have healing assist commands. Currently only colorless, deal halved, rounded-down damage; and target the enemy's Resistance.
** There are unique units with gimmicks that determine their Level 1 and Level 40 Base Stat Total (not including units released post-CYL 1):
*** [[CrutchCharacter Veteran]]: Units that have higher Level 1 stats than the average unit, but have less stat growths and have lower average Level 40 stats as a result.
*** [[MagikarpPower Trainee]]: The opposite of Veterans, having lower average Level 1 stats, but have more stat growths and have higher average Level 40 stats as a result.
*** [[ExtraTurn Dancer]]: Units that can allow an ally to perform another action (unless that ally has Sing or Dance), have lower average Level 1 stats and no changes to their stat growth.
* CharacterRosterGlobalWarming:
** At the launch of the game, there were only ''five'' Armour units out of almost 100 characters. Not only that, but one of them is the super-rare Hector, and the daily hero rotation does not include any of them, making it fairly hard to get even one of them. The first new Armoured unit was released in late April 2017 in the form of Grand Hero Zephiel. Another dry spell happened afterward, until a new Armour unit, Amelia, was added in August 2017. While Armoured units have been released a little more consistently since then, they are still far and away the rarest movement type.
** While there were a few red and blue dragons at launch, one of each being available at 3*, Fae used to be the only green dragon in the game until Myrrh was added nearly a year later, and Male Fallen Robin was released sometime afterward. While Myrrh and Male Fallen Robin are 5* exclusive, Fae was slightly uncommon, being 4-5* until the 2.4.0 update made her 3-4*, making her as common as the other dragons (barring regular Young Tiki, who remains 5* exclusive).
* CharacterSelectForcing:
** Certain quests require players to use a certain weapon type, usually axes, swords or lances, within certain story and paralogue chapters on Lunatic to earn rewards. Monthly quests also have party requirements, but are more lenient since they typically require certain weapon colors. The only difficult monthly quests are the Tenth Stratum movement type quests.
** The Blessed Gardens only allows teams of units with blessings or affinities of the same element. To compensate, the stat boosts from Legendary Heroes are always active in Blessed Gardens battles.
** Arena, Aether Raids, and Tempest Trials have bonus units that the user at least needs in their team to gain extra score or lift, with extra stat boosts to those heroes for compensation. In Arena, the bonus heroes also need to defeat foes for the player to get more score. All three modes can be played without the player using those bonus heroes, but they will score less if they do so.
** Grand Hero and Bound Hero Battle revival quests require using either Alfonse, Anna, Sharena, or Fjorm[[note]]or in the case of GHB revivals, the Grand Hero whose battle is being rerun[[/note]] to defeat certain enemies who are at level 40, have them at least participate in the specific Hero Battle, and use only a certain movement type to beat Lunatic difficulty.
** The first GHB Elite quests require players to clear the respective rotation maps[[note]]Narcian, Navarre, Female Robin, Ursula, Lloyd, Michalis, and Xander[[/note]] on Infernal with teams consisting of a single movement type to earn quest rewards. To compensate for the challenge due to the high demand of the player and their luck pulling units, the quests are available for a year since their addition.
** The second GHB Elite quests require players to clear the second Grand Hero Battle rotation maps[[note]]Zephiel, Camus, Legion, Clarisse, Berkut, Valter, and Arvis[[/note]] with teams of units that share the same elemental blessing or affinity to earn quest rewards. These quests are also available for a year since ''their'' addition, but they only require Lunatic clears (unlike the first GHB Elite quests), and the teams can consist of whatever movement types the player desires.
** In Aether Raids, in order to maximise gaining lift, while also loss less lift on defeat on Aether Defense in order to reach the higher tiers, players need to use Mythic Heroes on the right teams, with Light and Astra Mythic Heroes on the raiding teams, while using Dark and Anima Mythic Heroes on the defense teams, alongside with units with either the matching blessing on the same team, or Legendary Heroes with the matching Season they're currently sharing with the Mythic Heroes.
** Heroic Ordeals has heroes that have specific maps catered to them and as a result must be included in that battle, have only one other ally, and get at least 2 [=KOs=] to earn rewards. To compensate, the first Heroic Ordeal battle after the daily reset will give both units +10 HP and +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res.
** Allegiance Battles give additional score if the player defeats a green foe with a red unit, a red one with a blue unit, a blue one with a green unit, and a colorless one with a colorless unit, and more so if the user was paired up, so to get a good elimination score, they need to build a balanced team with at least one of every color, or need at least one Legendary Hero pair up with another ally of a different weapon color and the last ally being a different color of the previous two paired up with a friend's ally of the last remaining color to potentially get the maximum elimination score.
* ChekhovsGun: At the beginning of Book 2, Chapter 4: Part 2, the village the heroes saved from the previous chapter gives Alfonse some special colored hay that is stated to be handy if they need a quick signal fire. Cut to the end of Chapter 4, where [[spoiler:said village is threatened to be burned down by Surtr. The village is saved when Alfonse burns the hay as a signal fire, warning the village to evacuate before Surtr can do harm to anyone.]]
* ClothingDamage: When a character is brought down to more than half of their HP, their artwork changes to show them with their clothes ripped and tattered. While some of these pieces qualify as {{fanservice}}, most of them show the characters covered with dirt, cuts, and/or bruises to show how bad the damage is.
* CoatCape:
** Female Robin drapes her tactician robe over her shoulders in her summer variant, so she can show off her swimsuit.
** Day of Devotion 2019: Ike drapes his coat over his shoulders for battles. Downplayed with Soren; he's wearing the left sleeve of his dress robe [[FashionableAsymmetry while leaving the right sleeve empty]].
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience:
** Each weapon is associated with a color and a shape. Red weapons are represented by a red square, green weapons are represented by a green pentagon, blue weapons are represented by a blue square, and colorless weapons are represented by a gray circle. Each character is also represented by a color, based on what their weapon is.
** Each element for the seasons and Legendary and Mythic Heroes have a color associated with them: Red for Fire, Blue for Water, Green for Wind, Orange for Earth, Yellow for Light, Purple for Dark, Pink for Astra, and Grey for Anima.
** Dragonflowers are colorcoded depending on movement type: red boosts infantry, blue boosts fliers, yellow boosts cavalry, and green boosts armors.
* ComMons: Units that are summonable at 3 or 4 stars. You will inevitably summon lots of these, most notably Bartre, Wrys, and Virion, though they can be easily merged into a more powerful unit.
* CombatMedic: Unlike the main ''Fire Emblem'' games, staves can be used to cast magical attacks in addition to healing. However, staves have their damage cut in half and rounded down, unless the unit has the Wrathful Staff skill or upgrades their staff to negate the penalty. To compensate, many staves have additional effects to make up for their reduced damage.
* ComebackMechanic:
** During Voting Gauntlets, if a character falls far enough behind their opponent, their point gain is given a multiplier for an hour. The multiplier also gets bigger the later into the round it's received, topping out at x7.5 during the final hour. The March/April 2019 Voting Gauntlet added an inversion in the form of an endurance bonus for the team in the lead, although it's only half as effective as the disadvantage bonus.
** In Grand Conquests, if one team has significantly less areas than the others, the areas the losing team does have will start with higher defense scores than usual.
* TheComicallySerious: Kagero remains stoic and focused on her task no matter what she's wearing or doing. She says things like "Ninjabbit attack!" with stone-cold seriousness while wearing a bunny outfit, and completely gets into the Harvest Festival mood, treating trick or treat like it's a life-or-death situation.
* CompetitiveBalance:
** Cavalry units and singers/dancers have lower overall stat totals than regular infantry to balance out their various perks.
** Version 2.1.0 introduced trenches to combat the dominance of all-cavalry teams in arena. Trenches are to cavalry as forest tiles are to infantry in that cavalry can only travel one space moving through a trench.
** Armor units often have an exceptionally high stat or two to compensate for their decreased movement.
** Ranged units have lower overall stat totals compared to melee units of the same movement type, to compensate for their larger attack ranges.
* CompositeCharacter:
** Eliwood appears to be his younger self from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade The Blazing Blade]]'', but talks about how he believes that his son Roy surpasses him as a warrior, which wouldn't happen until Eliwood was his older, sickly self in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade The Binding Blade]]''.
** Arvis's art is based on his appearance from before ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'''s TimeSkip and is a regular mage instead of his unique armored mage class, but mentions Deirdre and Julia if killed, the latter who is born years later after that point.
** {{Downplayed}} with [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones Lyon]], who is mostly based on his appearance in Ephraim's route, where he is an AntiVillain and not truly possessed by Fomortiis. However, he still has some elements from his appearance in Eirika's route a la his acceptance of the Demon King title.
** Male [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Morgan]] has "Grima's Truth", a spellbook that he normally only had in the BadFuture. However, all of his dialogue is purely normal timeline.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard:
** On higher difficulties, enemy units can have impossibly inflated stats.
** Prior to the implementation of Skill Inheritance, enemy Heroes could have impossible skill combinations.
** On some Grand Hero, Bound Hero, Legendary Hero, or Mythic Hero battle maps, some enemies (usually the boss(es) in question) have their Specials nearly or fully charged immediately. While the player can do this as well (through the use of Pulse skills and similar effects), most of the time, these enemies don't have the appropriate skills for this set up.
* ContinuingIsPainful:
** Despite FinalDeath being excised from the game, the high stamina costs and loss of experience for defeated player characters (prior to version 2.5.0) will be supremely annoying. Unless you use the ([[TooAwesomeToUse fairly rare]]) stamina potions, the even ''rarer'' Light's Blessings (which cannot be used in Arena Duels or Grand Hero Battles), or fork out real-life cash to continue. Or, of course, wait--for ''8 hours and 15 minutes'' at most if you're willing to wait on a fully-depleted stamina bar to be completely restored.
** Also applies to an extent in Arena Duels, where your potential score drops for every felled ally. For those gunning for a high score/ranking, losing too many units may jeopardize their score to the point where they may as well intentionally throw their next battle to reset the win streak. The relative scarcity of Dueling Crests and limit of 3 tries per day without them doesn't help, either.
** And then there's the Tempest Trials, where you're pitted against up to 7 consecutive rounds of enemies, ending with a battle against a specific unit and four other Heroes with inflated stats. Any allies that get defeated are unusable until you beat the final map or get a Game Over, and if you're reckless (which you're encouraged to be, since you get more points for clearing rounds quickly) or just unlucky and your best Heroes get taken out early, you might as well just throw in the towel and start over. This also applies to Chain Challenges, except they have preset enemy units, and up to 10 maps.
* CooldownManipulation:
** Killer/Slaying weapons reduce the charge time of their wielders' specials by 1. Some unique weapons also have this effect, like the Hauteclere, Mystletainn, or Audhulma. [[InvertedTrope On the other hand]], -blade tomes, Lightning Breath, and staves like Rehabilitate (but not the + versions) ''increase'' the charge time of their wielders' specials by 1. Legendary Eirika's Lunar Brace also increases special charge time by 1, and is the only passive skill to do so.
** Pulse skills will reduce the Special charge by 1 or more, but only under certain conditions (save the Quickened Pulse seal, which is guaranteed to grant the user Special cooldown -1), and only on the first turn of the map. The exclusive refine for Navarre's Scarlet Sword and the Dark Excalibur, It's Curtains..., and Ouch Pouch all grant a further -2 special cooldown at the start of their first turn, and Scarlet Sword offers a flat -1 special cooldown at all times. Grandscratcher will also give -1 special cooldown to an ally with the highest Atk at the first turn.
** Velouria's Wolfpup Fang grants herself ''and'' her support partner -2 special cooldown at the start of their first turn.
** Time's Pulse gives the user -1 special cooldown at the start of the user's turn if their special is at maximium.
** Heavy Blade allows the user to gain an extra Special charge when they attack, but only if their Atk is higher than the enemy's. Its counterpart Flashing Blade does the same thing, except it uses Spd as a comparison. Users of Infantry Rush and Infantry Flash bestow these skills' respective effects upon Infantry allies within two spaces.
** Wrath gives special cooldown -1 to its user at the start of their turn if they're at or under 25%/50%/75% HP. Tailtiu's Tome of Thoron also has this effect.
** Steady Breath, Warding Breath, and Fierce Breath gives +1 Special buildup for every time an attack occurs on the enemy phase (on top of boosting one of their users' stats during combat). Summer Young Tiki's Summer's Breath has a similar effect, mostly resembling Steady Breath. Infantry Breath gives the +1 Special buildup, as well as +2 Def/Res for all Infantry allies adjacent to the user during the enemy phase, and the unique refine for Brave Lucina's Geirskögul give all users of physical attack allies within 2 spaces of the user +1 Special buildup if the foe initiates combat, as well as granting +3 Def/Res to them.
** The exclusive refinement for Felicia's Plate gives her an extra special charge for every attack she lands, but only when she fights a tome user.
** The armor-exclusive skills Bold Fighter and Vengeful Fighter provide an extra special charge for each time the user attacks as well as a guaranteed follow-up if the user is above or at the HP threshold (None for Bold and 50% for Vengeful at version 3), but only on specific phases of battle. Bold Fighter only works on player phase, while Vengeful Fighter only works on enemy phase.
** Special Fighter, also armor-exclusive, provides an extra special charge for when the user attacks, and {{Invert|edTrope}}s this on the opponent by reducing their special charge per attack, when the user is at 50% HP or over before combat. The refined Blazing Durandal also has this effect, only that it does so if the user initiates combat.
** Dark Mystletainn (with the original effect of -1 special cooldown that Mystletainn provides) and Special Spiral reduce special cooldown by -2 if their user's special was activated before or during combat.
** Yarne's Bunny Fang reduces his Special cooldown by 2 after combat if he has 75% HP or less.
** Brave Celica's Royal Sword provides her an extra special charge if she has an ally within 2 spaces during combat.
** Ophelia's Missiletainn tome grants her -1 special cooldown, and at the start of her first turn, an ''additional'' -1 special cooldown to Ophelia for every tome user on her team, including Ophelia herself.
** Owain's Missiletainn sword grants him -1 special cooldown, as well as an additional special charge for every attack Owain takes, even if the attack does no damage.
** Legendary Eirika's Storm Sieglinde gives her +1 special buildup (in addition to +3 Def/Res) each time she attacks if the number of enemies within two spaces of her (ignoring the target) is greater than or equal to the number of allies also within two spaces (ignoring Eirika herself).
** {{Inverted|trope}} with the Guard skill. When its user is above a certain HP threshold, from 100% to 80% HP or above, it reduces the opponent's special buildup by 1 per attack (which also cannot be stacked), meaning the opponent can only build up special charge by having any skill that gives +2 charge on attacks, which then would only build up special charge by 1. Beruka's refined Beruka's Axe also has the same effect, where she needs to be at 50% HP or above to activate, rather than the 80% threshold from Guard 3. The weapons Bottled Juice, Hack-o'-Lantern, Devilish Bow, and Guard Sword also have this effect, but without the HP requirements. Steady Stance 4, Warding Stance 4, and Mirror Stance 3 also grants the effect, in addition to +8 Def, +8 Res and +6 Atk/Res, respectively, if an enemy initiates combat with its user. Perceval's Prized Lance allows him to inflict -1 special buildup per attack if the foe is at full HP before the start of combat.
** Inverted with the Guard Status effect, which inflicts the user with -1 special buildup per attack, which sources include the Ruse Skills, Witchy Wand(+) and Melancholy(+).
** The Witchy Wand(+) and Melancholy(+) can inflict the Guard status on a targeted enemy and other enemies within two spaces, and also ''reset'' the special charge of those enemies.
** Inverted with the Pulse Smoke skill, where after combat, the target and all foes within 2 spaces of the target has their special cooldown revert back by 1, unless they are already at their maximum cooldown.
** New Year Duo Alfonse & Sharena's Duo Skill allows themselves and any Infantry allies within 3 rows and 3 columns with the user in the center have -2 special cooldown.
* CosmeticAward:
** Starting with Legendary Marth's Battle as well as Female Grima's rerun, a new difficulty was introduced to top Infernal: [[HarderThanHard Abyssal]]. After clearing these incredibly challenging maps, the only rewards to obtain are gold versions of accessories that already exist; they're basically just a BraggingRightsReward.
** The Røkkr Remnant is a fiery accessory that covers one of the user's eye that can be rewarded if players deal '''150000''' to the Røkkr in one battle, which can only be reached on the Intermediate or Lunatic difficulties and spending all your stamina. Not round, ''battle''.
* CounterAttack: While counterattacks are par for the course for ''Fire Emblem'', this game introduces skills and weapons that can counterattack enemies regardless of range, with Distant Counter allowing melee heroes to counterattack ranged ones, while Close Counter allows ranged heroes to counterattack melee ones. Distant Ward allows the user to gain +5 Atk/Res and counterattack enemies regardless of range if the enemy wields a tome, staff, or dragon weapon, but is restricted to melee units only. Distant Counter is also included in weapon skills (most of the time being the weapon's only effect), such as Rajinto, Ragnell, and Lightning Breath+, as well as Armored Beast weapons when the user is transformed. Other weapons also have conditional Distant Counter alongside other effects and drawbacks, such as Osian's Vouge having Distant Counter if he is at 50% HP or more at the start of combat, Fallen Berkut's Kreimhild having it alongside denying any of their follow-up attacks if he has an ally within 2 spaces of him, but deals 20 damage to the nearest ally after combat if he counterattacked a ranged foe, and the unique refine for Saber's Golden Dagger, where if the user has their special ready, gives Distant Counter as well as +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat. Currently, only Boey's unique refine for his Inscribed Tome has the Close Counter effect, and even then it's conditional as it excludes him from counterattacking dragons.
* CripplingOverspecialization:
** While the Poison Dagger does extra damage against Infantry units, its low Might compared to other weapons and inability to inflict debuffs on other unit types means it's not very good against anything ''but'' Infantry.
** The Armorslayer, Heavy Spear, and Hammer deal extra damage to armored units. However, they only have a Might of 11, and compared to other weapons, they're not quite as effective against everyone else. Fortunately, this can be compensated for through weapon refinement, which boosts their Might to 14, and even further with more refinement.
** Windsweep and Watersweep allow units to prevent counter attacks if they initiate combat, but they need to be faster than the enemy unit, go against the matching weapons to not get counter attacked[[note]]swords, lances, axes, bows, daggers, and beast weapons for Windsweep, tomes, staves, and breaths for Watersweep[[/note]], and can only perform one attack on initiation. However, they can still perform follow-up attacks when the user is counter-attacking.
** The Hardy Bearing seal stops anything that changes attack priority from working (e.g. Vantage or Desperation). Against few heroes that use those in their builds (such as Ares, Kronya or Brave Ike), the seal utterly ruins them. Against everything else, the seal is completely useless.
** The Phantom Spd Seal treats its user's speed as 5/8/10 points higher than it really is when another skill compares it to another unit's speed, regardless of whether the unit is an ally or enemy. There are very few skills that compare Speed to begin with, making the Seal's usefulness extremely limited.
** Triangle Adept, as well as the Gem Weapons, increase the strength of their wielder's Weapon Triangle bonuses by a flat percentage. This makes them extremely effective at fighting units they have a weapon advantage against, but in turn makes them extremely vulnerable to a weapon type they are weak against.
** Regular Brave weapons are extremely good on the Player Phase, but are outright horrible on the Enemy Phase. This is because of the -5 Spd a Brave weapon inflicts on the wielder, and the fact the wielder can only attack twice if they initiate combat. Reinhardt's sword variant and Keaton are exceptions to this, as while their weapons still give them a big Spd penalty, they can strike twice whether they initiate combat or their opponent initiates combat instead.
** The AR-O and AR-D A skills can potentially give massive (up to ''+10'') boosts to two of the user's stats during combat, but will only activate if the units is within the Aether Raids mode, as the value of said stat boosts on the amount of defensive structures still standing.
* CrisisCrossover: Serves as one for ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', as this game pulls characters from throughout the entire franchise.
* CriticalStatusBuff:
** The Vengeance skill returns from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Fates]]'', increasing a hero's damage based on their missing health. The game also has its weaker variants, Retribution (the base form) and Reprisal (has the same potency as Retribution, but charges up faster).
** Several passive skills trigger only when a Hero's health falls below certain threshold, like Defiant X (greatly increase one of Hero's stats once they fall below 50% HP), Brazen X (greatly increases two of the Hero's stats in battle once they fall below 80% HP), Desperation (if Hero is fast enough to double their enemy and below [=25/50/75%=] HP, both attacks hit before enemy can counter), Escape Route (when unit is below [=30/40/50%=] HP, they can instantly warp to any ally on the map), or Wrath (if Hero is below [=25/50/75%=] HP, Specials gain a charge at the start of each turn and deal +10 damage).
* CrossOver: Most of the paralogues involve characters from two or more games hanging out.
* CrutchCharacter:
** Alfonse, Sharena, and Anna possess skills or support abilities that can carry you through the early game. However, before update 2.5.0, they're two-star units, so they become outpaced in later chapters. If their potentials are unlocked, though, they become formidable in their own right.
** The usual {{Crutch Character}}s (Jagen, Gunter, any Veteran Units), though far more useful in this game than their home series, still suffer from having lower base stats at max level compared to others of their class, while having the highest starting base stats.
** Heroes that can only be obtained without Orbs, like from Grand Hero Battles or the Tempest Trials, can be pretty strong early on, but their lack of [=IVs=] means they can be outclassed by units that can be summoned normally, since those units can use [=IVs=] to optimize their stats.
* CurbStompBattle:
** Any battle between Lucina and any of her opponents in the first Voting Gauntlet. The same applies to Camilla and any of her opponents in the second Voting Gauntlet. Their overwhelming popularity outright destroyed any chance that their opponents could have against them. Since then, a ComebackMechanic has been implemented where the losing side would have a score multiplier to help them catch up, which would at least reduce the massive score disparity.
** The Múspell side of Nifl vs Múspell Voting Gauntlet ended up being on the recieving end of one, with ''all four'' heroes losing in the first round (with Surtr, Laevatein, Laegjarn and Helbindi losing to respectively Fjorm, Gunnthrá, Hríd and Ylgr).
* CuteOwl: The little critter that gives mail and is on the loading screen. Her name is [[FunWithAcronyms Feh.]] Units can wear a doll of Feh as a hat, and a Feh statue was available to place in Aether Keeps for a limited time.
* CuteWitch: Nowi, a youthful manakete, has a witch getup for the first Halloween banner. In the second, Mia also dresses as a witch for the occasion.
* CutscenePowerToTheMax: The Book II opening movie shows the Order of Heroes in a all-out brawl against Múspell's elites. Notably, the summoner is going toe-to-toe with Veronica, and Fjorm and Surtr are locked in a big power battle, with Surtr launching a gigantic fireball and Fjorm countering with giant ice lances and lasers. None of this happens in the game proper.
* CuttingTheKnot: A majority of HoldTheLine maps have an enemy with a Sacred Seal that makes them take 0 damage. The few exceptions either have no invulnerable enemies, or have one show up as a reinforcement on a later turn. With those maps however, if one routs all the enemies on screen before they arrive, they instantly win the map without the hassle of evading those enemies.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:D]]
* DamageIncreasingDebuff:
** Getting hit by a dagger weapon will lower a unit's defensive stats for a single turn. The daggers released in version 2.0.0 onward, as well as daggers released prior when refined (barring Smoke Dagger+, which lowers ''all'' enemy stats when it's refined), also affect other enemy units within 2 spaces of the target.
** Seal skills can also lower one of the opponent's defensive stats after combat by -7 regardless of whether the opponent took damage.
** Threaten skills can reduce either the Defense or Resistance of all foes within 2 spaces of their users by -5 at the start of their turn.
** Smoke skills act as Seal skills, except the -7 debuff is inflicted on foes within 2 spaces of the target rather than the target itself.
** Ploy skills, at the start of the unit's turn, can reduce the stats of all foes standing in cardinal directions of them by -5 if the foes' Res is lower than the unit's.
** Chill skills, at the start of the unit's turn, can reduce stats by -7 if the enemy has the highest matching stat (if there are more units with the same highest matching stat, they get debuffed as well).
** Feint skills, if Rally skills are used either on the user or an ally, will reduce one of the stats of any enemies within cardinal directions of the unit receiving the Rally boosts by -7.
** Sabotage skills, at the start of the unit's turn, can reduce one of the foe's stats by -7 if the enemy is adjacent to an enemy and their Res is under 3 or lower than the user. Brave Micaiah's Yune's Whispers, and Lute's refined Weirding Time has the same activation conditions, except reducing the foe's Atk/Spd by 6 and the foes's Spd/Res by 5, respectively.
** Ruse skills have the same activation conditions and range as the Feint skills, only instead of reducing one stat by -7, two of the enemy stats are reduced by -5, with the addition of them being inflicted with the Guard status.
** Lull skills inflict -3 to two of the foe's stats, as well as ignore bonuses on those stats during combat. Altena's Earthly Gáe Bolg also has this effect, with it inflicting -5 Atk/Def on the foe, as well as ignore bonuses on those stats during combat, but does not work on fliers.
** The Panic status, whether inflicted by weapons like Panic and Legion's Axe or the skill Panic Ploy, will convert buffs on afflicted enemies into debuffs. Wielders of Panic-inflicting weapons must land an attack on their opponent to inflict the Panic status, whereas Panic Ploy activates outside of battle at the start of its user's turn, provided there is at least one enemy in a cardinal direction of the user, and the enemy has/enemies have less HP than the user.
** Surtr's Menace inflicts -4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res on all enemies within 2 spaces of Surtr (on top of granting +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res to Surtr), if there is at least one enemy within 2 spaces of him.
** Claude's Cunning Bow inflicts -5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res on his target during combat if the difference of the combined number of his field buffs above his normal stats and the combined number of the enemy's debuffs below their normal stats at the start of combat are equal or greater than 10 (for example, +5 on his Atk and -5 on the enemy's Atk would equal 10).
** Legendary Julia's Light and Dark, in addition to ignoring enemy field buffs and enemy skills that target the lower defensive stat of Julia, inflicts -2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res on the enemy during combat.
** Thrasir's Killing Intent inflicts -5 Spd/Res to the enemy during combat if either they're not a full HP or have any debuff or negative status effect before combat.
** Igrene's Guardian's Bow inflicts -5 Atk/Spd/Def on the foe during combat if she is faster than the enemy.
* DamageReduction:
** Some Specials mitigate damage from attacks based on their range. For instance, Aegis reduces damage taken from a distance, while Pavise reduces damage taken from close range.
** The Divine Tyrfing, Leo's refined Brynhildr, Jeorge's refined Parthia, Micaiah's Thani, and the unique refine for Kagero's Dart and Brave Ike's Urvan reduces the first attack of certain weapons by a certain percent, with the Divine Tyrfing reducing tome damage by 50%, the refined Brynhildr and Parthia reducing tome damage by 30%, Thani reducing ranged attacks from Cavalry and Armored foes by 30%, the unique refine for Kagero's Dart reducing damage by 50% if the user initiates combat, and the unique refine for Urvan reducing damage by 40% on the foe's first attack.
** The Deflect Seals mitigate damage from consecutive attacks, like from Brave weapons or Desperation users. They are all dependent on the type of weapon; Deflect Melee only works against swords, lances, and axes, Deflect Missile only works against bows and daggers, and Deflect Magic only works against tomes. Brave Ike's Urvan also has this effect, and will work against any weapon type, whereas Sigurd's Crusader's Ward only reduces damage from consecutive ranged attacks.
** Nagi's Ethereal Breath reduces damage taken from AOE specials by 80%.
** Close Call and Repel allows the user to reduce damage from both combat and non-Røkkr AOE specials if they're faster than the enemy, with 4% damage reduced for each Spd the user is higher, up to 40% damage reduced. New Year Selkie's New Foxkit Fang and New Year Lethe's Guardian Fang also has this effect, but Selkie's Foxkit Fang compares Res instead of Spd.
* DamageSpongeBoss: The Røkkr from Røkkr Siege is this, starting at '''200000''' HP, which must be removed in multiple battles, and other players share the same Røkkr as yours, meaning it's a group effort to deal as much damage as possible against 3 rounds of Røkkr Sieges, with limit of 2 days real time to defeat as many as possible each round, and their HP ''increase'' with each successive Røkkr defeated. They're also equipped with weapons that allows them to counter-attack regardless of range and will deal a minimum of 1 damage, Specials with long cooldowns that damages their target and foes within 2 spaces of them after combat, and are equipped with the Røkkr Sacred Seal, which prevents them from taking damage after combat (but not before). To compensate, you have a damage multiplier that increases by either dealing damage to the boss, or by eliminating enemy reinforcements, and the battle ends when either 7 turns has elapsed, or you dealt 15000 damage on Beginner, 20000 on Intermediate, 25000 on Advanced for each Havoc Axe used on that battle.
* DarkerAndEdgier: The main story takes a dark turn after Chapter 9 as we find out about [[spoiler:the DemonicPossession of the Emblian Royal Family, what actually happened to Zacharias and even one instance of Veronica trying to kill the Summoner, and nearly succeeding.]] This is especially true for both Tellius chapters (10 and 13) in the main story, as they have a sense of urgency and important revelations regarding the plot. Book II as a whole is darker than Book I, seeing Surtr replace Veronica as the BigBad, upping the stakes to life-and-death for all characters, and [[spoiler:killing a major character on-screen]]. Cue Book III turning it UpToEleven with a theme revolving around the forces of the dead coming to kill the Kingdom of Askr and overall white and dark tone (not to mention the heavy metal song, a first for ''Fire Emblem'').
* DarkHorseVictory:
** The winner of November 2017's "Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents" Voting Gauntlet is... Shanna, who beat several characters that placed in the Top 12 of the first "Choose Your Legends" poll, whereas she didn't place anywhere near the Top 12.
** The winner of the June 2018 "Heroes and Legends" Voting Gauntlet is... Gunnthrá, who was little more than a one-shot original character in the game's story who beat characters like Ryoma and... Ike. ''Especially'' Ike.
** The winner of September 2018's "The Chosen Ones" Voting Gauntlet is Ephraim. While all participants were popular characters, Veronica's popularity was at its peak around that time, skyrocketing like no one could imagine. Most people expected that Veronica would be the one to win the Gauntlet, and yet Ephraim persevered and ended up winning (and he had previously beaten Roy and Ike, instead of going after the second male CYL champion, Hector).
** The winner of the October 2019 "Dance Competition!" voting gauntlet is Rinea, an extremely minor and underfocused NPC character from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia]]'', notably scoring victories over mega-popular Olivia and Inigo from the extremely popular ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]''.
* DeathIsCheap: According to Anna, the Summoner's powers let them revive anybody that falls in battle.
* DefeatEqualsExplosion: A Røkkr reaching 0 HP results in a large dark explosion.
* DefeatMeansPlayable: On Grand Hero Battles and certain special daily maps, clearing the map has the featured unit join your side.
* DevelopersForesight: If you forget to update your game, or if the game doesn't yet prompt you to update, characters using weapons introduced in the new update will instead be displayed as one-star Annas, and it will be impossible to check their stats.
* DifficultButAwesome:
** Celica's Ragnarok, at least its base effect. At full health, she gets +5 Atk and Spd, but after combat, she loses 5 HP and needs to restore herself back to full health to gain that boost again. She can't do this with her natural skillset, so she needs Renewal or an ally to heal her up afterwards. However, when refined, it just became much more straightforward with a permanent +5 Atk and Spd and 5 HP recoil, and a special effect that complements this where she gains an additional +7 Atk and Spd when she's sufficiently injured.
** Brave Celica's exclusive B skill Double Lion allows her to attack twice consecutively when initiating combat, just like a Brave Sword+, but only at full health, and she takes one point of damage afterwards. Unlike her regular self, this occupies the B slot, so she can't use Renewal to heal herself back up, and since the damage occurs ''after'' combat, skills like Sol won't heal the damage immediately. Thus, Celica requires an ally's support to heal her up if she wants to take advantage of this effect again. However, the pay off is well worth it, since because it's in her B slot, she can use a variety of different swords like the Armoursmasher+, Wo Dao+, or Firesweep Sword+ as if they were like a Brave Sword+.
** Weapons that rely on enemy placement. This includes Walhart's Wolf Berg, Brave Alm's Dracofalchion, (Legendary) Ephraim's Flame Siegmund, Legendary Eirika's Storm Sieglinde, and Edelgard's Victorious Axe where they grant the user an effect (+4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res for Walhart, +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res for Brave Alm, a follow up attack for Ephraim and Edelgard, and +3 Def/Res and special buildup +1 for Eirika) if there are more enemies than allies near the user. This encourages a more reckless playstyle, and it requires the player to keep allies away from the aforementioned unit to get the most out of the effect, usually meaning they'll be without buffs or support.
** The Tactics skills gives all allies within 2 spaces of the user +6 to a specific stat at the start of their first turn, but only if the ally does not share more than one other ally with the same movement type. Building a team with 2 or less of the same movement type each is easy; building a ''balanced'' team composition is the difficult part, with summoning specific heroes being the main problem, and especially so in Aether Raids where teams can go up to 5 units for offense and 6 for defense. Accomplish this, however, will allow team-wide buffs and easier positioning of allies for the next turn due to the wider range of the skill, compared to teams using Hone and Fortify skills as their buffing skill of choice needing to stay close together.
** Building a team with either Winter Eirika or Legendary Eliwood as their support unit. Both of them has a gimmick that they give buffs to allies with the highest Atk, ignoring the user and regardless of their position; Winter Eirika has Joyous Lantern+ and Atk Opening, which gives them +5 Def/Res and +6 Atk, respectively, while Legendary Eliwood has his Ardent Durandal and Visions of Arcadia, which gives them the Bonus Doubler status and +6 Atk/Def, respectively. Giving one or two allies with the highest Atk the buffs is easy; it's make sure that ''all of them on the same team have the same Atk'' is the difficult part, due to the effects being shared on all allies who match the same high Atk, and especially moreso on Aether Raids teams. Manipulating all the Atk of all your team sans Winter Eirika and Legendary Eliwood requires skill inheritance of Atk increasing or Atk ''decreasing'' skills and weapons, Sacred Seals for the same reason, weapon refines for the Atk versions, and even [=RNG=] with the gacha to gain the right Atk with them being an asset, flaw, or even neutral. Legendary Eliwood's Visions of Arcadia also needs a dragon or beast ally to be both on his team and be alive in order to activate, so having at least a beast or dragon unit adds to the complication if Legendary Eliwood is the focus. Do this, and you get team buffs that are not only massive, but also require no positioning limitations outside of Panic sources such as Aversa's Night and the Panic Manor in Aether Raids.
** Units using [[ExtraTurn Galeforce]] as their focus and fully charging in one turn while also eliminating enemies along the way eventually leads to this. Special building skills such as Heavy Blade and Bold Fighter makes building special charges easy if they fit the requirements, so units with both high Atk and a way to get guaranteed follow-up attacks, either through their weapons or skills or even just high Spd, are the users who would usually use Galeforce as their Special, but the main problem is that the attacker could potenially deal ''too little'' damage if they're up against {{Stone Wall}}s or {{Mighty Glacier}}s and thus don't acomplish their goal of eliminating foes, although HitAndRunTactics come into play if that happens, OneHitKill the enemy with their first attack if their Atk is ''too high'', go against enemies that reduces special buildup for their foes, such as Guard, the 2018 Halloween weapons, and Steady and Warding Stance 4, or even go against enemies that either deny your follow-up attacks or have skills that negate your guaranteed follow-up attacks, therefore they will not be able to activate Galeforce for the latter three, and even if you strike the right balance with picking and eliminating your foes, unless they got repositioning support, they might be stranded near other enemies who could potenially eliminate them on their turn. In short, players with a Galforce machine should both pick their targets carefully, as well as make sure their positioning is right when they finish their turn, and using HitAndRunTactics instead of going for the next foe.
* DifficultySpike:
** Chapter 10 is when maps begin to have varied objectives such as HoldTheLine and TimedMission, the enemies only get more powerful, and enemy reinforcements are introduced.
** The debut of Ursula's Grand Hero Battle introduces Lunatic difficulty and excludes Normal. Ursula's map is a difficulty spike in itself, as player units are placed in a severe tactical disadvantage.
** Grand Hero Battles get HarderThanHard again with the debut of Legion, who brings Infernal difficulty along with him. Legion's map is also the first instance in which a Grand Hero Battle has enemy reinforcements.
** As if Infernal wasn't enough, special maps go one step further in difficulty with [[SerialEscalation Abyssal]], introduced alongside Legendary Marth's battle and the first rerun of Legendary Robin's battle. Every enemy in an Abyssal map has immense stats and a complete skill set, including Sacred Seals.
* DiscardAndDraw:
** While many base refines upgrade the effects for weapons, some of the unique weapons that can be refined have the old effect replaced with similar or new abilities, or even evolve their weapons to gain new weapons with different effects.
** The Assassin's Bow can evolve into the Guard Bow, trading guaranteed follow-up attacks against colorless daggers users and preventing any of their follow-up attacks, for +6 Def/Res during combat if the enemy initiates combat with a ranged weapon.
** Regular Alfonse's Fólkvangr trades +5 Atk at the start of his turn if he's at 50% or less, for +7 Atk/Def during combat if he's at 80% or under at the start of battle.
** Regular Sharena's Fensalir trades inflicting -4 Atk on all enemies within 2 spaces of her at the start of her turn, to ignoring enemy stat buffs received from skills like Rally and Fortify during combat.
** Seliph's Tyrfing trades +4 Def at the start of his turn when he is at 50% HP or under, for in-built Miracle if he's at 50% HP or over before he enters combat, once per combat, and does not stack with Miracle. Seliph can also evolve his Tyrfing into the Divine Tyfing, which gives him +3 Res and reducing damage from tomes by 50% on the first hit.
** Regular Julia can evolve her Naga into the Divine Naga, trading +2 Def/Res (+4 on refine) when an enemy initiates combat with her, for ignoring enemy's field stat boosts during combat (and negate skills and weapon effects that target the user's lower defensive stat on refine). The effectiveness against dragons is the same, however.
** Regular Eliwood can evolve his Durandal into the Blazing Durandal, trading +4 Atk (+6 on refine) when he initiates combat, for +3 Atk and granting +1 special cooldown reduction when he attacks and has more Atk than the opponent. Both Brave Roy and Regular Eliwood's Blazing Durandal trades +1 special buildup if the user has more Atk than their target during combat, for when the user initiates combat, gain +1 special buildup and inflict -1 special buildup for the target. The +3 Atk is still the same, however.
** Merric can evolve his Excalibur into the Dark Excalibur, trading effectiveness against flying units (and -1 special cooldown on refinement), for +10 damage whenever an attack special triggers.
** Regular Leo's Brynhildr trades reducing enemy movement to 1 when he initiates against an enemy, for reducing damage from tomes by 30% on the first hit.
** Regular Sanaki's Cymbeline trades granting adjacent allies +4 Atk after combat she initiates, for granting +3 in-combat Atk to allies within 2 spaces of her.
** Jeorge's Parthia trades +4 Res when initiating combat, for reducing damage from tomes by 30% on the first hit.
** Zephiel's Eckesachs trades inflicting -4 Def on all enemies within 2 spaces of him at the start of his turn, for inflicting -6 Def on all enemies except dragons within 2 spaces of him at the start of his turn.
** Regular Takumi's Fujin Yumi trades being able to go through enemies while being at 50% HP or over, for ignoring terrain movement costs while being at 50% HP or over.
** Regular Hector can evolve his Armads into the Berserk Armads, trading a guaranteed follow up attack when an enemy initiates combat with him while he is at 80% HP or over, for -1 special cooldown and, when he is at 75% HP or under, gain +10 damage when he activates an attack special and +1 special cooldown reduction at the start of his turn.
** Regular Ephraim can evolve his Siegmund into the Flame Siegmund, trading granting +3 Atk (+4 on refine) to adjacent allies at the start of his turn, for +3 Atk to himself and a guaranteed follow up when the number of enemies within 2 spaces of Ephraim is greater than or equal to the amount of allies also within 2 spaces of Ephraim.
** Regular Male Corrin's Yato trades +4 Spd when initiating combat, for +2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res.
** Regular Chrom, Regular Lucina, and Masked Marth can evolve their Falchion into the Sealed Falchion, trading 10 HP restored at the start of every third turn (every second turn on refine), for +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the unit is not at 100% HP. The effectiveness against dragons is the same, however.
** Regular Linde's Aura trades healing adjacent allies for 5 HP after combat she initiates, for giving +6 Atk to adjacent tome and staff allies at the start of her turn. Linde can also evolve her Aura into the Dark Aura, which gives +6 Atk to adjacent melee allies at the start of her turn, also replacing the built-in ally healing.
** Lute's Weirding Tome trades inflicting -5 Spd to any enemies within cardinal directions of the user if they have at less Res than her at the start of her turn, to inflicting -5 Spd/Res to any enemies adjacent to another one and they have at least 3 Res lower than her at the start of her turn. The +3 Spd is still the same, however.
** Applies to several heroes who receive a new personal weapon through updates. While some of these heroes receive weapons that are merely stronger versions of their base weapons[[note]]such as Titania's Draconic Poleax being a stronger Emerald Axe+ and Lon'qu's Solitary Blade being a stronger Killing Edge+[[/note]], others trade off their base weapon for completely new ones with different effects, such as Regular Adult Tiki trading Lightning Breath+[[note]]Can counter attack at any range (and on refine targets the lower defensive stat on ranged units), but slows special cooldown by +1[[/note]] for Breath of Fog[[note]]Effective against dragons, 10 HP recovered at the start of every second turn, and targets the lower defensive stat on ranged units[[/note]], and Regular Camilla trading Brave Axe+[[note]]2 consecutive attacks on initiation, but inflicts -5 Spd[[/note]] for Camilla's Axe[[note]]grants +4 Atk/Spd during combat whenever there is a flying or cavalry unit within 2 spaces of the user[[/note]].
* DiscOneNuke:
** 4 and 5 Star units are summoned with their second strongest or strongest weapon equipped, giving them a huge Attack advantage over other units. If you get one early from a lucky Summon session, they will easily carry you through the first parts of the story. Fjorm, Eir, Legendary Ike, the Black Knight, Reinhardt, and Xander in particular are all easy to get (Fjorm as a reward for clearing the first chapter of Book II, Eir for clearing the first chapter of Book III, Ike for clearing Xenologue 3, the Black Knight if you shell out 4 bucks for the Starter Support Pack, and Reinhardt and Xander for completing Heroes' Path quests), all save Reinhardt pack unique special skills and weapons with Distant Counter built in, and Reinhardt himself has stood the test of time as one of the strongest Heroes in the game for over two years.
** The Black Knight in particular can be further enhanced by [[EliteTweak merging with another Black Knight obtained via Heroic Grails]]. For instance, if you decide to buy the Starter Support Pack for the 5 Star Black Knight, you can have access to his Alondite sword right away. You can then keep redeeming 4 Star Black Knights with the Heroic Grails, evolve them to 5 Star and feed them to your main Black Knight through the Merge Allies feature. By doing so, you can improve your Black Knight's base stats and give him SP as early as possible.
* DistractedByTheSexy: Summer Robin and Summer Ursula [[InvokedTrope purposefully]] go into battle in bikinis to distract their opponents.
* DivergentCharacterEvolution:
** There are at least five Falchion wielders in this game. Chrom, Marth, and Alm are all [[JackOfAllStats Jacks-of-All-Stats]] in their home game, while Lucina and her masked variant are {{Lightning Bruiser}}s. These traits are all carried over into this game except for Chrom, who is now more of a MightyGlacier to help differentiate himself from the others. Additionally, while he and Lucina both get access to Aether, Lucina's Aether is preceded by Luna while Chrom's Aether is preceded by Sol. An update later allowed the Falchions to be refined, with new abilities that varied depending on which Falchion it was. One is exclusive to Alm, one is exclusive to Marth, and the last is shared between Lucina, Chrom, and Masked Marth.
** Jagen and Gunter both serve the role of CrutchCharacter in their home games, and both serve the same effective role, right down to being a promoted mounted unit. To differentiate the two here however, Gunter is given an axe (even though usually his Lance rank is his highest weapon rank) and is more physically defensive, while Jagen keeps his lance proficiency but becomes more magically defensive (even though his defense in his home game was higher than his resistance).
** Within ''Heroes'' itself, Sanaki and Lilina are both SquishyWizard GlassCannon red mages with really high Atk, but didn't really play that differently from each other at first. They became divergent once Lilina received the Forblaze weapon and Sanaki's Cymbeline could be refined. Sanaki's refined Cymbeline gives +3 Atk to any nearby ally, while also granting Sanaki an Atk and Res boost if she's near a flier ally, making her more of a team player, while also favoring a mixed team composition. Lilina's Forblaze on the other hand debuffs the foe with the highest Res with a vicious -7 Res buff, and if she initiates combat, she gets +6 Atk. Basically, Sanaki becomes more of a supportive unit, while also still maintaining high Atk and Res, while Lilina becomes even more of a self reliant one-shot nuke unit, making the two red mages now play a bit differently.
** A few characters are changed from their home games due to being nearly the same as another character in their home game that made it into ''Heroes''. For example, Eldigan and Ares back in their home game were more or less the same in terms of stats and weapon, so when they were added into ''Heroes'', they were given different roles to fill in combat. While both have stats reflecting a MightyGlacier, Eldigan has Fury in his natural skillset and can have it built into his Mystletainn, boosting his stats greatly at the cost of big recoil damage, making him a GlassCannon who can take advantage of player phase skills like Desperation and Brash Assault. Ares on the other hand, wields the Dark Mystletainn, which grants him a special cooldown reduction of 2 if he activates his Special before or during combat, allowing him to basically spam his Specials even more. This effect pairs well with Vantage and his natural Brazen Atk/Def, favouring more of an enemy phase playstyle this way.
** The Black Knight and Zelgius are the same person, come with the Special [[ArmorPiercingAttack Black Luna]], and have the [[LightningBruiser same general stats]], but their base stats and base kit differ--if only slightly. Zelgius has more Atk, and to complement this, his A skill Fierce Stance grants him more Atk when an enemy initiates combat with him. He has also has a unique B skill in Warp Powder, aiding in his mobility by allowing him to warp to a space adjacent to allies that are two spaces away at most, as long as he's healthy enough. The Black Knight on the other hand, has slightly higher HP and Spd, and he comes with Steady Stance as his A skill instead, which grants him more Def when an enemy initiates combat with him. His B skill, while not unique, is also a mobility assisting skill in Wings of Mercy; it instead only works when at least one of his allies is injured enough, but it does not have a range restriction like Warp Powder.
** Both [[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Byleths]] have the same weapon and special, and have roughly similar stat spreads, but their kit and where there stats are distributed are different in ways that make them different in usage. Male Byleth has a bit more Attack and Defense, Distant Counter, Chill Speed, and Odd Speed Wave, while Female Byleth has a bit more Speed and Resistance, Fury 4, Wrath, and Even Attack Wave. Male Byleth is more of a LightningBruiser mixed phase unit who is more durable, while Female Byleth is a GlassCannon who deals high damage but takes large recoil damage, putting her into range of Wrath to allow her to throw out her Rupture Sky more often.
* TheDividual: Duo Heroes are two heroes in one that are not only stonger, but also score higher in Arena modes and have special abilities that they can only activate once outside of Aether Raids, such as Duo Halloween Hector & Lilina dealing 20 damage to all enemies within 3 columns where the unit is in the center one. The downside is that they cannot be paired up with Legendary Hereos with the Pair Up blessing.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: The Forging Bonds event "The Orb Case". It starts off as a detective case as to who took the Orbs, then it gets another meaning in the end: [[spoiler:Anna was crafting a case to hold the Orbs]].
* DoubleUnlock: Once you put inherited skills onto your desired hero, they still need to be learned, and that costs 1.5x the usual SP.
* DragonsAreDivine: Besides the playable divine dragons, Askr, Embla, Nifl, and Múspell are known dragons in ''Heroes'' and are worshiped by their royalty.
* DramaticIrony: Oh boy. Pick a character who is [[DoomedByCanon fated to die in their game.]] Watch them talk casually without knowing the approaching doom and you as the player being the only one who knew. Especially those from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'', and ''especially'' Tailtiu, who's still at her GenkiGirl phase, and all of her dialogues do not refer on how in the future she will be utterly [[BreakTheCutie broken to hell]] and then [[DeathByDespair dies in sorrow and depression.]]
* DreamsVsNightmares: The central story of Book IV, that sees the Order of Heroes in a DreamLand being antagonized by entities that give mortals literal nightmares.
* {{Dualvertisement}}:
** In mid-2017, ''Heroes'' saw tie-in banners related to the release of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia]]''.
*** April 14th, 2017 the "World of Shadows" banner debuted, featuring Alm, Clair, Lukas, and Faye, ahead of the Japanese release of ''Echoes'' on April 20th.
*** Following that was the "Rite of Shadows" banner featuring Celica, Boey, Mae, and Genny on May 15, which was before the North American and European releases of ''Echoes'' on May 19th.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' has several tie-in events in ''Heroes'' before and after its worldwide release on July 26, 2019.
*** On July 22, the first ''Three Houses'' banner debuted, featuring female Byleth, Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude.
*** On July 29, 2019 (through to June 2020), purchasing ''Three Houses'' on the Switch tied to the same Nintendo account as ''Heroes'' will give the player a free male Byleth.
*** On July 31, Sothis was released as a Mythic from ''Three Houses'', with the banner allowing players to also get a male Byleth outside of purchasing ''Three Houses''.
*** On August 3, the antagonist Kronya was made available in a Grand Hero Battle.
*** On August 7, the second ''Three Houses'' Banner "Changing Winds" debuted with Hilda, Hubert, Mercedes, and Petra.
*** On August 12, the Death Knight was featured in a Grand Hero Battle.
* DualWielding: While some heroes wield two weapons in their art, Altina is currently the only hero who actually dual wields in gameplay. She wields both Ragnell and Alondite, allowing her a double attack as if she's wielding a brave weapon.
* DubNameChange:
** Fjorm's elder sister is known as "Slidr" in the Japanese version of the game; in other languages, she is named "Gunnthrá."
** Alfonse's younger sister goes from "Sharon" in the Japanese version to "Sharena."
** The Summoner's default name in the Japanese version goes from "Eclat" to "Kiran".
** Osian's exclusive axe in the Japanese version goes from "Puji/Pugi" to "Vouge".
* DummiedOut:
** [[https://germainetrain.tumblr.com/post/156734133667/i-found-some-christmas-variants-for-tharja-and Artwork for Christmas-themed Tharja and Male Robin]] were found in the internal files upon the game's release in Feburary, indicating the game might have been intended to come out before Christmas with the intent for a seasonal event, but was pushed back. They were released for real during the 2017 Christmas season, however.
** The staff units all have four Special activation quotes like the other characters, but they can't use any offensive Specials, even through Skill Inheritance. Thus, the only ways a player can hear these quotes is through data mining or when the player starts a level, and the latter method only uses one of them. This was later averted when the Catalogue of Heroes was added, since it allows players to hear their special quotes, although they still can't be heard during regular gameplay. Tap Battle also averts this, as you can hear their skill quotes when they attack like everyone else.
** Unplayable characters who don't have offensive in-battle Specials have activation quotes that cannot be heard without datamining. As of the Brave Redux banner, Bruno is the only character affected by this; he only ever wields Growing Thunder, an out-of-battle area-of-effect Special that never triggers a Special quote.
** Breath units have [[http://imaginal.tumblr.com/post/172542113451 animation]] and [[https://imgur.com/a/6laL9#oW0Ww7L textures]] for being damaged outside of their dragon forms, but as they are always transformed in battle and in the Catalogue of Heroes, it cannot be viewed outside of datamining or hacking. The animations were eventually used for Tap Battle, where they do not transform. The Summoner also has an animation for taking damage, despite never appearing as a unit outside of Summoner Support, where their attack animations are used alongside the unit they're supporting.
** Presently non-playable units Bruno and Veronica have voice lines for being selected at the start of the player's turn, and a laugh file for being tapped on in the Home castle.
** For some reason, the Askran trio, Emblian royals, and several significant Heroes have voice lines reciting the titles of the ''Fire Emblem'' series. These lines appear nowhere in-game and can only be heard via datamining.
** Wings of Fate Hinoka has a unique animation where she does a loop-the-loop and then fires off an arrow. This is meant to be triggered if Hinoka attacks twice in a row, however it remains unseen in gameplay, and can be legitimately viewed in the Catalogue of Heroes. This turned out to be a bug, and was patched in version 2.5.0.
** Alfonse has texture and model data for [[https://imgur.com/a/6laL9#3lZ93ak carrying his shield]], similar to Sharena, but it is unloaded and cannot be seen in-game without modding.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:E]]
* EarlyBirdCameo:
** Faye, a character added to the remake of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden Gaiden]]'', was part of the ''Echoes''-themed summoning focus released April 14th, 2017, nearly a week before the remake's release in Japan, and over a month for the rest of the world. Heroes is also the first game to feature the new designs for Clair, Alm, and Lukas.
** The ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Three Houses]]'' hero banner featuring Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude and female Byleth was released on July 22nd, four days before the game's release date.
** Kronya, the GHB character from the same banner, also earned a cameo in the game before she was officially released. She was the boss from the 100th floor of the Three Houses Tap Battle that was released on July 28, a week before her GHB's release on August 3.
* EarlyGameHell: Because the game averts HealerSignsOnEarly, unlucky players could go for a long time without a healer. Additionally, in version 2.4.0 and earlier, all of the characters you started with were only 2-stars, which made them rather limited and weak compared to a summoned Hero, who are always 3-star rank at minimum.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** Prior to an update, ''stamina'' was required to equip skills on Heroes.
** Some of the units that have been available since launch have rather bizarre kits that don't make sense, like [[GlassCannon Hana]] with Obstruct or [[BladeOnAStick Oboro]] with Threaten Resistance.
** Certain story maps at launch, such as Chapter 7-3: Baffling Labyrinth and Chapter 6-5: Prince of Birthright, were part of the rotation for the Training Tower, but were later removed due to them being gimmicky, tedious, or frustrating to train in, especially before swapping unit positions before battle was added at a later update.
** The 8 Heroes featured on the first ever focus banners were given special summoning movies (Marth, Young Tiki, Robin, Lucina, Camilla, Roy, Takumi, and Lyn) and were shown on the downloading screen alongside the Askr trio. As of the 2.5.0 update, they were replaced on the downloading screen, and as their focus banners are out of rotation, new players may wonder why only those characters got special animations.
** In battle animations, units used to flinch even if they took no damage upon being attacked. It also took a while before the game had a "no damage" sound.
** The light tomes Naga and Divine Naga were classified as green tomes when they were introduced, since light magic wasn't in the game yet. When regular light magic was added to the game as blue tomes, the Naga tomes stood out as the only light tomes that are green instead of blue. This results in the Naga tomes being weak against Loptous, a red tome, even though Naga was strong against Loptous in ''Genealogy of the Holy War''. Legendary Julia remedies this as she is a blue mage, making her a hard counter against Julius and his Loptous, like in the original game.
** Many of the monthly quests early on in the game's life required all of them to be completed before the next difficulty line would unlock, which also did not count the previous ones which fitted the matching quest beforehand. Some quests also required using a specific unit, some from the matching banner at the time, which required summoning them from the gacha in the first place to be able to complete it, and with some of them being used in a specific story chapter as well. These quests were all but completely phased out in May 2017--quest difficulty still lives on in the occasional set of Arena quests.
** Grand Hero Battles released just after launch only had Normal and Hard difficulties--until Ursula's debut, which introduced Lunatic difficulty to Grand Hero Battles, and phased Normal out. Grand Hero Battles up until and including Camus' (but excluding Narcian's) also had their own focus banners with units who can counter a lot of the enemies within the respective maps.
** Michalis's Grand Hero Battle map has Pegasus Knights as his {{Mooks}} instead of Wyvern Riders, which weren't introduced until Version 2.0.0.
** Initially, Staff units only had one passive skill by default, with the tier 3 skills only being available at 5 stars. Starting with Nanna in 2018, any new Staff units added to the game come with two passive skills, with a tier 3 skill available at 4 stars.
** Many weapons released before 2.0.0 did not have unique effects or gain more powerful ones like the ones released afterwards, but have access to them through refinements. The only exceptions to this are the Poison Dagger+ and Kitty Paddle+, where they did not gain the Smoke-like debuff effect, as well as the Might increases like other daggers gain, due to these two weapons not having access to any refinements at all.
** In the Training Tower, Tempest Trials and sometimes in Hero Battles, enemy heroes will use weapons they had at their release and not update their loadout like they do in Rival Domains and Forging Bonds. For example, Clair gained her Rhomphaia in May 2018, but she is still seen with a Silver Lance+ in Training Tower and Tempest Trials, and Navarre gained his Scarlet Sword in December 2018, but is still seen with the Killing/Slaying Edge+ in his Grand Hero Battle.
** The banner for the first Bound Hero Battle doesn't have either of the Bound Heroes[[note]]Alm and Celica[[/note]] as focus units. Bound Hero Battle banners since then would typically include the Bound Heroes in addition to a third hero who has a connection to the Bound Heroes.
** Legendary Female Robin introduced Legendary Hero Battles, featuring the newly introduced Legendary Hero in question in an incredibly difficult map that yields some good rewards. However, the four Legendary Heroes that preceded her (Fjorm, Gunnthra, Ike, and Ephraim) didn't have such maps, and even when they returned on other banners, they still have not had any, making them stand out. Additionally, it wasn't until every Legendary Hero afterwards (starting from Lyn and onwards) that the maps used special boss music, whereas Robin just had the generic boss music.
** Some heroes were allowed to evolve their weapons into other ones in Weapon Refinements, such as Regular Hector evolving his Armads into Berserk Armads wielded by his Valentine variant and Regular Eliwood evolving his Durandal into Blazing Durandal wielded by the Brave variant of his son Roy, but after Eldigan received an option to evolve his Mystletainn into Dark Mystletainn in 2.7.0 in August 2018, no other heroes since gained any option for evolving their weapons since then, even when later variants of heroes gained new exclusive weapons, such as Legendary Eirika's Storm Sieglinde not being available for her regular variant, even though her brother Ephiraim can gain his Legendary variant's Flame Siegmund.
** Before Book III, summoning banners didn't really follow any rules on what they would include with their events. Some would have a Tempest Trials while some would have a Grand Hero Battle (or sometimes, even both). Then come the Forging Bonds event, where random Story Chapters and Paralogue heroes would get Forging Bonds featured with them - but not every Story Chapter got bundled with one. Cue Book III, which started a formula where all Story Chapters with new units would come with four summonable units (and with the start of Book III Chapter 11, an extra 3-4 Star Hero) and a Grand Hero Battle, while the Paralogue chapters would have a Tempest Trials featured with them. There have been strange exceptions since, where Book IV Chapter 2 broke the rule a bit, as since Peony was featured on the banner, the 3-4 Star Hero, Tanya, was featured in the Forging Bonds instead. Also, the "Guardians of Peace" banner was only a Tempest Trials featured banner, as the Paralogue that was bundled with it was completely different.
* EdibleAmmunition:
** Ylissean Summer Gaius has a bow that shoots arrows tipped with popsicles instead of arrowheads.
** Happy New Year! Takumi throws mochi at his foes.
** Hares at the Fair Kagero throws carrots like daggers.
** Summer Noire wields a bow that shoots arrows tipped with coconuts.
* EdibleBludgeon: Spring Xander uses a giant carrot for a lance, while Summer Adult Tiki uses a watermelon on the end of a stick as an axe.
* {{Egopolis}}:
** Askr, Embla, Nifl and Múspell are named after the dragons that rule over their kingdom.
** Like in Myth/NorseMythology, Hel is named after its ruler.
* ElementalPowers:
** The elemental blessings which follow the FourElementEnsemble give users who equip them stat boosts, with the condition being that they have to be on the same team as the matching legendary heroes with that element, and, outside of Blessed Gardens, have the matching elemental season on.
** Some offensive Specials provide a percentage of a certain defensive stat as damage. The fire themed Bonfire and Ignis adding damage based off of Def, and the ice themed Iceberg and Glacies adding damage based off of Res.
** Some skills follow the FourElementEnsemble, as they focus on a specific stat to boost. For example, there are the X Boost A-skills, of which there are four; Fire Boost raises its user's Atk, Earth Boost raises its user's Def, Wind Boost raises its user's Spd, and Water Boost raises its user's Res.
** Thunder, Fire, Wind, and Light are used for the AOE specials as they follow a specific shape when they activate.
** Book III introduces four new elements for the seasons and Mythic Heroes: Light, Dark, Astra, and Anima.
* EliteTweak: Done through Skill Inheritance, which allows you to select up to four passive skills from one unit (or that unit's Combat Manual) and give them to another unit, at the cost of the skill supplier permanently leaving the barracks (or inventory). There are class-based restrictions on what skills a unit can inherit, but what they can receive from the selection can change any unit from "good" to "amazing".
* TheEmpire: The January 2020 Voting Gauntlet focuses on [[TheGoodKingdom Kingdoms]] vs. Empires, with Hardin representing the Holy Empire of Archanea, Brave Veronica representing the Emblian Empire, Edelgard representing the Adrestian Empire, and Walhart representing the Valm Empire.
* EnemyMine: Due to the vast array of characters you can summon, some of them will be enemies in their home games yet allies in your army. Some particularly stand-out examples include [[YouKilledMyFather Ike and the Black Knight]], [[CainAndAbel Minerva and Michalis]], Sigurd and Arvis or Hector and Zephiel (Sigurd and Hector are fighting alongside ''their own murderers''), Eirika and Valter (Eirika fighting alongside someone who has a nasty lust over her), and Fallen Takumi and any Nohrian (a zombified killing machine fueled by FantasticRacism and the people he hates). The Support system means you can even [[DatingCatwoman pair them up]].
* EquipmentUpgrade:
** You can upgrade Sacred Seals at the Sacred Seal Forge by using Sacred Coins and Badges.
** At the Weapon Refinery, you can upgrade your units' weapons to give them increased stats or extra effects. Regular weapons[[note]]those with '+' at the ends of their names, such as Dancer's Fan+ and Slaying Lance+[[/note]] can be upgraded using Arena Medals and Refining Stones, while Special weapons[[note]]weapons that can only be equipped by their original units, such as Sieglinde and Aura[[/note]] can be upgraded using Arena Medals and Divine Dew.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Laegjarn may lead an army out to raze other lands to the ground, but she treats captured people humanely and shows mercy to anyone who surrenders.
* ExcusePlot:
** The "contracts" that insert enemy heroes that aren't Xander or any of the original characters are these. Initially, Veronica invaded numerous kingdoms, but it starts making less sense once Veronica is [[spoiler:betrayed by Surtr]] and makes even less sense when Brave Veronica herself mentions about being trapped in a contract. It makes less sense than that when Story Veronica forms [[EnemyMine a temporary alliance with Askr and the Order of Heroes]], facing contracted troops under "Lif" [[spoiler:ironically an alternate self of the heroes]].
** The side event "Lost Lore" begins after an incident in the Askran castle library in which cleaning solution got onto the pages that talked about the Heroes' lore and wiped it clean.
* ExperienceBooster:
** Upgrading your castle will boost EXP earned up to a maximum of 100%.
** Occasionally, there are events that boost EXP and/or SP gained by x1.5 or x2. SP gain is regularly doubled on Fridays and Saturdays.
** "[Weapon] Exp." skills increase the experience earned for users of that weapon should they survive fighting an enemy.
** "[Weapon] Valor" skills boost the SP earned for users of that weapon as long as the skill's user is alive.
** The Elemental Blessings provide a permanent double SP gain to the user.
* ExposedToTheElements: Winter's Envoy Tharja wears only a bikini, boots, and cape, but she's just as unaffected by the snow as everyone else is.
* {{Expy}}: The beast units added in chapter 3 follow the same movement archetypes as regular units, making them still their own summon option, but functionally like regular units. Which race the beast unit is so far the indicator of their class role and general stat functions.
** Herons are flying dancers.
** Hawks and Ravens are fliers.
** Cat Laguz, Taguel, and Kitsune are cavaliers.
** Tiger Laguz, Wolf Laguz, and Wolfskin are infantry units.
** Lion Laguz are armored units.
* ExtraTurn:
** Units with Dance or Sing can allow allies who have already acted to take another action. However, this does not work on allies who also have Dance or Sing. The Dancer's Veil item in Arena Assault allows a random unit to move again when used, including units with Dance or Sing.
** Legendary Lucina has Future Vision, which allows her to act again on the same turn, on top of swapping positions with an ally.
** Galeforce allows the unit to act again if they initiated the attack, but it only works once per turn, and is restricted to physical melee units (sword, lance, axe, and beast weapon users).
** Legendary Leif has Njörun's Zeal, which allows him to act again if he initiates combat, but it only works once per turn and both Leif and his Pair Up ally can only move one space.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:F]]
* FacelessGoons: Most generic mooks have headwear that either obscures their eyes or completely cover their heads. While Thieves have visible eyes, their masks block the rest of their faces.
* FakeTrap: In addition to Bolt and Heavy Traps in Aether Raids that the players can build for their defense, there are also fake ones available to build, allowing mindgames for the attacking team to second guess their positioning when going on the traps.
* FallenHero:
** February 2018's Fallen Heroes banner is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what you think it is]], as it focuses on otherwise heroic characters who are possessed/corrupted into being villainous. Said banner featured Hardin (from the influence of the Darksphere, an ArtifactOfDoom), Celica (from being sacrificed to Duma and turning into a Witch), and Male Robin (from being used as a SoulJar for the Fell Dragon Grima), with an accompanying Grand Hero Battle for Takumi (from MoreThanMindControl and his corpse being fully possessed by the Silent Dragon Anankos). Legendary Robin would be released roughly one month later, also being possessed by Grima like Male Robin before her.
** May 2019's Darkness Within banner is another banner following this trope, as it focuses on heroic characters (and one not-so-heroic) who become corrupted into becoming antagonistic. Said banner includes Mareeta (under the influence of the Shadow Sword), Berkut (already a villain, but fell off the slippery slope when he sacrificed his love to Duma for more power), Female Corrin (losing herself in rage after losing her mother), and Young Tiki (who is undergoing a nightmare from the influence of Gharnef), with a Grand Hero Battle for Delthea (being mind controlled by Tatarrah).
* {{Fanservice}}:
** The concept of crossing over ''Fire Emblem'''s LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters (and those not yet released to the West) with ''voice acting'', is fanservice by itself.
** Special Heroes banners are undoubtedly an example of fanservice, all of which include (but are certainly not limited to) bridal units, units in [[PlayboyBunny bunny suits]], and units in swimwear.
** The Hero Fest banners, all of which have consisted of very valuable units with all-around useful skill sets, as well as an increased chance of pulling said units. The third Hero Fest banner[[note]]consisting of Nephenee, Brave Ike, Brave Lyn, and Sigurd[[/note]] is even available to new players until a week after they start the game.
* FashionableAsymmetry: Summer Innes wears swim trunks that are longer on one leg.
* FeatherMotif: The OriginalGeneration characters are all adorned with feathers ([[GoodColorsEvilColors white for the Askr and Nifl characters, and black for Embla and Múspell]]).
* FinalDeath:
** {{Averted|Trope}}, unlike other ''Fire Emblem'' games; characters who are defeated return at the end of the battle. Instead, the penalty is the loss of any experience and SP they accrued for that battle (which was removed in update 2.5.0, where the punishment is now no Hero Merit gained). Losing units is also discouraged in Arena Duels, where your score for winning drops with each fallen hero. In-game, it's noted that a defeated character is simply re-summoned should they fall, although their death is, of course, painful.
** The Tempest Trials and Chain Challenges don't feature true FinalDeath, but any units that are defeated will be unusable for the rest of the maps.
* TheFinalTemptation: Paralogue 27, "Adrift" has Loki offering child Azura access to her ideal world based on her dream of having a loving family. [[DealWithTheDevil All she has to do is listen to an offer of hers.]]
* FireballEyeballs: Or eyeball in this case: The Røkkr Remnant accessories give any unit an appearance of a flaming eyeball, with a different color for every weapon type, which can be given as a reward in Røkkr Sieges. Obtaining these accessories, however, is easier said than done.
* FireForgedFriends: The "Rejecting Destiny" Forging Bonds event establishes the Choose Your Legends 2018 group of Brave Celica, Brave Veronica, Brave Ephraim, and Brave Hector as a close-knit party. Having been pulled from different worlds, the four banded together when Veronica was threatened and fought many battles together since. Through their support conversations it can be seen that they hold each other in high regard and would defend each other through thick and thin.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: The PlayerCharacter is established to have been pulled from the modern day real world into the medieval-esque ''Fire Emblem'' universe against their will. Some of the other characters ask the player about their homeworld, and find the concepts of "buildings that scrape the sky" and "metallic non-horse-drawn wagons" to be amusing.
* FixedDamageAttack:
** Poison Strike, the Pain staff, and the Deathly Dagger all inflict a set amount of damage after combat. Poison Strike can inflict 5, 7, or 10 damage (depending on the skill's level) when the user initiates combat, the Deathly Dagger does the same thing as Poison Strike but is fixed at 7 damage (10 with a refinement), and Pain always inflicts 10 damage if its user participates in any combat and they attack. The upgraded Pain+ inflicts 10 damage to enemies within 2 spaces of the target as well. However, the fixed damage from Poison Strike and the aforementioned weapons cannot kill the target, nor can the SplashDamage dealt by Pain+.
** Blue Flame boosts the damage its user deals by 10 when it activates, but boosts by 25 instead if its user has an ally adjacent to them.
* FlavorText: On the Home screen, various units the player has summoned will be standing around and can be interacted with, and each gives a few lines about their past, their homeland, or an indication of their deep feelings about something. None of it is referenced at any point in gameplay, and it has no effect other than fleshing out character personalities.
* FluffyTamer: Cherche's bio mentions that she finds her wyvern, Minerva (not to be confused with the character from ''Mystery of the Emblem''), to be adorable.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** In the ''Detached Princess'' Xenologue, Veronica expresses confusion about the idea of unbreakable family love, particularly that between siblings. At the end, she gets a visit from [[spoiler:the Mysterious Man]], and clearly cares more about him than anyone else she interacts with. [[spoiler:As it turns out, he's her brother]].
** In the Aether Raids intro, Alfonse name drops Líf, the first king of Askr. Guess who shows up as one of the antagonists of Book III? [[spoiler:Though it's not the actual Líf himself, but an alternate Alfonse.]]
** The Adrift Paralogue in November 2018 as a whole was foreshadowing the theme of Book IV, that being dreams and nightmares.
* FourElementEnsemble: Skills, healing specials, blessings, and legendary hero affinities fall into this, with skills and specials applying a certain stat focus depending on which element they are. Fire is associated with Atk, Wind is with Spd, Earth is Def, and Water is Res; however, Legendary Hero boosts don't strictly follow this pattern.
* FurBikini: Tharja's Winter's Envoy outfit is a red bikini with white fur trimming and a matching cape.
* FutureBadass: Besides Lucina (as usual), the Love Abounds event sees Eliwood and Hector fighting alongside their children Roy and Lilina. Eliwood is also an inversion, as he was frail and sickly in Roy's era, yet Roy finally gets to see him in his prime.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:G-H]]
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: The inability for dancers and singers to rejuvenate each other becomes a plot point in Phina's Forging Bonds event.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
** When clearing story chapters, Alfonse, Sharena and Anna will often make comments as though they participated in the battle, even when an entirely different team of characters was used to complete the chapter.
** In Chapter 6-5, you face Ryoma in a way that mirrors the one-on-one duel from Chapter 25 of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Conquest''. Sharena mentions breaking down the wall to get your isolated unit out of danger, even if all you did was run up and smack Ryoma twice with his "opponent" before he had a chance to do much of anything.
** The Falchion, the Binding Blade, Durandal, Armads, Forblaze, and Sol Katti were crafted to kill dragons. The Falchion is the only one of the list that has a gameplay effect related to this, and even then it only does effective damage against Manaketes and not dragons of any other category (e.g. Minerva's wyvern mount or Male Corrin's dragon heritage). Similarly, Fae cannot deal effective damage to manaketes despite being a Divine Dragon. The Binding Blade can't deal effective damage against dragons until it receives a Refinery upgrade.
** The mooks you face in the game are from Embla under the service of Veronica. While for the most part you are fighting Heroes who are fighting for her by a contract, some events like Spring Festival have the Heroes fighting of their own volition with the Emblian soldiers just being with them for no reason. Later Paralogues rectify this somewhat by giving said mooks appropriate accessories and {{Nerf Arm}}s, implying that they are also there to enjoy the festivities.
** In their attacking, injured and using a Special artwork, Heroes will always be shown holding and wielding specific weapons (e.g. male Corrin with the Yato), even if they have another weapon equipped.
** In Book II Chapter 3, Gunnthrá expresses a desire to meet you in person for the first time, despite the possibility of you having already summoned her from a Legendary Heroes banner.
** The Forging Bond stories assume the Summoner has every available hero summoned.
* GenderedOutfit: Played with for the Morgans of ''Awakening''. While male Morgan wears the standard pants-full Tactician outfit and female Morgan wears a dress, her outfit is a mix of the Tactician's and ''Awakening'''s Dark Flier's, of which her move/weapon type combination is inspired by.
* GeoEffects: Defensive tiles boost the Defense and Resistance of a unit standing on them by 30%.
* GoldenSnitch: While doing well in the earlier rounds of Grand Conquests can give the team an advantage, what ultimately matters when it comes to scoring is how many areas a team has when the final round ends. An update later downplayed this by also scoring teams based on how many areas they have at the end of each round. While the final round still provides the largest score, the other rounds combined can outnumber the final score, encouraging teams to do well in all of the rounds.
* TheGoodKingdom: The January 2020 Voting Gauntlet focuses on Kingdoms vs. [[TheEmpire Empires]], with Winter Marth representing the Kingdom of Altea, New Year's Alfonse representing the Askran Kingdom, Dimitri representing the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and Branded King Chrom representing the Halidom of Ylisse.
* GradualRegeneration:
** Renewal restores 10 HP to its user every fourth, third, or second turn, depending on the rank.
** The Falchion grants a built-in Renewal 2, which activates every third turn. Any weapon refinements to the Falchion grants it Renewal 3 instead. The same goes for Breath of Fog, which has Renewal 3 built in.
** The Recover Ring, Arvis' exclusive skill, heals 10 HP every turn.
** The Healing Tower in Aether Raids recovers 10/15/20 HP (depending on its level) to all ally units within 3 spaces of it.
** The Ovoid Staff heals 7 HP to its wielder and adjacent allies at the start of their turn.
* GuestStarPartyMember:
** During battles in the Voting Gauntlets, you can temporarily control characters belonging to players supporting the same army as you, especially if you are friends with them.
** Rival Domains and Grand Conquests also allow you to control your friends' units, though only if the player picks them. The player can also get free 5 star versions of generic units if they don't have enough units for reinforcements, though they cannot be used outside of these modes.
** In Tactics Drills, you are given a preset group of units to fight with.
** In Hall of Forms, you are given 4 preset heroes from the same game, and while they cannot be added to your barracks, they can gain levels and skills in the limited time they are available in.
* GuideDangIt: Trying to figure out your unit's Assets and Flaws can be a lot more difficult than it needs to be. The game itself gives no hints other than the starting stats of your unit, meaning you will have to look up on other sites what the unit's neutral stats are to find the stat that is higher than normal, as well as the stat that is lower than normal. No longer an issue as of 3.2.0, which gives you the option to display your unit's Asset and Flaw.
* GuysSmashGirlsShoot:
** Male Corrin uses his CoolSword, while Female Corrin transforms into a dragon and uses her BreathWeapon.
** The Spring Festival characters: Chrom and Xander wield an axe and a lance respectively, while Lucina and Camilla cast spells with [[NerfArm magic Easter eggs]].
** Inverted with the Ylissean Summer characters. The ladies, Robin and Tiki, wield a lance and axe respectively, while the guys, Frederick and Gaius, fight with [[ImprobableWeaponUser tossed seashells]] and a bow and [[EdibleAmmunition popsicle arrows]], respectively.
** In World of Holy War, the sword-wielding Sigurd accompanies the mages Deirdre and Tailtiu.
** The New Year's units invert this as well, with Takumi and Corrin using ranged weapons and Camilla and Azura being flying melee units.
** Hares at the Fair sees Catria and Sharena using magic eggs and Kagero throwing [[ProducePelting carrot daggers]] while Alfonse wields an oversized spoon holding an egg as an axe.
** World of Thracia has Leif and Reinhardt fighting up close with their personal swords, while Nanna and Olwen attack from afar with a staff and a green tome, respectively.
** Bridal Bloom sees the ladies using magic bouquets while Marth uses a cake knife like an axe.
** Nohrian Dusk features the lance-wielding Silas among the blue tome-wielding Ophelia, red dagger-wielding Flora, and colorless bow-wielding Nina.
** Fire and Ice has the blue dagger infantry Ylgr and the axe armor Surtr.
** Book III's villain pair has Líf as the swordsman and Thrasir as the green tome witch.
** The Hostile Springs has Ryoma uses a hot spring curtain on a stick as a lance, while Sakura uses a back scratcher as a staff, and Elise, Hinoka, and Camilla use rubber duckies, bath buckets and pouches as throwing daggers, respectively.
** Played with regarding Greil's Devotion: Ike and Greil use a sword and an axe respectively, while Mist, Titania, and a {{bishonen}} Soren are tome users.
* HalloweenEpisode:
** Named [[YouMeanXmas "the harvest festival"]], IS releases Halloween seasonal banners nearing its date, with characters in their HolidayMode.
** 2017's "Trick or Defeat!" features Henry as a vampire, Nowi as a witch, Jakob as Frankenstein's Monster, and Sakura as a nekomata. This banner is notable for introducing the first ranged armored units in the game.
** 2018's "The Land's Bounty" features Myrrh as a vampire, Mia as a witch, Kagero as a Maid, and Niles as a devil, with Dorcas as a Minotaur and a Tempest Trials+ reward unit. The paralogue accompanying this banner is notable in that its mooks are in their HolidayMode as well. Like the mooks in the Sketchy Summer paralogue, the Land's Bounty mooks wear accessories (the bat ears and devil horns) and wield weapons (Monstrous Bow and Kitty Paddle) for the occasion.
** 2019's "A Monstrous Harvest" features L'Arachel as a mad scientist, Dozla as Frankenstein's Monster, Rolf as a ghost, Ilyana as a witch, old Hector as a wizard, and young Lilina as a cat, the latter two counted as one hero. This banner is notable that it introduces the Duo Hero into the game.
* HardModePerks:
** Playing the Arena and the Tempest Trials on higher difficulties will earn you more points. The extra points make it possible to get a higher rank in Arena (and thus better prizes), while Tempest Trials rewards become easier and faster to get.
** Playing the highest Infernal difficulty in Grand Conquests will have enemies take actions after they warp to camps and forts, but provides the largest potential score of 2000 per stamina, as opposed to 1480 on the lower Infernal one.
** Playing one the Lunatic difficulty of Røkkr Sieges has the Røkkr have higher stats and stronger Umbra specials, as well as up to 4 generic enemies be on the map instead of 2 on the lower difficulties, but the generic enemies provide +0.4 to the damage multiplier per stamina used instead of just +0.1 when attacking the Røkkr and defeating generic enemies on Normal, and just +0.2 for defeating generic enemies on Intermediate, as well as increasing the score cap to 25000 per stamina instead of just 15000 for Normal and 20000 on Intermediate.
* HarderThanHard:
** The difficulty scale for most missions copies the format from ''Awakening'' and ''Fates'': Normal, Hard, and Lunatic - the latter being the hardest, sporting units maxed out (or sometimes [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard impossibly high]]) stats and incredibly powerful skillsets.
** Legion's Grand Hero Battle introduced an [[UpToEleven even harder]] difficulty level: Infernal, which adds an enemy and changes the enemy layout to stop strategies that work on lower difficulties, and increases the enemy stats even further. On some Infernal difficulty maps (mostly Legendary Hero Battles, but some Bound Hero Battles as well), enemies have refined weapons to boost their stats even further and sometimes even give them extra abilities.
** Legendary Marth's battle introduced an even ''harder'' difficulty level in Abyssal, which follows the same mold of Infernal but cranks the enemy stats to the absolute maximum, and most enemies are also equipped with Sacred Seals to fully complete their devilish skillsets.
** In Røkkr Sieges, going on higher difficulties will increase the levels and stats of all the enemies, as well as increase the damage the Umbra specials deal when they activate, but will also increase the damage base multiplier for players to gain more score.
* HateSink: As Book II goes on, it becomes clear that Surtr is designed to be this. Anything that comes out of his mouth is more or less how much he loves the sight of people burning, suffering and [[HopeCrusher despairing]], and he'll do everything to make those happen for his own amusement and then rub the salt in his victims' wounds. He comes off as an [[InvincibleVillain invincible]] GenericDoomsdayVillain as he's NighInvulnerable and has very little depth compared to other villains in the franchise. He also kills [[spoiler:Gunnthrá in cold blood in front of her sister. Finally, just as the heroes think they've killed him for good, he instantly comes BackFromTheDead, rendering their efforts thus far futile, taunts them even further, and is given more time to rile up the players by doing more evil acts up until his death at the end of Book II.]]
* HeadSwap: In the 2017 Bridal event, Caeda, Charlotte, Cordelia, and Lyn wear ornately decorated wedding dresses. There are some colour and accessory differences, but the dresses are very similarly designed, and it's very notable in their chibi sprites.
* HealerSignsOnEarly: Averted, none of the characters players start with[[note]]Anna, Alfonse, Sharena, Raigh, Matthew, Virion, and Takumi (after the 2.5.0 update)[[/note]] can heal, and the random nature of the summons means players aren't guaranteed to get one through summoning either. It wasn't until the game's sixth day that a healer, Lissa, was guaranteed to be obtainable as a reward for the daily special maps. What makes this all the more noticeable is that the main cast is a trio representing the three melee types and the automatic summons are the other physical fighter types and a mage. A healer is one of two fighting types, the other being a manakete not given by default.
* HeartContainer: Defeating a boss in a Tap Battle dungeon for the first time earns an extra heart for that dungeon, allowing you to mess up one additional time before failing out of a song.
* HelloInsertNameHere: The player can give any name they like to the new Summoner and tactician of the Order of Heroes.
* HiddenDepths: The game gives this to ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Grima]]'' of all people. [[spoiler:[[EvilCannotComprehendGood He doesn't have a very good understanding of how being heroic works]], and feels exploited and betrayed by his own worshipers.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** Laegjarn's personal weapon Níu boosts her attack, speed, defense, and resistance during combat by half of her opponent's stat bonuses.
** The Cleaner is a dagger that adds the target's stat bonuses to the damage the user will deal, making it effective against enemies that use stat buffs.
** Kliff's personal weapon Sagittae grants him +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if his foe's Atk is greater than or equal to his plus 5.
** Selena's personal weapon Selena's Blade and Subaki's Golden Naginata grants them +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if their foe's Atk is 3 or higher than their Atk.
** Ruptured Sky boosts the user's damage by 20% of her foe's Atk, but goes up to 40% if they're against a dragon or beast foe instead, meaning that it only gets stonger the more Atk their foe has, and moreso if the enemy is a dragon or beast.
* HoldTheLine:
** One of the rarer victory conditions in maps is to survive a certain amount of turns. The enemy will have reinforcements in such maps so the player can't clear out the opposition and finish the map early. Sometimes one of the enemies even has a Sacred Seal that prevents them from taking ''any'' damage (Embla's Ward/Múspellflame), making them completely invincible.
** The Relay Defense game mode tasks players to defend their camps and fortress for 8 turns, with players controlling 5 units, who will switch out with 5 other heroes in their brigade, against a constant stream of enemies with reinforcements at the start of every second turn.
** Downplayed with the Røkkr Siege, as this is one of it's victory conditions, as while having players have 7 turns to deal damage against a DamageSpongeBoss if dealing the damage cap to them first isn't viable enough for the player to do, the player still gets points if they lose all their units in that battle. The only way the player does not gain points for that battle is if they surrender instead of losing all of their units beforehand.
** The Mjölnir's Strike game mode tasks players with defending two portals against a large army for 7 turns, while players control 8 units, paired up into 4 units on the map, and have defensive structures to help even the odds.
* HolidayMode: There are seasonal festivals in which certain heroes dress for the occasion; these costumed heroes can be summoned during that season only[[note]]though they always end up reappearing in a Legendary Heroes banner a few months after their initial banner[[/note]]. Even the generic mooks in the respective Paralogues as of A Sketchy Summer join the fun, as they sport appropriate accessories and weapons for the occasion.
* HopelessBossFight: Some Main Story bosses (like Ike in Chapter 10-1 of Book I, and Surtr in a few Book II maps) are impossible to defeat since they are equipped with a special Sacred Seal (either Embla's Ward or Múspellflame) that makes them completely immune to damage. They will seek the player's units out, and the only way the player can deal with them is to avoid them entirely before successfully [[HoldTheLine surviving a specific number of turns]].
* HotSpringsEpisode:
** Complete all 100 floors of Tap Battle, and you are treated to your units discovering and entering a hot spring. As an added bonus, any support pairs at S rank with one another will sit close to each other with speech bubbles containing musical notes over their heads.
** The "Hostile Springs" banner in January 2019 has Ryoma, Sakura, Elise, Hinoka, and Camilla enjoying a hot spring in their bathing wear and still geared and ready for battle.
* HumbleHero: Most of the non-OriginalGeneration Legendary Heroes have at least one line expressing shock and humility at earning such a status.
-->'''Ike:''' I'm not so sure about this "Legendary Hero" business, but I'll help you out.\\
'''Ephraim:''' Legendary Hero? Am I really so praiseworthy? I have a feeling the stories that are told about me tend to omit my thirst for battle.\\
'''Lyn:''' You're calling me a Legendary Hero? I'm just Lyn. I'm nowhere near that grand.\\
'''Ryoma:''' Please, don't flatter me with titles such as Legendary Hero. I'm well aware of my own shortcomings. Let's leave it to my kinshi to elevate me to such grand heights, shall we?\\
'''Hector:''' Legendary Hero? Uh... I don't get it. You mean like the Eight Legends?\\
'''Marth:''' Legendary Hero? Please... I've done nothing so grand as to earn such a title.\\
'''Young Tiki:''' Legendary means...something that happened a long, long time ago, right?\\
'''Eirika:''' I am princess Eirika of Renais. What's that you called me? Legendary Hero?\\
'''Azura:''' I'm a Legendary Hero? I see... So that's how I'm known in this world.\\
'''Roy:''' A Hero celebrated in legends? You can't mean me.\\
'''Eliwood:''' I'm Eliwood. Uh, come again? Legendary Hero? Did I... hear that correctly?\\
'''Julia:''' I am Julia. You truly think me a Legendary Hero? / I am Julia. You think me a...Legendary Hero? I am not certain I understand, but I am here to help nonetheless.\\
'''Leif:''' Legendary Hero? That's definitely not a title I can claim. / A Hero whose deeds echo through legend... That is a far cry from who I am. An idea distant as the horizon.
* HypocriticalHumor: During the "Summer's Arrival" paralogue, Innes admonishes Tana, saying that a princess shouldn't be going around while wearing a swimsuit. Tana counters that Innes is wearing skintight trunks.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:I-J]]
* IdleAnimation: From the Darkness Within banner onward, some characters are given idle animations in their chibi sprites:
** Fallen Berkut laughs on occasion, to show how deranged he is.
** Yarne stretches his arms and leans from one side to the other, as a call back to his official ''Awakening'' artwork.
** Claude twirls an arrow in his hand, which he also does in ''Three Houses''.
** Sothis covers her mouth with her hand and yawns, referencing her HeavySleeper tendencies in ''Three Houses''.
** Python scratches the back of his neck occasionally.
** Thórr adjusts the braid in her hair.
* ImpliedDeathThreat:
** During his special conversation, Zephiel basically tells you not to toy with him lest he strangle you. He doesn't directly state he'll kill you, but the intent is made very clear.
--->'''Zephiel:''' The last person to toy with my respect was my father. Ultimately, I had to put an end to him. Now, you have a throat. And I, a hand. Let us hope the two never have need to meet.
** Ursula, Fallen Berkut, and the Death Knight all combine this trope with StopPokingMe. The Death Knight doesn't exactly do "implied", though.
--->'''Ursula:''' Never poke an assassin... lest [[PunctuatedForEmphasis she. Poke. You]].\\
'''Fallen Berkut:''' If you wish to be burned by Duma's flame, then by all means... ''touch me once more''.\\
'''Death Knight:''' The next time you touch me, you will die.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Combined with NerfArm, many units, especially Holiday and Seasonal units, tend to use ridiculous weapons, but are just as strong as any other weapons of their type.[[note]]One exception being the Kitty Paddle+, and that's due to no refinements were available to it[[/note]] Due to a large amount of such weapons in game, it needed [[ImprobableWeaponUser/FireEmblemHeroes its own page]].
* InconsistentDub:
** In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]]'', the weapon-specialized mounted classes were named "(Weapon) Knight". In ''Heroes'', they're called "(Weapon) Cavaliers". This is to differentiate them from the armored units, which ''are'' called "(Weapon) Knights".
** The "Choose Your Legends" poll and ''Heroes'' itself made some inconsistencies with several characters' names. Lachesis from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' was previously referred to as Raquesis in the English version of ''Awakening'', while the middle pegasus sister from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' is referred to as Thite in Choose Your Legends and Thea in ''Heroes''.
** [[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Micaiah's]] bird Yune has its name pronounced as "Yoon" in this game, while in ''Radiant Dawn'' it was pronounced "yoo-nay".
** Lyon's name is pronounced Lee-ahn by regular Eirika, but Sacred Memories Eirika pronounces it as Lee-ohn.
** Hardin pronounces Archanea as Ar-KAY-nee-uh, but in ''Shadows of Valentia'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriors'', it was pronounced Ar-kuh-NAY-uh.
** The dark dragon in the Jugdral saga was named Loptyr in ''Awakening'', but was changed to Loptous in ''Heroes''.
** Beorc was pronounced as "Bee-orc" in ''Radiant Dawn'', but here it's pronounced "Bay-orc".
** Brave Micaiah pronounces her country Daein's name like "Dayn," whereas in the narration of ''Radiant Dawn'' it was pronounced "Day-in."
** Osian's name was initially "Orsin" when his name was translated in ''Awakening''.
* InconvenientSummons: This often strikes the seasonal units. For example, Summer Takumi gets pulled while attempting to cannonball, while the featured units from the Hostile Springs focus are all summoned while in a bath or preparing for one. Hinoka in particular is rather annoyed at her bathing being interrupted.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: If a hero had a legendary or unique weapon in their game of origin, it'll likely be available here as their 5-star weapon. Most of them have very high Might (usually 16 for melee weapons and 14 for ranged; for comparison, the strongest non-unique weapons have respectively 15 and 13) and come with built-in skills, effectively giving their wielders an additional Skill slot. As a trade-off, they can't be passed to other units via the Skill Inheritance system.
* InformedAttribute: The Farfetched Heroes[[note]]Mia, Lute, Dorcas, and Tempest Trials reward Joshua[[/note]] and Brave Redux units[[note]]Loki, Owain, Kliff, and Grand Hero Aversa[[/note]] are described as Brave Heroes by the story, and the Farfetched Heroes even have a unique map start quote like the Brave Heroes before them, but they appear in their regular outfits and they don't have Brave in their titles.
* InstantWinCondition:
** It doesn't matter if you only have one unit left who is completely surrounded and on death's door, you will win a HoldTheLine map as long as somebody is alive once the turn limit is up.
** {{Zigzagged|trope}} with destroying the enemy fortress in Rival Domains. While destroying the enemy fortress will end the battle there and then, you may not have scored enough points to win the map and receive the rewards if you only go for the fortress in Rival Domains.
* InstantlyProvenWrong: When Felicia is summoned, she tries to pass herself off as the best maid in all of Nohr. Before she can finish, however, she cuts herself off as she drops something.
* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence:
** Infantry and armors cannot enter mountain tiles, despite being able to in past ''Fire Emblem'' titles.
** Fliers can travel over mountain and forest tiles, but not over obstructions such as crates and walls.
** Cavalry units cannot enter forest tiles to balance their high movement range.
* InterfaceSpoiler: Book II Chapter 13 came alongside the banner that introduced Silas, Flora, Ophelia, and Nina, with another banner to be announced in a week's time. However, the fact that the aforementioned characters' update also added the previously non-playable Laegjarn, Laevatein, and Helbindi to the Catalog of Heroes made it pretty clear what the banner was going to be.
* InvisibleBowstring:
** While bows in most of the character artwork are properly drawn, due to how the sprites work[[note]]Instead of being animated pose to pose, they're like tiny puppets with moving parts.[[/note]], having bowstrings on them would be impractical.
** Rebecca's bow is missing its bowstring in her attack art, even though the bowstring is present in her standard, special, and damaged art.
* {{Irony}}:
** The Festival in Hoshido banner only has one actual Hoshidan (Ryoma). The rest of the banner's units are from Nohr (Xander), Crimea (Elincia), and Daein (Micaiah).
** In Book 3, we are introduced with a [[EnemyMine temporary alliance]] between Veronica and the Order of Heroes. Even with Veronica temporarily allying with them, they still face contracted heroes under "Lif". As learned from the previous chapter, [[spoiler:he is an AlternateSelf of Alfonse, meaning that Alfonse is the one issuing contracts, while Veronica isn't at this point]].
** Soren and Raigh, two characters with antisocial personalities, have weapons that give them stat boosts when they are near their allies.
* ItemCrafting: You can create new Sacred Seals by spending Sacred Coins and Badges at the Sacred Seal Forge.
* IWorkAlone:
** The Solo skills, as well as Lethe's Brazen Cat Fang, give the user +6 in two of their stats in combat if there are no allies adjacent to the user. Winter Ephraim's Festive Siegmund and Sirius' Sable Lance also has the same condition, except it grants them +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat. However, they can still receive combat support if they are two spaces away from an ally like from the Drive, Goad, or Ward skills.
** Also downplayed by the Flame Siegmund, Wolf Berg, and Storm Sieglinde, each giving their wielders different perks if there are more enemies than allies near them. Of course, such requirements do not mean the wielders cannot have ''any'' allies near them.
** Taguel Fang also downplays it by giving the user +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the user is adjacent to a dragon or beast ally, or alone, and not adjacent to a human ally.
** Fallen Female Corrin's Savage Breath is another {{downplayed|trope}} example, where she gains Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat the less amount of allies are within 2 spaces of her, from +6 with no allies within 2 spaces of her, down to +0 when there are 3 or more within 2 spaces of her.
** Mareeta's Blade for Regular Mareeta allows the user to gain +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, as well as negate skills that guarantee any foe's follow-up attacks and skills that prevent the user's follow-up attacks.
** The Rouse skills give the user +6 to two of their stats at the start of their turn, but only if they're not adjacent to an ally.
** Zigzagged for Hilda's Freikugel, where if she has an ally within 2 spaces of her and she has more defense, she gains +6 Atk/Spd during combat, but if they have more defense and are within 2 spaces of her, she gives her allies +4 Atk/Spd during combat instead.
* JumpedAtTheCall: Some of the Heroes are eager to aid your cause when you summon them. Ylgr, in particular, is absolutely ecstatic when she realizes it.
-->'''Ylgr''': Where am I? You mean I've been summoned? I'm a Hero? Are you kidding me? [[{{Squee}} Eeee]]!
* JustSoStory: The reason why dancers cannot dance each other in Zenith besides the ObviousRulePatch is explained in Phina's S support in "A Time To Shine" Forging Bonds: two goddess once danced for each other to rejuvenate each other for 100 years straight, never missing a step. It was at the morning of the 101st year that the both of them suddenly died after dancing for so long.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:K-L]]
* KickingAssInAllHerFinery:
** The bridal units wear [[FairytaleWeddingDress fancy wedding gowns]] to the battlefield. The dresses don't impede the ladies in the slightest, and bridal Cordelia actually manages to be one of the game's fastest bow users despite her outfit.
** Love Abounds Lyn fights in a PimpedOutDress, and such an impractical outfit renders her unable to move more than one space per turn without support skills. Despite this, she's one speed point faster than Bridal Cordelia.
%%* KryptonyteIsEverywhere: In the past, heroes with Blade tomes were very popular in the MetaGame, especially on cavalry and flier teams, with only the Panic staff being their main weakness. However, the addition of skills, weapons, and refinements that ignore field buffs, as well as apply the Panic status before combat, such as Divine Naga, Dull Ranged, and Panic Ploy, eventually dulled the strong presences of those users in Arena.
* KryptoniteProofSuit: The Shield skills neutralize effective damage. Michalis, a flier, has Iote's Shield[[note]]also available as a Sacred Seal[[/note]] to negate bonus damage from bows and Excalibur; Camus and Walhart, both Cavaliers, have Grani's Shield to negate bonus damage from the -wolf tomes and anti-cavalry weapons; and Sheena, a Knight, has Svalinn Shield to negate bonus damage from the anti-armor weapons. Garon and Sothis' personal weapons Breath of Blight and Sublime Surge, respectively, also cancels out bonus damage from anti-dragon weapons and Female Fallen Robin has Dragonskin which removes her flying weakness, but not her dragon one.
* LampshadeHanging:
** In Chapter 3, Roy comments on how it's odd that the contract with the Emblian Empire is voided when the Heroes bound to it are defeated.
** Paralogue 2 is called "Sibling Bonds", and naturally focuses on {{Sibling Team}}s. Your first opponents in 2-1 are... Klein and Sanaki, characters from two completely different universes with no relation to each other[[note]]Klein's sister Clarine had already been introduced, while Sanaki's sibling had not yet been added to the game at the time[[/note]]. The two are quick to point out the discrepancy.
** In Paralogue 8, Anna lampshades the SexSells nature of heroes in swimsuits rather heavily.
** In the Feh channel for the anniversary event, one of the things announced was rotating [=GHBs=], one of whom is Xander, and Feh noted that it had "been a while." [[note]]At that point, it had been 9 months since his original [=GHB=] and he hadn't been rerun since.[[/note]]
* LaserGuidedKarma: Back in ''Awakening'', Robin's amnesia was caused by Grima trying (and failing) to possess him/her at the start of the story. When (well, [[RareRandomDrop if]]) Grima as Fallen or Legendary Robin is summoned, the shoe ends up on the other foot, as the summoning gives ''him/her'' amnesia.
* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers:
** The "Winter Festival vs. New Year's" Voting Gauntlet starred Winter Chrom, Winter Robin, Winter Lissa, Winter Tharja, New Year's Azura, New Year's Takumi, New Year's Camilla... and Ryoma? This seems to be because the fourth New Year's unit, Corrin, was a Tempest Trials reward that had yet to come out, so Ryoma was picked as the fourth New Year's rep instead.
** The "Dueling Desires" Forging Bonds event featured the Grand Hero Aversa alongside Brave Redux units Loki, Owain, and Kliff. "Dueling Desires" is unique in itself as well, as other Forging Bonds have only featured summonable units, none obtainable from Grand Hero Battles, Tempest Trials, or anywhere orbs are not needed[[note]]barring Fjorm, who appeared in "The Sworn Oath" and is always recruited by players who clear Chapter 1 of Book II for the first time, in addition to being summonable on certain Legendary Hero banners[[/note]]. There hasn't been another unit since, since Forging Bonds usually follows a ''very'' strict formula (they're bundled with the Main Story Chapters, and only the four summonable units are part of said event).
* LateArrivalSpoiler:
** Lucina from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' is advertised as Chrom's daughter from the future, which isn't revealed in her home game until around halfway through the story.
** The ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'' characters casually spoil that a number of game's characters die. Seliph mentions the big twist of his dad Sigurd getting murdered when he's summoned, Julia spoils what happens to Julius and her own suffering, Lachesis openly talks about Eldigan getting killed, Sigurd and Ayra making mention that they will lose in Belhalla and die (only possibly for Ayra, since her fate was left ambiguous). Tailtiu manages to avert this, where her quotes don't spoil Belhalla's results nor her being abused and tortured by her family until she died a depressed woman.
** Ninian being an Ice Dragon is one of the biggest plot twists in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade The Blazing Blade]]''. Here, Breath is her primary weapon type right from the start, and some of her artwork depicts her with a Dragonstone.
** During her 5-star Level 40 conversation, Celica from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden Gaiden]]'' reveals her true name, Anthiese, and the potential consequences of her identity being exposed to the people of Zofia.
** Double subverted with the Black Knight's true identity, which is initially left a mystery. The Black Knight {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this in one of his voice lines, asking if you'd like to know who he really is, and purposefully leaves you hanging. However, Zelgius spoils the big twist by wearing his Black Knight armor without the helmet instead of his usual red armor.
** The Fallen Heroes banner and accompanying Grand Hero Battle against Takumi feature characters who are all possessed/corrupted, with the events of said possession/corruption being titanic endgame spoilers for their home games. Similarly, the Darkness Within banner spoils Berkut's pact with Duma, which is the biggest plot twist concerning his character come endgame.
** Fallen and Legendary Robin in particular is a big one, as not only do they reveal their true identity as the ([[BigBad Fell Dragon]] [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Grima]]) right after being summoned, you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere on the internet that doesn't just call them Male and Female Grima to differentiate them from the real Robins (and all of their alts).
** Garon being able to transform into the Blight Dragon is something he reveals as the FinalBoss of the ''Birthright'' route. He also mentions Anankos, the GreaterScopeVillain of ''Fates'', a few times.
** Micaiah and Sanaki being sisters, one of the major ''Radiant Dawn'' spoilers, was never brought up until they star in Grand Conquests.
* LaughingMad: Fallen Berkut, the only one from the Darkness Within banner who took Duma's power and ran with it, laughs as his IdleAnimation.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VFygrcuTOE The voice clips for the Brave Heroes]] mention "people calling their names" and "people supporting them." It's them mentioning they're among the top picks for the first Choose Your Legends event. Further, [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Roy says "Roy's our boy," and Ike asks the player "You... like Ike"?]]
** Many characters have at least one voice clip of them reacting as if the Summoner poked them. You hear the out of battle voice clips by tapping on the characters' status screens.
** In the "Less Than Heroic" Tempest Trials, Joshua says that he'd be glad to work for 30,000. He doesn't specify the form of payment, but context indicates that he's talking about gold pieces. He just also happened to be recruitable as a 5-star once the player reached a score of 30,000.
* LeeroyJenkins:
** (Legendary) Ephraim's Flame Siegmund, Walhart's Wolf Berg, Legendary Eirika's Storm Sieglinde, Edelgard's Victorious Axe, and Brave Alm's Dracofalchion give them power boosts if there are more enemies than allies near them, encouraging them to run screaming into the enemy lines.
** The Solo skills, as well as Winter Ephraim's Festive Siegmund and Sirius' Sable Lance, also encourage an aggressive playstyle, as the users gain buffs if they're not adjacent to an ally and can only receive support from specific skills.
* LethalJokeCharacter:
** {{Stone Wall}}s in general if they're built properly. While their player phase attacks are very lacking, the same cannot be said on the enemy phase. With skills that guarantee their follow-up attacks to bypass their low Spd, such as Quick Riposte and Vengeful Fighter, while their attacks may be weak, the same cannot be said when they activate their specials, such as the defensive stat context Ignis and Glacies, and with their low Spd, they actually ''want'' the enemy to double attack in order to build enough charges to activate their special on their second attack. For example, Beruka may reach an Atk in the low 40s and Spd in the low 20s, which is below average for melee units, but her Def can reach the 40~'''60s''' with the right build and buffs, much higher than many other units in the game, and sometimes high enough to take 0 damage from enemies. As a result, she gains 32+ damage if she activates her Ignis, which, in addition to her normal damage, could potenially be enough to oneshot many units on retailiation.
** Spring Xander is a very notable example. He is a mounted knight dressed up like the [[Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland Mad Hatter]], only in gaudy pink and white, and wielding a ''large carrot'' as a lance. His stats are very poor, with only high Defense as his best perk. But this can be fixed by letting him inherit and learn Ignis (as it deals bonus damage based on its user's Defense) and the Carrot Lance can be refined to allow him to heal each time he enters combat, making him somewhat of a mounted tank. Furthermore, he can hit harder and become even tankier with cavalry buffs in tow.
* LethalChef:
** Defied in Aether Resort's Dining Hall, which evens out everyone's cooking abilities. Food cooked with two main ingredients will always turn out fine, even if a canonically bad cook (for example, Felicia) is behind the counter. However, once you get to using at least three main ingredients, there is a chance that the meal will fail, even if a SupremeChef like Oscar or Flora is behind the counter.
** Felicia is involved in the PicnicEpisode. Leo is revolted at her cooking, and even warned Lukas in advance. In addition, her default weapon is a large pan filled with congealed food.
* LifeDrain:
** ''Sol'' allows a unit to restore HP equal to 50% of the damage they dealt. There's also ''Noontime'', which only heals HP equal to 30% of the damage dealt, but charges faster.
** Chrom, Ike and Lucina, just like in their home games, can learn ''Aether'', which combines the healing effect of ''Sol'' with the {{armor piercing|Attack}} capabilities of ''Luna''. Legendary Ike, upon his introduction, brought with him his exclusive special ''Radiant Aether''. It has the same effects as regular ''Aether'', but also a shorter charge time.
** Sothis's Sirius, while boosting her damage by 30% of her Spd, heals her by 30% of the damage dealt.
** The Absorb staff heals the user for 50% of the damage they deal, with Absorb+ also healing other allies within 2 spaces of the user 7 HP.
** Solar Brace, Legendary Ephraim's exclusive skill, lets him recover HP equal to 30% of damage dealt whenever a skill triggers during combat. This percentage can stack with the aforementioned ''Sol'', ''Noontime'', and ''Aether'', which can restore HP equal to ''80%'' of damage dealt.
** Forsyth's Sol Lance is a special case, that the user heals 10 HP for every attack they peform, even if he dealt 0 damage. The 2019 Winter weapons also have this effect, except they only heal 5 HP instead.
* LighterAndSofter:
** The tone of the game is pretty lighthearted compared to previous installments despite being a CrisisCrossover with a multiversal conqueror, at least in Book I and in holiday Paralogues. As just one example, your Summoner character is...literally you. As in, pulled from the real world. And you use a "holy weapon" to summon Heroes...shaped like a gun. You use a gun that, as Anna points out, literally fires Heroes.
** After Books II and III took a DarkerAndEdgier tone, Book IV instead takes a much different approach, taking place in a realm of dreams with [[OurFairiesAreDifferent fairies]] as the inhabitants of the world.
* LimitBreak: Each character can equip Specials, powerful techniques that are charged by attacking, defending, or in the case of healers, healing enough times. These techniques include enhanced attacks that activate when the user fights, area attacks that activate before the user initiates a fight, defensive skills that activate when the user is about to be attacked, and healing skills that grant additional effects when the user heals someone.
* LimitedLoadout: While characters can accumulate a number of weapons, Skills, etc. via Skill Inheritance, they can go into battle with one weapon, one Assist, one Special, 3 Skills, and one Sacred Seal. Additionally, each Skill has a designated slot: A, B, or C. This means that there are a number of Skills that are mutually exclusive with each other (e.g. you cannot equip both Vantage and Swordbreaker because they are both B Skills).
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: ''Heroes'' pulls characters from every prior ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' game, giving it an incredibly huge cast of over 300 and counting.
* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Karel, Soren, Takumi, and Ryoma, who were the "Long-Haired Gents" of the "Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents" Voting Gauntlet.
* LongRangeFighter: Bows, magic, daggers, and offensive staves can only attack from 2 range rather than 1-2 range in most games.
* LongSongShortScene:
** Bosses have their own music tracks, but you won't be able to hear them in their entirety because combat is extremely short.
** Tempest Trials boss maps tend to use music borrowed from the original games, but because of the enemy phase music cutting in after ending a turn, the map music tends to cut short before it gains momentum since deployed armies in ''Heroes'' are way smaller than in traditional ''Fire Emblem'' games. The most egregious example is ''Stepping into the New Year'', which uses an altered version of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Conquest's]]'' endgame map and rendition of "End of All", which will more than likely never get past the line "You are the ocean's gray waves..." due to the aforementioned reasons. The release of version 2.5.0 provided the option to disable the enemy phase music and let map songs play uninterrupted.
* LoopholeAbuse:
** The Voting Gauntlet has an exploit that can make it a cakewalk. Since the enemies' levels are scaled based on the unit the player uses, if the player uses a low level unit, the enemy units will also be low level. However, this doesn't apply to a unit provided by a friend, meaning the friend's high level unit can curb stomp all the low level enemies. The only drawback is the player gets less HM this way.
** Several quests from Grand Hero Battles or Bound Hero Battles involve using certain units to defeat the specific enemy unit. Normally, this quest involves playing those special maps and having the unit defeat the specific foe, which could be difficult based on how the battle goes. However, the majority of these enemies can be encountered in story maps so playing the maps where they are at the highest difficulty possible will suit the criteria just fine. Also, you can encounter weaponless variants in Arena Assault from generous players, pretty much an instant-win condition.
** Null C-Disrupt allows the user to negate any skills and weapons that prevent the user from counterattacking, and ignores any negative status effects they have on them. This includes weapons that ''the user'' has equipped as well, which means that the only downside that the Firesweep weapons have can be negated if the user has Null C-Disrupt equipped.
** Byleth's Creator Sword has the effect of -1 special cooldown, negate skills and weapons that deny the user to follow-up and enables the enemy to have a guaranteed follow-up attack, and negates skills that increases the foe's special buildup and decreases the user's special buildup. Mareeta's Sword for Regular Mareeta has the effect of -1 special cooldown, and gives her +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat as well as negate skills and weapons that deny the user to follow-up and enables the enemy to have a guaranteed follow-up attack if she's not adjacent to any allies. This includes skills that they are equipped with, meaning that Windsweep and Watersweep's denial of the user's follow-up attacks if they initate combat is disabled, while still able to negate counter-attacks on foes within a specific group of weapon types if they're faster than their opponent.
* LostInTranslation:
** In the "War of the Clerics" Gauntlet, all of the contestants are little sisters of someone else. This is because the Japanese name for the Cleric class is Sister, meaning that the contestants were picked due to a pun. Additionally, the specific term used here is "Healing Sisters", with the "healing" part being close to {{Iyashikei}}.
** The Harmonic Lance is the lance counterpart of the Wo Dao. They have the same stats, ability[[note]]+10 damage to Specials[[/note]], and have similar designs[[note]]The Wo Dao is a red katana, the Harmonic Lance is a red naginata[[/note]]. The translation direction was likely inspired by Shigure's (the one introducing this weapon) singing talent. In Japanese, the lance's name continues the ThemeNaming set up by the sword, with the names being 倭刀 ("Japanese sword") and 倭鉾 ("Japanese halberd"). This was exacerbated when the axe counterpart, the Wo Gùn (倭棍, "Japanese staff") was introduced, and stuck with the theme in all languages.
** The banner "Heroes With Ward Skills" was somewhat misleading, as none of its focus heroes[[note]]Brave Ike, Brave Lyn, and Sigurd[[/note]] possessed a Ward as their default C-skill. Players might have been further confused by the in-game notification signifying the banner's arrival, which states that the "Ward Skills" the focus heroes possess may only be possessed by those focus heroes, when all Ward C-skills are inheritable, albeit by their respective movement types. The "Ward Skills" in question were really the focus heroes' exclusive B-skills, all of which had in their Japanese names "加護", which can be translated as "ward."
* LuckBasedMission:
** In the Training Tower, while players can see what kinds of weapons the enemies are using, everything else is randomly generated. Depending on the player's luck, this could result in the enemy having weapons, skills, and stats that the player's characters can't handle. The map is also chosen randomly from Story Mode, meaning the player could get a map that puts their units at a disadvantage.
** In Arena and Arena Assault, how far you go in score and tiers depends on how many times you can get the highest possible score from each battle before you select it, with possible margins for each battle increasing the higher you go in your Arena team score range (double that if you have a bonus unit). While you can quit out and get another chance to find the highest possible score, it costs a Dueling Sword before your matchups are shown, and even then it might have taken a few tries to find your target score.
** Battles in the Voting Gauntlet are heavily dependent on luck, because only one character is chosen by the player, while the other two are randomly chosen, one from your list of friends. This can either result in the player having a team that can beat the opponent effortlessly, or a team that can't possibly win. It also uses a random map from Story Mode.
** The Voting Gauntlet itself, for that matter, ever since the introduction of the bonus system. After the first few Gauntlets had runaway victories, IS introduced a system where a trailing team gets a multiplier to their points when their score is below 90% of their opponent's score at the start of an hour, which could easily be enough to give them the lead--but if a match is close enough unboosted, a late bonus could give the team with the greater "natural strength" a deficit they can't climb out of in time. Furthermore, as of the October 2017 Gauntlet (Blood of Dragons), the threshold for the bonus changed from 90% to ''99%'', which made it even easier for any bonus to be immediately countered and almost guarantees that unless the unboosted strength of the teams is ''extremely'' lopsided, a final-hour bonus will guarantee victory.
** The summoning system. How well you do at the entire game will depend on whether you happen to roll good units (and sometimes copies of them for either merging or inheriting), and even then, how good that unit will be depends on what their Assets and Flaws are when you summon them.
** A minor example: seeing TheUnfought characters for HundredPercentCompletion of the Catalog of Heroes requires some luck. Most of them can be fought in routine Training Tower battles or pulled from summoning sessions, GHB and Tempest Trials reward units can be summoned with Heroic Grails, and most Legendary Heroes can either be fought in Legendary Hero Battles which recur every few months or recruited as free storyline rewards. But if you missed the chance to recruit Gunnthrá or Legendary Ephraim, you need to encounter them in the Arena, Aether Raids, or during a Voting Gauntlet.
** Getting a successful defense in Aether Raids to prevent losing lift when the 20 Hour pity cooldown is off depends on whether or not someone else is ''unlucky'' enough to go against your defense and fail their attack.
* LukeIAmYourFather: Subverted in the ending dialogue of Tempest Trials+: Loki's Flames. Loki initially appears to reveal that she's Laevatein's and Laegjarn's mother, but quickly admits she lied.
-->'''Loki''': So strong, this love is, that you two just can't open up to me... Your own mother!\\
'''Laevatein''': What? No... Not true! ...Is it?\\
'''Loki''': Of course it isn't, dear. You are just as cute as can be! So pure of heart...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:M]]
* MageKiller:
** The Kitty Paddle deals extra damage against tome-wielders.
** Jeorge's personal weapon Parthia has an exclusive refinement that mitigates damage from a mage's first attack and gives him an Atk boost during combat if he's facing a mage (or other ranged opponents).
** The exclusive refinement for Felicia's Plate gives her an extra special charge for each attack she lands when she is in combat with a tome-wielder, which synchronizes quite well with her high Res and Res-based special Glacies.
** Dragons with refined and character exclusive Breaths are a DownplayedTrope. They target the lower defensive stat of any unit with an attack range of two, including tome users, whose defense is usually lower than their resistance.
* MagicPants: Anna discusses creating and selling special outfits for Laguz characters to use when they transform in-between forms.
* MagicallyBindingContract: The reason why you fight all the Heroes in the story. Heroes defeated by the Emblian Empire must agree to the contract, which states that they must serve the empire, or they'll presumably be killed. However, the contract is null and void if someone else defeats them in combat. A majority of Book I (and a few Paralogues) focuses on freeing the Heroes from the Empire's contracts. In Book II, the plot is less focused on the contracts, although some Heroes (i.e. Micaiah, Sacred Memories Eirika, Exalted Chrom, Kaze) still comment on them.
* MagikarpPower:
** Alfonse, Sharena, and Anna all start out at two stars[[note]]four stars since 2.5.0[[/note]] and require significant investment to become viable, but once they get upgraded to five stars, they all become pretty decent to use.
** ComMons are usually not summonable at the 5-star rarity, unless they are featured in a summoning focus. Other than that, the only way to get them at 5 stars is to spend lots of feathers to upgrade them from lower rarities. Additionally, most of these units gain access to new personal weapons, which in turn can be refined with unique effects or stat boosts by using the rare Divine Dew material.
** Units designated as [[https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Stat_Growth#Modifiers trainees]] such as the youthful dragons (like Fae or young Tiki) or villagers and trainees (like Donnel and Amelia) start with low base stats, but when they're raised to their highest levels, they end up having higher base stat totals than other units of their class.
** Grand Hero Battle units, who are never acquired as 5-star units; they must first be ranked up from 3 or 4 stars. They also usually have poor area of effect Specials with long charge times and rather underwhelming skillsets. However, it's almost always worth it to upgrade them to five stars and put enough investment into them. They usually have pretty good stats, and some of them can acquire unique weapons with incredible effects. Most notably, Xander and Camus acquire weapons that have Distant Counter built in, and Michalis gets the Hauteclere, which accelerates the charge time of his special and boasts a high 16 Mt.
** It's theoretically possible to turn any unit you like into something amazing, even units that are only good for CannonFodder or [[EliteTweak Skill Inheritance]]. The process tends to be [[LongGame a lot more involved and drawn out]] than simply pulling a 5-star unit, requiring a large amount of Promotions, Merges, Skill Inheritance ''and'' Dragonflowers to bring them up to par with the game's all-stars, but it ''can'' be done. It's a common practice for players to do this with their favorite character at the very least.
* {{Magitek}}: In Paralogue 8, Anna uses a magic tome that is basically a modern camera in all but name. In the following Paralogue, Anna uses a magic tome that works like a video recorder.
* MarathonLevel: Tempest Trials, Squad Assault, and Chain Challenge have you fight on 3 to 10 maps in a row with no breaks or AfterCombatRecovery. The Blessed Gardens initially only gained one "new"[[note]]every map in the Blessed Gardens thus far is merely an already released Paralogue or Main Story map where its units have souped-up stats[[/note]] map every several days, but the introduction of Blessed Grounds as part of the Gardens began adding two maps, then eventually three.
* MeaningfulName: The two warring kingdoms are the Kingdom of Askr and the Empire of Embla. In Myth/NorseMythology, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_and_Embla Ask (or Askr) and Embla]] are the first two humans, basically the Norse version of [[AdamAndOrEve Adam and Eve]]. On top of that, Askr means "ash tree," and Embla sounds like "emblem," so the two names combined could be interpreted as "ash emblem" which is very close to "fire emblem".
* MentorArchetype: Seth takes a stab at trying to teach Veronica that her people should come first. It seems to have had an effect on her.
* MesACrowd:
** It's possible to have multiple versions of the same character in one team.
*** You can have 3 different versions of Tharja[[note]]Regular, Winter, Bridal[[/note]], Cordelia[[note]]Regular, Bridal, Summer[[/note]], Olivia[[note]]Regular, Performing Arts, Ylissean Travelers[[/note]], Celica[[note]]Regular, Fallen, Brave[[/note]], Kagero[[note]]Regular, Spring, Halloween[[/note]], Sakura[[note]]Regular, Halloween, Bath[[/note]], Elise[[note]]Regular, Summer, Bath[[/note]], Hinoka[[note]]Regular, Kinshi, Bath[[/note]], Fjorm[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Bridal[[/note]], Gunnthrá[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Summer[[/note]], Laevatein[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Summer[[/note]], Laegjarn[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Summer[[/note]], Micaiah[[note]]Regular, Yukata, Brave[[/note]], Alm[[note]]Regular, Legendary, Brave[[/note]], Berkut[[note]]Regular, Fallen, Dancing[[/note]], Reinhardt[[note]]Regular, World of Thracia, Dancing[[/note]], Catria[[note]]Regular, Spring, Zofia's Call[[/note]], Nino[[note]]Regular, Scattered Fangs, Winter[[/note]], Alfonse[[note]]Regular, Spring, New Year Duo (with Sharena)[[/note]], or Sharena[[note]]Regular, Spring, New Year Duo (with Alfonse)[[/note]] fighting at once.
*** You can have a team that consists entirely of Chrom[[note]]Regular, Spring, Winter, Branded King[[/note]], Takumi[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Fallen, Summer[[/note]], Xander[[note]]Regular, Spring, Summer, Yukata[[/note]], Eirika [[note]]Regular, Sacred Memories, Legendary, Winter[[/note]], Ryoma[[note]]Regular, Legendary, Yukata, Bath[[/note]], Ike[[note]]Regular, Brave, Legendary, Valentine[[/note]], Roy[[note]]Regular, Brave, Valentine, Legendary[[/note]], Eliwood[[note]]Regular, Valentine, Legendary, Brave[[/note]], Lilina[[note]]Regular, Valentine, Summer, Duo Halloween (with Hector)[[/note]], and Marth [[note]]Regular, Groom, Legendary, Duo Winter (with Elice)[[/note]].
*** There are 5 different versions of Lucina[[note]]Regular, Spring, Masked, Brave, and Legendary[[/note]], Azura[[note]]Regular, Performing Arts, New Year's, Adrift, Legendary[[/note]], Hector[[note]]Regular, Valentine, Legendary, Brave, Duo Halloween (with Lilina)[[/note]], and Ephraim[[note]]Regular, Legendary, Brave, Winter, Duo (with Lyon)[[/note]].
*** Heroes with 6 versions to their name are Robin[[note]]Male Robin, Female Robin, Summer Female Robin, Winter Male Robin, Grima Possessed Male Robin, and Grima Possessed Female Robin[[/note]], Tiki[[note]]Young, Adult, Summer Adult, Summer Young, Legendary Young, Fallen Young[[/note]], and Lyn[[note]]Regular, Bride, Brave, Valentine, Legendary, and Summer[[/note]].
*** There are 7 variants to Corrin[[note]]Male Corrin, Female Corrin, Summer Female Corrin, New Year's Male Corrin, Adrift Male Corrin, Adrift Female Corrin, Fallen Female Corrin[[/note]] and Camilla[[note]]Regular, Spring, New Year's, Summer, Adrift, Bath, Brave[[/note]].
** Eleven special maps featuring several of these characters and their alts were available from late April to early May 2018.
** There's also Legion's Grand Hero Battle, wherein the player faces multiple Legions.
** As a nod to the final battle of ''Fates: Conquest'', two copies of Fallen Takumi have to be taken out during his Grand Hero Battle.
* MightyGlacier:
** Armored units. While their individual stats vary and they can be everything from a StoneWall to a LightningBruiser, their defining characteristics are very high stat totals, and having the slowest movement type in the game, being only 1 space per turn. (With that said, there are some skills that allow them to move further on certain conditions.)
** [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Arden]] takes this to an extreme. With a whopping ''60 HP'' backed by an excellent Defense stat of 41, very few physical attacks are going to put so much as a dent into him. This is off-set by tying with Zephiel as the slowest unit in the game.
* MirroredConfrontationShot: [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/4/48/Fire_Emblem_Heroes_Book_II_Wallpaper.png One promotional image for Book II]] has Fjorm and Surtr staring at each other in the background, and Alfonse, Sharena, and the summoner facing Laevatein, Loki, and Veronica in the foreground.
* ModestyShorts: The [[ModestyTowel towel-wearing]] Ryoma from the [[HotSpringsEpisode Hostile Springs]] event is clearly wearing underwear under his towel; lucky for him as he also suffers a full WardrobeMalfunction in his injured artwork. Camilla also wears something under her towel, which is only apparent when she gets a wardrobe malfunction as well.
* ModestyTowel: Bath units do battle while wearing only their towels. It doesn't hinder them in the slightest.
%%* MoeStare: Characters illustrated by [=BunBun=] and Sakura Miwabe have this on their default portraits.
* MoodDissonance:
** All Forging Bonds cutscenes are set to a lively tune, which was inconspicuous at first, as the first few events were SliceOfLife stories set around the Summoner getting to know the new Heroes. However, in darker, more serious stories, the music doesn't change.
** In "The Sworn Oath", the Nifl royals discuss a coming war with Múspell (which is already depressing because [[ForegoneConclusion it was released after the end of Book II]]), and Fjorm has a nightmare of Surtr burning her kingdom, all the while cheerful music plays in the background.
** "Power's Den" focuses on Fallen Heroes who are [[BrainwashedAndCrazy possessed by another entity]], or [[SuperpoweredEvilSide losing control of their powers and very much afraid of themselves]] has those characters experiencing nightmares, violent murderous outbursts, and otherwise suffering through madness and despair... and the same upbeat music plays through the entire event.
* MoodWhiplash:
** After Xenologue 1 is completed, a cutscene plays where Veronica asks the Masked Man to have tea with her. He declines and instead asks Veronica about how she's been feeling, which leads to her talking about a voice in her head that compels her to kill people.
** This is also how more light-hearted Paralogues have succeeded dire Main Story chapters. Take, for example, the climax of Book II [[spoiler:where Surtr manages to tank the spell that was supposed to kill him, rendering everything the Heroes did futile and leaving them fleeing for their lives]]... Come Paralogue 21, and it's back to Anna's hijinks, attempting to get a quick buck to keep the Order of Heroes afloat. Paralogue 27 is itself this compared to the previous Paralogues, tackling a young Azura's childhood neglect and escapism.
* MoneyMultiplier: The skills Live for Honor and Live for Bounty respectively increase the amount of badges and shards/crystals obtained from Training Tower maps by 50%.
* MoreThanMindControl:
** While it's more obvious with enemy Heroes summoned by Embla, even the Heroes (including villains!) you summon have a compulsion to trust you. Some voice confusion about it, but it is strong enough for them to not be bothered by it too much. Bring a character to 5-star rarity and level 40, and you earn that trust properly.
** [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Camilla]] recognizes that she's under a compulsion; but she states she doesn't care. She's so [[IJustWantToBeLoved starved for affection]]; she'll accept the "magic" loyalty and make it real.
* MultipleReferencePun: The weapon's name "It's Curtains..." has two meaning behind it: the first is it's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, being just bath entrance curtains on a wooden pole, and the second being part of the phrase "it's curtains for you", meaning that your show is over.
* MundaneUtility: Winter Chrom determines that the [[LegendaryWeapon Falchion]] can be used to slice cake.
* MutuallyExclusivePowerups: Legendary and Mythic Blessings are exclusive to each other due to blessing only having one slot, as the Mythic Blessing are only active in Aether Raids, while the Legendary Blessing are active everywhere else. Mythic Blessing, however, give more stat benefits than Legendary ones to compensate.
* MyFutureSelfAndMe:
** Tiki exists in the game as both a little girl (as seen in the Archanea subseries) and as a young adult (as seen in ''Awakening''), and there's nothing to stop you from putting them on the same team.
** Ike, Mia, Sanaki, Elincia, and the Black Knight/Zelgius are all available as they appear in both ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathofRadiance'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'', while Inigo/Laslow and Owain/Odin are available as they appear in both ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates''.
** Paralogue 27: Adrift has normal Azura confront her Adrift variant, who appears as a young child. Nothing will keep you from teaming them up, however.
* MyRulesAreNotYourRules:
** The enemy team can consist of up to six units compared to the player's limit of four (five in Aether Raids). This does not take reinforcements into account, as they can arrive even if there are already a certain amount of enemies on the field.
** In Aether Raids, the attacking team can trigger tile traps when they stop on them (either by movement or positioning assists), but the defenders cannot.
* MythologyGag: Given the [[CrisisCrossover crossover]] nature of the game, there are ''a lot'' of nods to past ''Fire Emblem'' titles. [[MythologyGag/FireEmblemHeroes We put them all on another page]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:N-O]]
* {{Nerf}}:
** Tomes and Daggers in ''Fire Emblem'' are usually able to attack at melee range, but they lose this ability in ''Heroes'' for balance reasons. It's still possible to counterattack at melee range, but it requires the A-skill Close Counter.
** Stat debuffs now only last until a unit completes their next turn, rather than gradually recovering 1 point per turn like in ''Fates''.
** In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Fates]]'', Savage Blow inflicts SplashDamage on its user's opponent and other enemies within two spaces of the user's opponent. In ''Heroes'', Savage Blow only inflicts SplashDamage on enemies within two spaces of its user's opponent.
** Raijinto, Siegfried, Gradivus, Ragnell, and Alondite lose their ability to attack from range, though they at least have built-in Distant Counter to counterattack at range. They also lose their passive stat bonuses.
** The version of the Yato that male Corrin wields is the Omega Yato, which is PurposefullyOverpowered in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Fates]]''. ''Heroes'' strips away (unrefined)/nerfs (refined) its passive stat bonuses and lowers its Might from 18 to 16.
** Armored Blow and Warding Blow have their hefty DamageReduction[[note]]-10 physical damage for "Armored Blow", -20 magical damage for "Warding Blow"[[/note]] changed to giving a max of +6 to Defense and Resistance, respectively.
** Wary Fighter, which prevents follow-up attacks for the enemy and user during combat, has a HP threshold to remain active (the lowest being 50%) and is now restricted to armored units only, instead of being always active and usable by everyone in ''Fates''.
** In their home games, Silvia, Lene, Reyson and Leanne could refresh more than one unit at a time: Silvia, Lene, and Reyson could refresh all four adjacent units (Reyson only if transformed), while Leanne could refresh two units on opposite sides of her regardless of her state. In ''Heroes'', however, they are reduced to one at a time like other singers and dancers in game.
* NiceHat: The June 2018 update allows you to wear certain accessories, including a "hat" of [[CuteOwl Feh]]!
* NintendoHard: Lunatic and Infernal difficulty maps can be this even by regular ''Fire Emblem'' standards. While FinalDeath isn't enforced in ''Heroes'', the game makes up for it with many of the higher-difficulty enemies having higher stats - often higher than their playable incarnations can reach - that you must overcome with your 4-man team and ''only'' those four men. Even in the maps that don't require a NoCasualtiesRun, losing a certain unit can snowball into a sudden defeat, forcing you to put a lot of thought into their actions and skillsets.
* NoCasualtiesRun:
** Enforced with the Hero maps, which will immediately end in failure if any allied unit loses all of their health.
** Some quests require the player to not lose any units on top of the other objectives.
** Squad Assault requires the player to utilize five teams with no duplicate Heroes across five consecutive maps to get a Sacred Seal and 2 orbs. Not one Hero on any of those five teams must fall, no matter the map.
** Blessed Gardens started out the same as the Hero maps--clear one map without losing a single unit, except the Gardens only admit units with certain blessings or affinities. Eventually the Gardens gained an expansion in the Grounds, which are more akin to Squad Assault. The Grounds up the ante from clearing only one map to two or three maps while still requiring the player to keep their units (who, again, must have the right blessing or affinity) alive.
* NonCombatEXP:
** Shards and crystals of five different colors are used to level up characters outside of battle, similar to the Bonus EXP mechanic from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn''. Shards are used to level up characters below level 20, while crystals are used to level up characters that are level 20 and higher. While normally characters can only use shards or crystals that match their color, the yellow Universal Shards and Crystals can be used by anyone.
** Healer characters get EXP for healing other units in addition to attacking enemies with their staves.
** Averted with the dancers when they use the Dance/Sing command, even though they can get EXP when doing that in the main games.
* NonIndicativeName: A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_(staff) Gùn]] is a SimpleStaff, but the weapon known as the "Wo Gùn" is an axe.
* NonStandardCharacterDesign: While most characters at least adhere to anime-styled designs, there are a couple notable exceptions:
** Arthur from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' is drawn in a comic book style like ''VideoGame/CodeNameSteam'' to go with his American superhero theme.
** Characters drawn by Soeda Ippei (Arden, Dorcas, Walhart and Garon) are rendered in a considerably more realistic style than the norm.
** Downplayed with the five characters drawn by Yamada Akihiro (Jagen, Ogma, Zephiel, Gunter, and Bantu), Rebecca (drawn by Hoshino Lily), and Idunn (drawn by Yamada Kotaro). While most characters' special attack portraits are edited versions of their normal attack portraits, these characters possess unique artwork for their special attacks.
** Another downplayed example is Brave Veronica, drawn by Kozaki Yusuke, the artist for the OriginalGeneration characters. Unlike nearly every other character whose special art is derived from their normal attack art, her pose for her special art is similar to her damaged art.
** More downplayed examples come in the characters from Hel (Eir, Líf, Thrasir, Hel, and [[spoiler:Gustav]]), as well as Brave Camilla. They have near-identical attack and damaged artwork and unique special artwork.
* NoSelfBuffs:
** Staff users cannot use their staves to heal themselves; there are some abilities that enable some degree of self-healing, but for those to work, their users need to heal one of their allies. Also, the Hone and Fortify type abilities will boost allies adjacent to the character, but does nothing for the character themselves. The Opening skills raise the stats of an ally with the highest corresponding stat, and the Joyous Lantern raises the Def and Res of an ally with the highest attack at the start of their turn, but does not include the user.
** Averted with several skills and weapons. The Wave skills, Link skills, Legendary Tiki's With Everyone!, Armor March, Joint Hone skills, and the weapons Ardent Service and Fresh Bouquet all can boost the stats of their user and their user's allies.
* NoSell:
** The Dull Skills allows the user to ignore any field stat boosts on enemies during combat, with Dull Close ignoring boosts from enemies equipped with 1-ranged weapons, while Dull Ranged ignoring boosts from enemies with 2-ranged weapons. Certain weapons, such as Divine Naga, Mulagir, and the inheritable 2018 Valentine weapons also has this effect, with different limitations, such as the 2018 Valentine weapons having the same conditions as Dull Ranged, the unrefined Mulagir being limited to Tome users only (the refined Mulagnir having Dull Ranged), and Divine Naga having no weapon limitations.
** Null Follow-Up allows the user ignore skills that negate any of the user's follow-up attacks, and negates any skills that guarantees any of the enemy's follow-up attacks. Legendary Celica's Soul of Zofia also has this effect.
** Both Byleths' Creator Swords grant Null Follow-Up and also ignore skills that gives the foe +1 special buildup and inflict -1 special buildup to the user.
** Mystic Boost and Splashy Bucket allows the user to ignore any enemy weapons and skills that target the user's lower defensive stats, and the Wrathful Staff effect from enemies. The exclusive refine on Naga, any refine on Divine Naga, and Legendary Julia's Light and Dark, only has the former effect.
** Null C-Disrupt allows the user to ignore any enemy skills (like Dazzling Staff or Firesweep weapons) or status effects (mainly the one cast by Flash+) on the user that prevent the user from counter-attacking.
** Idunn's Demonic Breath and Brunnya's Fimbulvetr allows them to ignore any penalties they have, as well as gain +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, during combat, if they either have any negative status effect or is not at full HP before the start of combat.
* NostalgiaLevel: Many maps are references to their game of origin, many of which are listed in the [[MythologyGag/FireEmblemHeroes Mythology Gag of Fire Emblem Heroes]]. For example, Story 1-1, ''Mystery Trial'' is based on chapter 1 from ''Shadow Dragon'', Marth Embarks.
* NotCompletelyUseless:
** A number of situational skills can prove surprisingly useful in Røkkr Sieges. Obstruct is usually considered useless due to how small the maps are, but it's useful in limiting the Røkkr's movement, especially if the Røkkr is a cavalry unit.
** Astra inflicting 150% more damage is normally overkill, as many units that can be beaten by Astra can also be beaten by Glimmer, which deals 50% more damage but has 2 less cooldown than Astra. Since the Røkkr are {{Damage Sponge Boss}}es with HP in the hundreds of thousands, Astra ends up being one of the best specials for racking up damage against them.
* NotTheIntendedUse:
** The Falchion, the legendary weapon used by Marth, Lucina, Chrom, and Alm, is a 16 might weapon that is effective against dragons and has a built-in Renewal 2. Naturally, it functions as a check against dragon units such as Tiki and Fae, but with the advent of Skill Inheritance, players discovered that the Falchion's Renewal 2 stacks with an inherited Renewal 3, allowing for an average of 8.33 HP healed per turn. Coupled with Reciprocal Aid, Falchion users can now be turned into medic-type units with, until update 2.0.0, more potent healing than the game's ''actual healers.'' With the release of refinements for the Falchions, their innate Renewal can be upgraded to level 3, which will raise the healing average to 10 HP per turn if paired with the B-skill Renewal 3.
** Rival Domains maps are surprisingly useful for completing quests that require you to KO units of a certain type or with certain weapons. They have no stamina cost, the maps are larger and feature more units, the mode cycles through your brigade, and the 10 turns is always played out (provided neither your fortress or the enemy's is destroyed), so you can increase your counts quickly using them.
** While certain Special Training maps are meant for specific unit types, their enemy composition means they can be useful for powerleveling other unit types. For example, Special Training: Bows can be useful for leveling melee units.
* NumericalHard:
** Zig-zagged. Between Normal, Hard, and Lunatic, the biggest differences are increased stats and levels and better skills for enemy units. Infernal and Abyssal, on the other hand, often change the enemy layout, and in some cases skill sets and added sacred seals, to quash strategies that work on lower difficulties.
** The enemy heroes in Relay Defense. Expect to see absurd levels of stats on enemies on the 5th map and higher.
* ObviousRulePatch:
** Lunge, Drag Back, Hit and Run, and Knock Back are restricted to melee units only, since ranged units using it in ''Heroes'' would create problems with unit and map design, such as a flying ranged unit with Lunge making some maps UnwinnableByMistake if they get an enemy unit stuck in terrain, blocking the unit from moving, or Knock Back moving units diagonally, moving them 2 spaces instead of the intended 1, which would make that skill a GameBreaker against armored units.
** Dancers cannot chain Dance or Sing onto each other if both are equipped with either, likely to prevent infinite movement between the two units, either to escape enemy attacks, or reach themselves or another unit to attack an enemy across the map.
** The Triangle Adept/-raven tome combination was a problem for colorless units, since the triangle advantage against colorless provided by -raven tomes would be enhanced by Triangle Adept, making colorless units virtually helpless against units with this combination. To counter this, the Cancel Affinity skill was added to prevent Triangle Adept/-raven tomes from completely dominating colorless heroes, and was released on a common summonable hero to boot (though staff users cannot inherit this skill). While colorless units are still at a disadvantage against units who only have -raven tomes, the Triangle Adept problem now only affects those without Cancel Affinity.
** "Duel" skills are Arena-centric passives that treat a unit's BST (Base Stat Total) as 170 (in addition to a +5 HP bonus) before factoring in skills or merges. This allows low-BST units to function in Arena modes without tanking Arena Score, giving them more options than running full teams of Armors all the time.[[note]]For reference, BST bins are done in counts of 5. The only units that hit the 170 tier naturally are Armors, with only a handful of them reaching 175 (and most of them needing a superasset with no superflaws to do it). Currently, a few units hit the 180 tier without any superassets or merges.)[[/note]]
* OneGenderRace: Dragon units used to be all female--including the generic Manakete enemies--until the arrival of the Fallen Heroes banner, which included Male Robin as a green armored dragon, and many mor male Manaketes has been released since then.[[note]]Male Corrin is also a dragon in [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates his home game]], but in ''Heroes'', is treated as a sword or (in his New Year's variant) bow user and thus isn't affected by dragon-related buffs or anti-dragon weapons.[[/note]]
* OneSteveLimit: The Choose Your Legend event usually do not change the names of some Japanese-only Fire Emblem characters. Therefore, there's both [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Arthur of Nohr]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Arthur son of Tailtiu]] and the game does not bat an eye on this. The same can also be said of [[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Hilda Valentin Goneril]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Hilda of Friege]], and even also [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Lorenz of Grust]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Lorenz Hellman Gloucester]] (the Lost Lore in Archanea featured the former Lorenz, and his name is written exactly like the latter). When you say their names in context of ''Heroes'', may want to be careful to not refer to the wrong person (though usually, fans only refer to the character that has been added to the game).
* OnlySixFaces: [[https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Fujiwara_Ryo Fujiwara Ryo]] (character artist of Male Robin, Seth, Halloween Jakob and Joshua) has a bit of a reputation for suffering from Same Face Syndrome. While the individual pieces are quite well-drawn, looking at them side-by-side shows that the characters' faces only really differ by the color and scaling of their eyes.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: The Manaketes Young Tiki, Adult Tiki, Nowi, Fae, Ninian, Myrrh, and female Corrin use their Dragonstones to transform between human and draconic forms here, just like in their respective games. While the Tikis, Nowi, Myrrh, and Ninian have forms that resemble traditional western dragons, Fae's is covered with feathers while Corrin's vaguely resembles a qilin.
* OutOfCharacter: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by Winter Tharja, who tries to act more "normally" in an attempt to win Robin over. It naturally fails, and even Robin himself wonders what's going on with her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:P]]
* PaletteSwap:
** A lot of weapons are functionally identical to another weapon in Mt and effect, with the only difference being appearance, lore, and wielder. For instance, swords like Raijinto, Siegfried, Ragnell, and Alondite all have the Distant Counter effect, just like the lances Gradivus and Leiptr, or the axe Stout Tomahawk.
** The Book II update introduced enemy dragon riders; they are functionally mostly identical to the previous enemy pegagus riders, differing only in their typical stats.[[note]]Dragon riders have more defense, HP and attack, but less resistance and speed.[[/note]]
** The Sanctuary of the Mages Tap Battle has generic Red Mages and Troubadours instead of Sword Fighters and Lance Cavaliers, but they play the same way as their physical brethren.
* ParentChildTeam: First generation characters from ''Genealogy'', ''Awakening'', and ''Fates'' can team up with their children. Then there's also characters from ''The Blazing Blade'' who can team up with their children from ''The Binding Blade'', as well as Mikoto who can team up with Corrin and the Hoshidan royals. Hector and Lilina even team up in Paralogue 18, while Eliwood and Roy band together for Tempest Trials: Breath of Destiny.
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling:
** Certain events are intended to introduce new mechanics such as the Defense Tiles in the Defensive Battles map, or to pit players against the character designer of ''Awakening'' and ''Fates'', Yusuke Kozaki, in the Yusuke Kozaki Trials. However, because these event maps always pay out 4.6 Hero Merit per battle (the maximum for most maps in the game) and cost merely 5 stamina, players used these challenges to quickly accumulate Hero Merit.
** The Chain Challenge also became a Hero Merit farm. Even the easiest maps will give a large amount of Hero Merit per character for only 30 stamina. Also, some players intentionally leave a 10-map Normal challenge uncleared because it is the easiest way to level up characters of level 30 or more, since clearing the challenge will reduce the experience and SP given on further attempts, and the reward for clearing the challenge is minimal. Clearing even just one map in the challenge will still allow you to keep the rewards from that map.
** The ''Fire Emblem Warriors'' maps had numerous reinforcements or many more enemies than usual, and they were much weaker than even the typical fodder unit. This made them the best way to grind experience and SP while they were available. This was so beneficial to the player, that the devs eventually created special training maps specifically for that purpose, as the ''Warriors'' maps were only available for a limited time.
** Special Training maps contain many reinforcements and are tuned specifically to help train certain units, e.g. Special Training: Bows contains mostly flyers. As such, they are an effective way to powerlevel your units.
** Since they were updated to cost zero stamina, Grand Hero Battle and Bound Hero Battle maps are the most efficient way to grind Hero Merit, stamina-wise.
* PinkGirlBlueBoy: The spring variants of Alfonse and Sharena have light blue and pink accents, respectively. This also applies to their New Year's kimonos: Alfonse's is blue, while Sharena's is pink.
* PlayEveryDay: Each day different special maps, the Training Tower's rewards, and some quest sets rotate. You can also get certain items depending on which day you log in.
* PlayboyBunny: Spring Lucina, Spring Camilla, Spring Catria, Spring Sharena, and Spring Kagero are dressed in provocative rabbit costumes.
* PlayerExclusiveMechanic: There are a few systems that the computer can't use that can give you an edge in battle.
** Ally and Summoner supports give your units a stat bonus depending on the rank of the support.
** The +10 HP and +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res stat boosts for bonus units on Tempest Trials and Arena, which does not apply to defense teams.
** The bonuses for certain areas and units in Grand Conquest applies to the player units, but not for the enemy.
** After update 2.5.0, player units in Rival Domains and Grand Conquests can perform actions after they warp to camps and their own fort, but not the computer. However, on the highest Infernal difficulty in Grand Conquests, enemies ''will'' perform actions.
** Only the player can use a Duo Hero's Duo Skill.
** Legendary Leif's Meisterbogen prevents the foe from making a follow-up attack if he initiates combat, but this only works if a player is using him.
* PopularityPower: Popularity is the main deciding factor in the Voting Gauntlet, since a team with more players has more chances to score points.
* PowerAtAPrice:
** Life and Death grants its user up to +5 Atk and Spd, but also inflicts up to -5 Def and Res.
** On the opposite end, Fortress Def and Fortress Res grant +5 Def or Res respectively, but also inflict -3 Atk. Fortress Def/Res 3 instead grants +6 Def ''and'' Res, and only inflicts -2 Atk.
** Fury grants the user up to +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, but makes them take up to 6 damage after each round of combat. Fury 4 has it go to +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, and take 8 damage after combat.
** Firesweep weapons prevent the enemy from counterattacking, but the user cannot counterattack either.
** Windsweep and Watersweep can prevent the enemy from counterattacking, but only if the user's Spd is higher and they initiate against specific weapon users, depending on what -sweep the user has equipped. They also prevent the user from doubling if he/she initiates combat, and will not protect the user from being doubled.
** Lightning Breath(+) allows the user to counterattack even when attacked at a distance, but its Mt is lower than other Breath attacks, and slows special charge by 1.
** -blade tomes increase damage based on the amount of {{Status Buff}}s that the user has, but they also slow special charge by 1.
** Brave weapons, Dire Thunder, and Vafþrúðnir allow the user to attack twice regardless of Speed before the opponent can counterattack. On top of that, if the user has enough Speed to double, this leads to them attacking up to four times in a single round. However, the user also suffers a Speed penalty of 5, making it difficult to reach that quadruple attack threshold while also leaving the user more likely to get doubled themselves. These weapons don't have the highest of Mt, either.
** Triangle Adept and the equivalent gem-based weapons (the Ruby Sword, Sapphire Lance, and Emerald Axe) amplify the Weapon Triangle's effect on both ends. This means when the user has the advantage, they will do 40% more damage to their opponents and take 40% less damage from them, but when they have the disadvantage, they will do 40% less damage to their opponents and take 40% more damage from them, as opposed to 20% in all cases.
** The exclusive weapon refinement shared by the Basilikos and Solitary Blade gives "Life and Death 3" to the user, giving them more power at the cost of less durability. Combining this with "Life and Death 3" in their A Slot would make them a GlassCannon, but it's AwesomeButImpractical for a reason.
** Julius' Loptous tome gives him +3 Resistance and inflicts -6 Attack on an enemy that fights him without an anti-dragon weapon, but also makes him weak to anti-dragon weapons.
** Fallen Berkut's Kriemhild allows him to deny any follow-up attacks as well as counterattack any ranged opponents that initiates on him if an ally is within 2 spaces of him, but instead of him receiving anything, the closest ally receives 20 damage after combat.
* PowerCreep:
** While for the most part the game's new content is balanced compared to what's been there since launch, the Slayer weapons became the first items added that objectively outclass their older counterparts. They're identical to Killer weapons but with higher Mt. Later on, the game also added stronger versions of the AntiArmor weapons and the -wolf tomes. Thankfully, the same update allows units to upgrade their weaker weapons into the stronger versions without Skill Inheritance.
** The increase of BST on many units released later in the game's life did not do wonders for some heroes, especially "Gen 1" heroes, but some heroes released earlier do standout from the competition, due to access to either exclusive skills or weapons that later heroes do not have.
*** Some heroes are just straight up weaker than later ones released, such as Finn and Clarisse, who are overshadowed by later released heroes such as Brave Eliwood for Finn, and Fallen Takumi, Legendary Alm, and Norne for Clarisse, and some at the same time are easier to summon than others on top of being statistically stronger, such as Kliff being stronger and more available to the seasonal-only Spring Lucina, and Hilda and Gerik being stronger and more available to the seasonal-only Spring Chrom.
*** Some are Downplayed examples, as while they have access to stronger stats, they do not have access to [=IVs=] or exclusive weapons, such as Summer Ylgr being statistically stronger than Raven, but he still has access to his exclusive weapon Basilikos and its refines over Ylgr, as well as [=IVs=] over her.
*** Other Downplayed examples are heroes who are stronger in their niche, but have at least one or two of their stats be lower than their competition, such as Conrad being a better Res tank Lance Cavalier than Regular Berkut, Matilda, and Jagen, but misses a few HP and Atk on Regular Berkut, a few points of Spd for Jagen, and a lot of Spd for Matilda, which are sometimes vital for surviving against certain enemies, and the latter two have access to [=IVs=] over Conrad.
*** There are {{Zigzagged|trope}} examples, however, as they still have a niche due to their exclusive weapons even after all the heroes released later don't have access to, such as Jeorge and Masked Marth, as while Jeorge is statistically weaker than heroes such as Legendary Alm, Dancing Nephenee, and Norne, and in the case of Nephenee, access to Dance over him, he still has access to Parthia and its refines, and while Masked Marth is weaker than Astram statistically and skill inheritance wise, they still have access to Falchion, its refines, and refine evolution into the Sealed Falchion.
*** Even Dancers, who normally have less stats than their non-dancer Gen equivalents, are a {{Zigzagged|trope}} example, as they still have access to Dance/Sing compared to later released heroes, and as such still stand out as support characters instead, such as Performing Arts Inigo being weaker than Thrasir, but he still have access to dance, and therefore can use the Dance-buffing skills.
** At first, personal weapons typically had a secondary skill that was only as strong as a second tier skill. Later Special Weapons will usually have two skills that are on par with third tier skills or better. However, the older ones have a chance to catch up if an update allows them to be refined.
*** Eliwood's unrefined Durandal (+4 Atk on player phase) and Corrin's unrefined Yato (+4 Spd on player phase) were both powercrept by Siegbert's Dark Greatsword (+4 Atk ''and'' Spd on player phase). Eliwood's refined Durandal paid him back in kind later on (a flat +3 HP, and +'''10''' Atk and +4 Spd on player phase).
*** Fallen and Legendary Robin's Expiration (Distant Counter and adaptive damage) were powercrept by Legendary Tiki's Divine Mist and Fallen Tiki's Razing Breath (Distant Counter, adaptive damage, ''and'' effective against dragons), as well as Sothis' Sublime Surge (Distant Counter, adaptive damage, and negates her dragon weaknesses).
*** The ranged swords Ragnell, Alondite, Raijinto, and Siegfried were all powercrept by Legendary Roy's Dragonbind, which is a ranged sword that deals effective damage against dragons.
*** Lyon's Naglfar was powercrept by Sophia's Eternal Tome, which has the same effect but can be refined for additional power or Bracing Stance 2.
*** Shiro's Bright Naginata (Sturdy Stance 2) was powercrept by Lukas' unique-refined Daybreak Lance (Sturdy Stance 2, +3 HP, and a Killer effect).
*** Dancer Berkut's Verðandi is a straight upgrade of Performing Arts Azura's Urðr and Ylissean Travelers Olivia's Skuld, giving +4 to all stats to the danced target instead of Azura's and Olivia's +3.
*** Lloyd's Regal Blade, which gave +2 Atk/Spd during combat if the enemy is at full HP at the start of combat, was powercreeped by both Sacred Memories Eirika's Glepnir and Regular L'arachel's Ivaldi with +3 Atk/Spd with the same conditions and additional stat boosts, but was later able to be refined to get up to par with them, with the refined Regal Blade now giving +3 Atk/Spd. However, all three of them were later powercreeped by Perceval's Prized Lance, which gave +4 Atk/Spd/'''Def'''/'''Res''' in addition to inflicting -1 special buildup on the enemy per attack if the enemy is at full HP at the start of combat.
** The Brazen skills are far more effective than the Defiant skills. While Defiant skills boost one stat by 7 and only activate if the unit starts its turn with 50% HP or less, Brazen skills boost two stats by 7 and activate if the unit enters battle with 80% HP or less, even if it's the middle of the enemy's turn. Additionally, Brazen skills can stack with other stat boosts, aren't affected by Panic since the boost only applies in battle, and are unaffected by skills that ignore stat boosts since they only affect visible stat boosts. The only advantage Defiant skills have is that they trigger Blade tome and refined Sieglinde's boosts.
** The Color Duel Movement skills are direct upgrades to HP+5; they give the same effect in addition to treating the unit as if they have higher stats for the purposes of Arena scoring.
* PowerEqualsRarity: You are less likely to obtain higher-star units when summoning, but they are generally more powerful than lower-star units.
* PowerFloats: Legendary Robin, Yune, Naga, Brave Micaiah, and Altina are seen as units floating without using wings, which makes them fliers without a mount, much like regular Myrrh.
* PowerGlows: The most powerful units, five-star units, have a faint golden glow around them, visible in combat, but most evident on the unit status screen. Characters with refined weapons also glow, the color depending on what type of upgrade they're using.
* ThePowerOfFriendship:
** Legendary Heroes with the Battle Blessing and the last hero in your team in Allegiance Battles can pair up with other allies, which gives both the Legendary Hero and ally stat boosts, and the player can change between them at will, even if their turn is finished.
** The -owl tomes, Innes' Nidhogg, Soren's refined Wind's Brand, Raigh's refined Hermit's Tome, and Katarina's Reese's Tome increase all of the user's stats by 2 for each ally adjacent to them during battle.
** Bridal Sanaki's Nifl Frostflowers, Bridal Tharja's Múspell Fireposy and Nailah's Wolf Queen Fang increase all of the user's stats by 2 for each ally within 2 spaces of the user during battle, but caps out at +6.
** Bridal Ninian's Fresh Bouquet and Groom Marth's Ardent Service increase the speed or attack of its user and any adjacent allies by 4, but the user must have at least one adjacent ally for the buff to activate. The Joint Hone skills have the same conditions, but give +5 instead.
** The Bond skills boost two stats by 5 during combat if their users have an ally adjacent to them. The exclusive refinement for Chrom's, Lucina's, and Masked Marth's Falchion has a similar effect, except it grants the user +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res. The -bloom weapons, Loyal Wreath, Faithful Axe and Heart's Blade grant the user +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res under the same conditions.
** The Form skills give the user +1 to two of their stats during combat, and an additional 2 for every ally within 2 spaces of the user, capping out at +7.
** Legendary Lyn's Laws of Sacae gives her +4 in all her stats in combat if the opponent initiates combat and she has at least 2 allies within 2 spaces of her. Her Swift Mulagir gives her +5 Attack and Speed if she has more allies than enemies in a two-space radius.
** The exclusive refinement for Sanaki's Cymbeline grants her +5 Atk/Res during combat whenever there is a flier unit within 2 spaces of the user.
** Hinoka's Spear grants the user +4 Atk/Spd during combat if there is a flier or infantry unit within 2 spaces of the user.
** Camilla's Axe grants the user +4 Atk/Spd during combat if there is a filer or cavalry unit within 2 spaces of the user.
** The exclusive refinement for Male Corrin's Yato grants an ally +4 in all their stats during combat if they are within 2 spaces of the user's support partner.
** The exclusive refinements for both Clive's Lordly Lance and Mathilda's Knightly Lance grants the user and their support partner +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if they're within 2 spaces of their support partner.
** The exclusive refinement for both Tikis' Breath of Fog grants them +5 Atk/Def during combat whenever there is a sword or breath wielder within 2 spaces of her.
** The exclusive refinement for Linde's Aura and Merric's Excalibur grants them +5 Atk/Spd during combat whenever there is a tome or staff wielder within 2 spaces of them.
** Legendary Tiki's With Everyone! raises her and any adjacent allies' defense and resistance by 5. However, just like the Fresh Bouquet and Ardent Service, With Everyone! requires Legendary Tiki to have at least one adjacent ally for it to activate.
** The exclusive refinement for Tana's Vidofnir grants her +4 Atk/Spd in combat if there is an infantry or armored ally within 2 spaces of her.
** The exclusive refinement for Ogma's Gladiator's Blade grants him +4 Atk/Spd if there is an infantry or flying ally within 2 spaces of him.
** The exclusive refinement for the Whitewing weapons gain +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and, if they initiate combat, can attack twice if the user is within 2 spaces of at least 2 other flying allies.
** The exclusive refinement for Dark Aura grants the user +5 Atk/Spd in combat if there whenever there is a melee unit within 2 spaces of the user.
** Blue Flame boosts the damage its user deals by 25 on activation if its user has at least one adjacent ally during combat; otherwise, it boosts by only 10.
** Draconic Rage grants the Adrift Corrins +5 in-combat Atk/Spd if there are more allies within 2 spaces of them than there are enemies also within 2 spaces.
** Adrift Camilla's Book of Dreams and Adrift Azura's Book of Shadows inflicts -4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res to the enemy during combat if they have an adjacent ally.
** Sorcery Blade grants its user the ability to target the lower defensive stat of an enemy if the user is adjacent to a tome-wielding ally.
** Inf. Hexblade grants to adjacent Infantry allies +2 Atk/Spd, as well as allowing them to target the lower defensive stat of a foe, during combat if they wield Swords, Lances, Axes, Bows, or Daggers.
** Glittering Breath and Goodie Boot grants the user +2 Def/Res for every ally within 2 spaces of the user during combat, but maxes out at +6.
** Velouria's Wolfpup Fang grants her and her support partner -2 special cooldown at the start of turn 1.
** Kaden's Kitsune Fang grants all allies within 2 spaces of him stat boosts during combat equal to whatever matching field stat boosts he has, such as granting them +4 Atk and +6 Def during combat if he has +4 Atk and +6 Def from field stat boosts, which can also stack with any field stat boosts they receive.
** Legendary Roy's Human Virtue grants him and his ally +6 Atk/Spd at the start of his turn if he's adjacent to an ally and they're not a beast or dragon unit.
** Ranulf's Covert Cat Fang grants him and all allies within 2 spaces of him +3 Atk/Def during combat if there is an ally within 2 spaces of him.
** Naga's Divine Breath grants her +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat for any dragons and units with "effectiveness against dragons" within 2 spaces of the user, capping at +9.
** The unique effect for Oscar's Loyal Greatlance grants all Infantry and Cavalry allies within 2 spaces of him +3 Atk/Spd during combat, as well as granting himself +3 Atk/Spd during combat if he's within 2 spaces of an Infantry or Cavalry ally.
** Infantry Breath grants all Infantry allies adjacent to the user +2 Def/Res during combat, as well as +1 Special buildup for every attack from both the ally and foe if the enemy initiates combat.
** Brave Lucina's Geirskögul grants all allies within 2 spaces of the user +3 Atk/Spd during combat if they use a sword, lance, axe, bow, dagger, or beast weapons, and the unique refine also grants +3 Def/Res to them during combat, as well as +1 special buildup if the enemy initates combat.
** Subverted with the Oath skills, where if the user is adjacent to an ally at the start of their turn, only the user gains +5 to two of their stats, and not their allies.
** Astram's Mercuris grants himself and all allies using a sword, lance, axe, bow, dagger, or beast weapons within 2 spaces of him +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res at the start of his turn if he is at half HP or over.
* PreMortemOneLiner: Like the 3DS ''Fire Emblem'' games, characters shout one of four lines when activating an offensive skill. Played with for healers; while they do shout lines, their skills don't trigger unless they're healing someone, and their offensive skill lines are only heard in the Catalog of Heroes and during Tap Battles.
* PromotedToPlayable:
** Characters that had previously been unplayable antagonists and supporting characters in their home games can be recruited in ''Heroes'' as playable units. Naga, Duma, Reinhardt, Kempf, Idunn, Greil, Yune, Altina, Garon, Mikoto, Berkut, Rinea, Sothis, and Kronya in particular have never been controllable in any form, while the Death Knight made his first playable appearance in ''Heroes''.
** Most NPC antagonists eventually join the playable roster one way or another. [[BigBad Veronica]] gained a playable alternate version in Arrival of the Brave, the 2.9.1 update added Múspell generals Laevatein, Laegjarn, and Helbindi to the roster, the Brave Redux banner gave players a chance to add Loki to their ranks, the Whispers of Death update put Surtr and Ylgr in players' hands, the Regal Rabbits update gave Bruno his first playable alternate, and the September Mythic Hero update made Thrasir playable.
* PurpleIsPowerful: A select number of Special weapons can be upgraded in the Weapon Refinery, with each having the selection of a unique refinement. If that unique refinement is equipped, the character with that weapon will gain a purple glow.
* PurposelyOverpowered: Some Heroes are a cut above others in the weapon and movement type they belong to, or perform a certain role better, but many Legendary and Mythic Heroes are this on purpose due to their exclusive weapons, skills, and/or their optimized statline, such as Legendary Hector being better than some Axe Armored heroes, including Regular Hector.
* PuzzleBoss: Tactics Drills give you specific units and a small number of turns to clear a level, usually by taking advantage of the skills you have.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:R]]
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The Order of Heroes consists of, among others, an ordinary individual from modern Earth, royalty, commoners, kind people, AxCrazy psychopaths, an omnicidal artificial dragon, and two {{Voodoo Zombie}}s.
* RareCandy: The Dragonflowers introduced in update 3.2.0 give allies +1 to a single stat for each charge, up to 10 times for infantry introduced prior to 3.2.0, and 5 times for all other units.
* RecurringBoss:
** Xander is fought a few times during the story mode. Once during the prologue, twice during Ch 2, and once more in Ch 9-5, where he fights alongside Veronica.
** Bruno is fought several times during the story mode. He's fought in Ch 9-4, 10-3, 11-5, 12-5, 13-1, and 13-5, notably being the main boss of 9-4 and the ClimaxBoss of 12-5 and 13-5.
* RecurringElement: Since the DarkerAndEdgier Book 2, there has been a banner featuring Fallen Heroes (which usually come with a Grand Hero Battle as well). These heroes are supposedly based off possessed or cursed versions from the games they come from. They usually feature at least one new unit and the rest of them are alts. For Book 2, there's Hardin, Male Robin (as Grima), Celica and Takumi. In Book 3, there's Mareeta, Berkut, Corrin (Female), Tiki (Young) and Delthea.
* RedHerring: The intro for Book 3 implies that [[spoiler:Sharena will die in Book III. While it does happen, it's actually [[AlternateSelf "Lif's" Sharena]]]]
* RegionalBonus: The English versions of the Brave Heroes have a unique quote that can only be heard when the player starts a map.
* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming: While many of the names, weapons, and locations of the OriginalGeneration are from Myth/NorseMythology, of which more details are under the [[Characters/FireEmblemHeroes characters tab]], there are some weapons wielded by other characters that originated in this game that also have their names come from Norse Mythology:
** Geirskögul, Thögn, and Sanngriðr, exclusive weapons for Lucina's Brave and Legendary variants and Camillla's Brave variant, respectively, are three of the names of Valkyries.
** Urðr, Skuld, and Verðandi, exclusive weapons for Performance Azura, Ylissean Travelers Olivia, and Dancing Berkut, respectively, are names of the Norns, the goddesses of fate.
** Huginn's Egg and Muninn's Egg, exclusive weapons for Spring Cartia and Spring Sharena, respectively, are named after the two ravens that flies all over the world and brings information to Odin.
** Fruits of Iðunn, Summer Tana's exclusive weapon (and by extension Idunn's name), is named after the goddess associated to apples and youth, specifically, the apples that give the gods youth.
** Picnic Flora's weapon Sæhrímnir is named after the beast that is slaughtered and later revives every day by the chef Andhrímnir to feed the Aesir and Einherjar, and Picnic Felicia's weapon Eldhrímnir is named after the cauldron that Andhrímnir uses to cook the beast every day.
** Dancing Ishtar's Mögþrasir and Dancing Reinhardt's Vafþrúðnir are named after two Jotunn from Vafþrúðnismál, the third poem of Literature/PoeticEdda, whom the latter compete in a deadly contest of wits against Odin while mentioning the former once, and lost against Odin.
** Duo Winter Marth & Elice have Tanngrisnir, which is named after one of two goats that pulled the chariot of Thor, and whom Thor cooked and later revived in order to feed the gods.
* ReluctantFanserviceGirl:
** Unlike the other Brides, Lyndis is aghast towards the bride dress that she's forced to wear, insisting that there has to be an important reason why she's wearing that dress and it's totally ''not'' her idea.
** Spring Catria does not appreciate having to wear a bunny outfit for the Spring Festival and mentions as much a lot.
--->'''Spring Catria:''' My desire to protect you is no laughing matter! Unlike this outfit...
* RelationshipValues:
** A unit can form an Ally Support with one other unit, which boosts their stats depending on their Support Rank and proximity on the battlefield.
** You can form a Summoner Support with one unit, which boosts the unit's stats depending on the Bond Rank.
** Forging Bonds events have you building friendship with featured units, unlocking special conversations in the process.
* RestoredMyFaithInHumanity: During his special conversation, Zephiel starts to second-guess his belief that humanity is a waste due to witnessing the actions of the Summoner and the other Heroes.
* {{Retcon}}: When the game first launched, Virion was the first hero you summoned during the Preface map "The Legend". After the 2.5.0 update, Takumi is summoned instead. Virion still joins, but now he does so at the end of the map, along with Raigh and Matthew.
* {{Retraux}}:
** Some of the music, such as for Paralogue 10's maps, are clearly synthesized and sounds like they were directly ripped from a UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance or UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem.
** The boss music for certain Bound Hero Battles, such as Hawkeye & Ninian or Seliph & Julia, are direct rips of the player phase battle themes from the respective games the featured characters originate from.
** The Tap Battles "Farewells" and "Heir of Light" use music from the games they're based on as boss music.
* RewardingVandalism:
** In Aether Raids, breaking Aether Fountains and Amphorae recovers Aether, the amount recovered depending on your lift tier, but only if you rout all the enemies within the time limit. Considering that you spend Aether on every attack raid, [[InvokedTrope it's encouraged to go after them if you can]].
** The AR-O A Skills gives the unit if they're on the attacking raid team in Aether Raids stat boosts to 2 of their stats during combat, depending on how many defense structures are remaining on the enemy team, with 2 or less giving a substantial '''+10''', 3 giving +7, 4 giving +4, and 5 or more just +1, so players are encouraged to destroy enemy structures to gain the maximum benefits of these skills.
* RocketTagGameplay: The Arena all but requires one-round kills, especially if you want to win without casualties. If you can't one-shot an enemy hero, prepare to be one-shotted by them, especially if enemy dancers come into play.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:S]]
* SadisticChoice: Surtr presents Alfonse with one in Chapter 4 of Book 2. Since the gate to Nifl is rapidly closing, Surtr threatens to burn down an Askran village if the prince decides to enter Nifl, or he could save the village at the cost of being able to enter the ice kingdom. [[spoiler:[[ScrewYourUltimatum Luckily, Alfonse is able to signal to his people to flee the area before Surtr can burn it down, and is able to do this before the gate to Nifl closes.]]]]
* SayMyName: Certain characters will call out the name of someone else when they're defeated. Eirika and Ephraim call out to each other (and apologise to one another, in their alternates). Similarly, Sigurd and Deirdre say each other's names, Arvis refers to Deirdre and Julia, and Gunnthrá apologises to Fjorm.
* ScissorsCutsRock: If a unit with Cancel Affinity fights an opponent using Triangle Adept or a gem weapon, the bonus from the opponent's skill or weapon is reversed. For example, if a red unit with Cancel Affinity fights a blue unit with Triangle Adept 3, the +20% bonus from Triangle Adept becomes a -20% penalty instead. Since a unit with a weapon triangle advantage usually gets a +20% bonus, the new penalty effectively neutralizes the weapon triangle. This also happens if the enemy has the Trilemma status, which temporarily gives them Triangle Adept 3.
* ScoreMultiplier:
** Using certain heroes in Arena or Tempest Trials battles will multiply your score. The multiplier for Tempest Trials can either be x1.2 or x1.4 depending on the hero, but it's a flat x1.4 if you have any of the bonus heroes in Tempest Trials+.
** During Voting Gauntlets, huge score discrepancies between two fighting Heroes will trigger a temporary score multiplier for the underdog. The number gets bigger the later into the round it's received, hitting x7.5 during the last hour. In addition to that, if the player uses the character they are supporting in a Voting Gauntlet battle, they receive a x1.1 score multiplier. An update in March 2019 later add endurance multipliers on the winning team, going up to x3.25 at the last hour, but a later update increased the multiplier of the underdog team, going up to x12 on the last hour.
** During Grand Conquests, your score in an area will be multiplied after battle, depending on how many Troops on your side are helping out in that area.
** In Røkkr Siege, you have a damage multiplier to deal damage to the Røkkr in order to remove the starting HP of '''200000''' (and increases for each successive Røkkr defeated beforehand), which starts at x1 for Beginner, x2 for Intermediate, and x4 for Advanced, which multiplies for each Havoc Axe used on that battle, and increases further by dealing damage to the Røkkr or eliminating enemy reinforcements, but the increases only last through that battle.
* ScratchDamage: Normally averted, but all of the Umbra Burst weapons used by Røkkr bosses have an effect of dealing the minimum of 1 damage per attack.
* SecretAIMoves: Legendary Leif inverts this. His Meisterbogen prevents his enemies from following up on his phase, but only if he's under the player's direct control.
* SecretArt:
** Most skills and Specials have restrictions on what kind of unit type can inherit them, but some units have truly exclusive skills that cannot be inherited by any other unit.
** Brave Lyn has Sacae's Blessing, which allows her to negate Distant Counter on opponents who wield swords, lances, or axes.
** Brave Ike has Beorc's Blessing, which allows him to negate any stat buffs on opponents who are cavalry or flier types.
** The Black Knight and Zelgius have Black Luna, which is effectively a stronger Luna that pierces through 80% of an opponent's Def rather than 50%. Zelgius also has Warp Powder, which allows him to move to any space adjacent to an ally within 2 spaces of him when he has at least 80% HP.
** Ayra has Regnal Astra, which boosts the damage dealt by 40% of her speed.
** Sigurd has Crusader's Ward; if he's attacked consecutively from a distance, then every strike including and after the second will have their damage heavily mitigated by 80%.
** Arden has Follow-Up Ring, which allows him to always attack twice if he has at least 50% HP.
** Arvis has Recover Ring, which restores 10 HP every turn.
** Fjorm has Ice Mirror, which allows her to reduce incoming 2-range damage by 30%, and return the reduced damage on a counterattack.
** Gunnthrá has Chilling Seal, which reduces the Atk and Spd of the enemy with the lowest Def by 6 at the beginning of each turn, as long as she has at least 50% HP.
** Micaiah and Brave Micaiah have Sacrifice, which converts stat debuffs (that are not caused by Panic) on an ally into buffs like Harsh Command, and heals that same ally by Micaiah's current HP minus 1 while draining Micaiah's HP by the same amount.
** Legendary and Valentine Ike have Radiant Aether, which is the same as Aether but only has a special charge of 4 instead of 5.
** Legendary Ephraim has Solar Brace, which lets him recover HP equal to 30% of the damage he deals with an in-combat offense special, and can stack with LifeDrain specials such as Sol or Aether.
** Legendary Robin has Dragonskin, which grants her +4 Def and Res when an enemy initiates combat with her, and removes her weakness to bows and Excalibur.
** Leif and Legendary Leif have S Drink, which restores his HP by 99 and reduces his special cooldown by 1, but only on the first turn.
** Legendary Lyn has Laws of Sacae, which grants her +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the enemy initiates combat and she has 2 or more allies within 2 spaces of her.
** Legendary Ryoma has Bushido, which deals 10 damage when his special triggers.
** Legendary Hector has Ostia's Pulse, which at the start of turn 1 gives -1 special cooldown to all allies if the number of units with same movement types in the current team is 2 or less, including Hector himself.
** Legendary Lucina has Future Vision, which allows her and an ally to swap positions and her to act again, though she only gets the extra action once per turn this way.
** Brave Celica has Double Lion, which allows her to attack twice as if she was wielding a Brave Sword, but only when she is at full HP and initiates combat. She also loses 1 HP after combat, and the double attack effect does not stack with a Brave Sword.
** Brave Hector has Ostian Counter, which grants him +4 Atk/Def when an enemy initiates combat with him, and allows him to counterattack at any range.
** Legendary Marth and Duo Winter Marth & Elice have Fire Emblem, a 2 cooldown special which adds 30% of their speed to their attack, and grants them and his allies +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res after a battle in which it activates, even if the user was KO'd during that battle. Legendary Marth also has Binding Shield as his exclusive B skill, which gives him a guaranteed follow-up attack and prevents his foes from counterattacking or having a follow-up attack, if he enters combat versus a dragon.
** Legendary Tiki has With Everyone!, which grants +5 Def/Res to her and any adjacent allies at the start of their turn, provided she has an ally adjacent to her.
** Legendary Eirika has Lunar Brace, which deals damage equal to 50% of the enemy's defense when her special activates, and can stack with other ArmorPiercingAttack specials such as Moonbow or Aether, but increases her special's cooldown by 1.
** Surtr has Surtr's Menace, which grants him +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and inflicts -4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res on all enemies within 2 spaces of him, if he is within 2 spaces of an enemy at the start of his turn.
** Hríd has Freezing Seal, which inflicts -6 Atk/Spd on the enemy with the lowest Res, if he has 50% HP or more at the beginning of his turn.
** Eir has Sparkling Boost, which recovers 10 HP to the most damaged ally at the start of her turn, but cannot be used to heal herself.
** Legendary Azura has Grey Waves, which, in addition to functioning the same as Dance or Sing, allows the target to move one more space during that turn if the target is an Infantry or Flying ally.
** Nailah has Glare, which inflicts the Gravity status on her foe and any other enemies adjacent to her foe if she landed an attack.
** Duma has Upheaval, which deals 7 damage to all enemies, and if he is defending in Aether Raids during Anima season, destroys any destructible offense buildings in his column, all at the start of turn 1.
** Legendary Roy has Human Virtue, which at the start of his turn gives +6 Atk/Spd to himself and his ally if he's adjacent to them and are not dragons or beast units.
** Yune has Chaos Named, which at the start of her turn, if a foe is within the 3 columns she is centered in and if they have 3 or less lower Res than Yune, inflicts -5 on their highest stat, while treating their Atk as if the enemies have -15 Atk due to weapons being equipped.
** Legendary Alm has Lunar Flash, which on a 2 special cooldown which reduces the enemy's Def/Res by 20% and boosts his damage equal to 20% of his Spd.
** Fallen Young Tiki has Solitary Dream, where at the start of her turn if she is alone, or only adjacent to other dragons, she gains +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and 1 extra movement.
** Naga has Divine Fang, where at the start of her turn, grants all adjacent allies effectiveness against dragons for one turn.
** Legendary Eliwood has Vision of Arcadia, which at the start of his turn, give an ally with the highest Atk +6 Atk/Def at the start of his turn if there is a dragon or beast ally on the same team.
** Sothis and Winter Sothis has Sirius, which is a 2 cooldown special that boosts her damage by 30% of her Spd, and restores her HP by 30% of the damage dealt.
** Brave Micaiah has Yune's Whispers, where at the start of her turn, if a foe is adjacent to another one and they have 3 or less Res than Micaiah, she inflicts -6 Atk/Spd on them.
** Brave Alm has Scendscale, where he boosts his damage by 25% of his Atk during combat, but if he attacks, he loses -7 HP after combat.
** Legendary Julia has Light and Dark, where it inflicts -2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and ignores field stat buffs on the foe, as well as negate skills that target the user's lower defensive stat.
** Thrasir has Killing Intent, where if the enemy is either not at full HP or has a penalty, she inflicts -5 Spd/Res, and if the user initiates combat, she can perform any follow-up attacks before the enemy counterattacks.
** Legendary Leif has Njörun's Zeal, a 3 charge special that allows him to act again if he initiates combat, but it only works once per turn and Leif and his Pair Up ally can only move one space.
** Altina has two exclusive skills:
*** Twin Blades is a two cooldown special, which boosts her damage by 40% of her Res and ignore non-special skills that reduce damage such as the Deflect Sacred Seals, when it activates.
*** Ashera's Chosen is her exclusive A skill, which negates her flying weakness and if she is either adjacent to a dragon or beast, or alone during combat, she gains +6 Atk/Def during combat.
** Peony has Gentle Dream, which, in addition to functioning the same as Dance or Sing, grants any allies within cardinal directions of both the user and the target +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and allows them to move to an adjacent space of an ally within 2 spaces for one turn.
** Legendary Celica has Soul of Zofia, which the user negates any skills that guarantees the foe's follow-up attack and ignore skills that deny any of the user's follow-up attacks, as well as if the user initiates combat and is at 75% HP or under, have any of the user's follow-up attacks go before the foe counterattacks.
** New Year Duo Alfonse & Sharena has Open the Future, where it boost the user's damage by 50% of the user's Def, and recovers HP equal to 25% of the damage dealt.
* SensibleHeroesSkimpyVillains: Villainous shapeshifter Loki is scantily dressed in her true form as opposed to the modestly dressed Askr heroes. The rest of the villains are more modestly dressed.
* SequentialBoss:
** The second Tap Battle features Caeda as the boss of floor 80. She initially appears as her standard self, though once defeated, comes back as her Bridal Blessings variant.
** Sharena follows suit as the boss of the seventh Tap Battle's 60th floor. She first appears as her regular self, saying the player caught her in the middle of changing. Once she is knocked out, the real battle begins when she returns in her spring garb.
** Whenever you defeat a Røkkr in Røkkr Sieges, they are replaced by a stronger one, and will get stronger until the 2-day long round ends, sometimes with a different weapon and movement type and skill kit, so a different team may be needed to deal more damage against them.
* SexSells: Anna believes in this during the BeachEpisode, using a camera-tome to try to take pictures of the new swimsuit-clad Heroes so she can sell them for lots of money.
* ShaggyDogStory: Throughout Book II, [[spoiler:the Order tries to find a way to neutralize the Múspellflame to defeat Surtr. Before she dies, Gunnthrá powers the Summoner's weapon to make them capable of using the Rite of Frost to neutralize Surtr's invincibility. After gaining the Rite of Frost, the party confront and seemingly defeat Surtr with their new power...only for them to learn that the Rite of Flames made Surtr immortal, making everything so far all for naught.]]
* SharedFamilyQuirks: Both in terms of style and gameplay, Arvis and his sons ([[EnfantTerrible Julius]] and [[HeroicBastard Saias]]) have a lot in common. They're all infantry mages with high resistance and innate access to the Ploy skills, and their sprites all feature the same unique MagicalGesture where they dramatically lift their hand above their head. Fans occasionally refer to them collectively as the "Ploy Boys."
* ShipTease:
** Bridal Cordelia flirts with the Summoner during her special 5* conversation. She also muses that she and them could make for a good couple.
** Bridal Lyn, in one of her voice lines, states that she could never be in a relationship with someone who couldn't stand beside her in battle, then immediately follows that up by suggesting that she and the Summoner train together.
** Robin and Tharja get a couple of teases.
*** [[ChristmasEpisode Winter's Envoy]] has Tharja create an entire persona of what she thinks is a normal girl to get Robin to like her.
*** Robin and Tharja's Tactics Drill, where they must be close to support each other, is called Fates Entwined.
** [[ValentinesDayEpisodes Love Abounds]] has ship tease for Roy and Lilina, showing them attending the Valentine's-esque festival together while their fathers speculate that they may become a couple. It also ends with Sharena nervously giving a gift to the Summoner.
** In Tempest Trials: Invisible Ties, Female Robin gets ship tease with Chrom. He jumps in when her evil counterpart expresses a desire to kill her, Loki comments that he seems very attached to her, and Masked Marth references the "Lucina's Judgment" scene from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]'' (which is significantly changed if the Female Avatar is married to Chrom) before claiming that the bond between them is unbreakable.
* ShoutOut:
** The only fish Summer Female Corrin uses are clownfish and blue tang fish, which are the main characters from ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' and ''WesternAnimation/FindingDory''.
** Ayra's StopPokingMe quote "Do that again and you'll pull back a stump." is taken from ''[[VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness]]'', spoken by Alleria Windrunner in a similar situation.
* ShownTheirWork: Zig-zagged. While burning alive is one of the most painful ways to die as Surtr says, you'll also, outside of rare situations, be unable to coherently talk, let alone beg for mercy like he says happens, and you'll go into shock before you die unless the fire kills you before you realize what's happening. This is assuming the smoke inhalation doesn't make you pass out, either.
* SiblingTeam: Many sibling pairs exist in the game, from the OriginalGeneration Alfonse and Sharena, ''Fates''' Felicia and Flora, and ''Blazing Blade's'' Linus and Lloyd. Then there are sibling trios such as the Whitewings Palla, Catria, and Est, as well as sibling groups of four, like the Hoshidan and Nohrian royals. Even the Niflese siblings exist in a group of four.
* SituationalSword: Some skills and Sacred Seals are effective against certain enemies and skill sets, but not so much against others. For example, the Deflect Seals reduce the damage of any consecutive attack they receive by up to 80%, which makes it useful against weapons with brave effects and enemies with Desperation. It can also work if the user cannot counter attack and the enemy is faster, but if the user can counter attack, the damage reduction is canceled out because the second enemy attack is not a consecutive one; therefore, the Deflect Seal user would receive full damage from that attack.
* SkewedPriorities:
** Most units have relatively normal death quotes that fit the character in question. Bridal Ninian's death quote?
--->'''Bridal Ninian:''' My dress!
** Halloween Kagero's flavor text states that she is ready to put her life on the line to get candy.
* SkillSlotSystem: Each unit has slots for a weapon, Assist, Special, Sacred Seal, Blessings, and A, B, and C skill. Certain skills can only be equipped in the A, B, or C-skill slot, and certain skills and Seals can only be equipped by certain unit types.
* SocializationBonus:
** Each day, you can get a small amount of feathers for greeting your friends, and up to five friends greeting you also gets you some feathers.
** You can get a higher score per round in the Voting Gauntlet for the amount of friends you have, with the cap being 100 for 10+ friends. During a Gauntlet battle, you also have the opportunity to utilize the lead unit of a friend who is in the same army as you, although the unit is chosen at random.
** You can use your friends' shared units in Rival Domains and Grand Conquests, so having more friends gives you a larger stable of units to form brigades with.
** Allegiance Battle:
*** You can use one of your friend's allies to use as a paired up unit, but you can only use an ally from that specific friend once per day.
*** The Quest Bonus, which is the tally of everyone on your friend's list eliminating a specific hero in that season, capping at 25, is added to your score at the end of the season.
*** The Friend Bonus, which is the top three of your friend's final score, divided by 100 and rounded down, capping at 8 per friend, is added to your score at the end of the season.
* SoLastSeason: Early in the game's life, Silver weapons, exclusive weapons with one effect, Rally, stat Balm, stat plus, Defiant, Seal, Spur, Hone and Fortify skills were common on newly released heroes. Around update 2.0.0 however, heroes began packing inheritable weapons with effects of new, stronger skills, and exclusive ones getting 2 to 3 effects, including stat increases. Rally ''dual stat''+ and Rally Up ''stat''+, ''dual stat'' Balm+, double stat plus, Brazen, Chill, double stat Spur, Drive, Wave, Joint Hone, and Tactic skills have replaced the older ones they are based on, which are not as viable to use nowadays.
* SoundOfNoDamage: Initially, there was no unique sound effect to indicate if a unit dealt zero damage, but the Book II update added a special "ting" sound to indicate as much.
* SoundtrackDissonance: The final map in a Tempest Trials is usually given the appropriate music. As these maps are usually based on where a BigBad or a villain is fought, the music has been [[https://youtu.be/1x8J-c4cVec sinister and forboding]], [[https://youtu.be/YXkFkUyPyBU determined and serious]], or even [[https://youtu.be/ujJbKWKC4NE grand and epic]]. Then there is the theme for the final map of "To Die on the Battlefield" and it's... [[https://youtu.be/kYctJnbhohM rather jovial]] instead. Over a year later, "Before We Met..." would begin, and thanks to [[https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemHeroes/comments/9wp7n9/the_final_map_theme_for_tt_has_a_bug/ a glitch]], its final map played [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfiyMxIfqTQ the prologue map theme]] for the first three days of its run, instead of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aryy8Gqx85c Desire Below (Flow)]] like it was supposed to.
* SplashDamage: Savage Blow inflicts 3, 5, or 7 damage (depending on the tier) to all enemy units within 2 spaces of the user's primary target, if the user initiated combat. If units who wield Pain+ or a refined Deathly Dagger get to attack, they'll deal 10 post-combat damage to their target and enemies within two spaces of the target.
* SpoilerOpening: The intro of Book III shows Sharena getting killed by Hel in front of her brother Alfonse. [[spoiler:It's acually Sharena from an alternate timeline, and her death causes Alfonse to snap and become Lif.]]
* StandardStatusEffects: ''Heroes'' has a handful of status effects that are inflicted by certain weapons, items, and structures.
** The Panic status converts an afflicted unit's buffs into debuffs. It is inflicted by the C-skills Panic Ploy and Panic Smoke, Aether Raids' Panic Manor, Arena Assault's Panic Charm, and various weapons.
** Gravity brings down a unit's movement range to 1 space, and has priority over buffs that increase movement. Gravity is inflicted by the Gravity(+) staff, Leo's unrefined Brynhildr, Loki's Thökk, Nailah's [[SecretArt Glare]], Brave Camilla's Sanngriðr, Arena Assault's Pressure Charm, and the Heavy Trap and Tactics Room from Aether Raids.
** Units can be afflicted by a status that prevents them from counterattacking. This status is inflicted by Candlelight(+), Flash(+), Gharnef's Imhullu, Kempf's Venin Edge, and the Fear Charm in Arena Assault.
** Units with the Triangle Adept status are treated as though they had Triangle Adept 3 or have a gem weapon[[note]]Ruby Sword, Emerald Axe, Sapphire Lance, as well as Titania's Draconic Poleax and Palla's Whitewing Blade[[/note]] equipped. The Triangle Adept status is currently only afflicted by Trilemma(+).
** Units with the Guard status enter combat as though their opponent has Guard 3 and more than 80% HP, and thus become unable to charge their specials unless they have a skill that grants them an extra special charge for each attack landed/taken. This status is currently only inflicted by the Witchy Wand(+), Melancholy(+) and the Ruse Skills.
** Units with the Isolation status cannot perform or be the target of assist skills, such as Reposition, Rally, Dance, or even any healing assist skills from staff users. This status is currently inflicted by Bridal Fjorm's Gjallarbrú.
* StarterMon: At the beginning of the game, you are provided with Anna, Virion, Raigh, Matthew, Alfonse, and Sharena for free. In version 2.4.0 and earlier, you got them at 2* rarity; from 2.5.0 onward, you get them at 4* rarity, and Takumi joins the party, also at 4*.
* StatusBuff:
** Field stat buffs, or "bonuses", give units extra stats that last until the start of the next turn. Common sources include the Hone, Fortify, Rally, and Tactic skills.
** In-combat buff give units stats that only are active during combat. Common sources include the Blow, Spur, Goad, and Ward skills.
** Extra movement gives the user one extra space until the start of the next turn. Such sources include Armored Boots, Armor March, Infantry Boots in Arena Assault, and Duo Ephraim & Lyon's Duo Skill.
** Naga's Divine Fang is currently the only source of "effective against dragons" status effect, giving it to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn.
** Legendary Eliwood's Ardent Durandal is the only source of the Bonus Doubler status effect, only giving it to an ally that has the highest Atk at the start of the user's turn.
* StealthPun: The intro of Book III shows off characters from Hel, the land of the dead. Later on in the intro, the music changes to metal music. Specifically, Death Metal.
* TheStinger:
** The Feh Channel broadcast in November 2018 has one announcing Book III, showing [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3AkRm6vjDM the text "That day, the light died]].", before showing Sharena injured, crying, and reaching out to someone.]]
** The video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3P4Fbmf0D8 Remembering Book I & II]] on the official Nintendo Mobile channel has one showing [[spoiler:the continuation of last Book III teaser, with Alfonse with his back to the camera in a castle hallway, standing and looking upon two people on the floor, heavily implied to be dead.]]
* StopPokingMe: When looking at a Hero's stat page, you can tap on the touch screen to trigger a response from them. It's implied that the Summoner is going up to actually poke them, so a number of Heroes will get irritated.
-->'''Cecilia:''' Now, now. You have my attention.\\
'''Raven:''' Is this touching stuff some sort of amusement?\\
'''Ursula:''' Never poke an assassin... lest [[ImpliedDeathThreat she. Poke. You]].\\
'''Michalis:''' [[WhatTheHellPlayer How DARE you lay a finger on me?!]]\\
'''Lloyd:''' This... poking and prodding... What are we, children?\\
'''Boey:''' Cut it out! What are we, kids?\\
'''Berkut:''' Again? How infantile.\\
'''Ayra:''' Huh? Do that again and you'll pull back a stump.
* TheStrategist:
** The Summoner acts as the main tactician for the Order of Heroes.
** The player can summon heroes with great tactical prowess such as Robin, Soren, and Saias, who will sometimes ask if you'd like them to help in dialogue outside of battle.
* {{Stripperiffic}}
** Most of the characters are mostly sensibly dressed or are justified in their skimpiness (e.g. summer units and dancers). On the other hand, there's Winter Tharja, who wears a FurBikini while ''out in the freezing snow''. She's classified as an ''armored unit'', to boot.
** Silvia, a dancer who wears a scant top and miniskirt, has something to say about her outfit on her profile page.
--->'''Silvia''': Are you kidding? Of course this isn't underwear. This is how dancers dress!
* StrongFamilyResemblance:
** A lot of second generation characters from ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' (and Saias from ''Thracia 776'') look similar to one of their parents as they are drawn by the same artists.
** Zig-Zagged with siblings--some are drawn by the same artist, others have different artists, especially those with 2 or more siblings. For example, both Michalis and Minerva are drawn by Daisuke Izuka, but their younger sister Maria is drawn by kaya8.
* SuddenlyVoiced: Every character has voiced lines, which means a lot of characters from games before ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' will have voice acting for the first time.
* SummonEverymanHero: Kiran is from present day Earth; fortunately, the process of being called to the World of Zenith gave them the power to summon other Heroes.
* SummonMagic:
** While many tomes conjure elements for the user to strike their foe, all of the Norse color prefix tomes summon ethereal objects or animals for the user to attack the enemy, which also have some specific effects tied to them as well:
*** [[StormOfBlades -blade]]: Summons a storm of blades from above. Grants damage equal to the amount of stat bonuses on the user during combat.
*** [[OminousOwl -owl]]: Summons a flock of owls to dive-bomb the enemy. Grants the user +2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat for each adjacent ally to the user.
*** [[CreepyCrows -raven]]: Summon a large amount of ravens from below the enemy. The user gains triangle advantage over colorless enemies in addition to the color they normally have advantage against.
*** [[SnakesAreSinister -serpent]]: Summons a serpent upon the enemy. The user gains +6 Def/Res if they are attacked by a user with a 2 range weapon.
*** (Keen)[[SavageWolves -wolf]]: Summons a large wolf head to bite the enemy. User gains effective damage against cavalry units.
*** [[PetalPower -bloom]]: Summons a storm of flowers upon the enemy. User gains +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the user is adjacent to an ally.
*** [[FantasticFoxes -fox]]: Summons a fox to leap upon the enemy. If the user initiates combat, inflict -4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res on the target during combat.
** This can even apply to character-unique and seasonal tomes, which includes summoning powerful dragons, presents, fishes, and even tomatoes, to name a few.
* SuperDeformed: Characters appear as chibi models on the map and in battle animations.
* SupportPartyMember: Staff users aren't very good in fights due to reduced damage output without Wrathful Staff (whether it's as a B-skill or weapon refinement), but they can heal your other units, provide {{Status Buff}}s, and their weapons have secondary effects that can inflict debuffs on foes. Even after weapon refinery allowed any staff user to craft a Wrathful Staff effect onto their weapon, their colorless weapon-type removes them from the weapon triangle (unless it's against them when up against a -raven tome user), and staff-users are both unable to learn offensive specials as well as popular damage-boosting skills such as the Blow skills or Fury. However, the increased area of effect granted by the + versions of their staffs as well as the ability to prevent counterattacks by crafting the Dazzling Staff effect onto their staffs gives them much more viability for support combat.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** At the Tenth Stratum of Training Tower, randomly generated heroes will match the movement type and attack range of the heroes who were there on the original story and paralogue maps. Some of these random heroes even have at least one of the skills of the original heroes.
** Some Hero Battle maps have generic units that fill in for and are meant to be units that would represent specific allies for the Hero in question. Some examples: a cavalry healer spawns next to Legendary Leif in his Legendary Hero Battle, and is meant to be a stand in for Nanna; said healer also has Restore+, just like her. In Leif and Nanna's Bound Hero Battle, a lance cavalry starts next to them wielding a Brave Lance+, just like their guardian Finn. While Julius's Grand Hero Battle sees him aided by a bunch of generic units that all have movesets and skills that evoke the 12 Deadlords that fought alongside him during the final map of his home game.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial:
** After Leo asks you to inform him if his collar is ever inside-out, he quickly does a VerbalBackspace and insists that it never happens.
** If you check on Nina in the Home screen, you'll sometimes catch her reading a book she'll claim is "totally normal" and isn't worth asking her parents about. She'll then go on to say that "anything you hear about [her] books or reading habits is a complete lie."
* SwitchOutMove: Swap allows the user to switch positions with a friendly target. Legendary Lucina has Future Vision, which has her switch positions with an ally and lets her take another action.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:T]]
* TacticalRockPaperScissors:
** Like ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', the Weapon Triangle consists of one set of weapons being effective against another set of weapons, granting +20% Atk on the advantage and inflicting -20% Atk on disadvantage. Red weapons[[note]][[CoolSword Swords]], Fire/Dark Magic, Red Bows, Red Daggers, and Red Breath[[/note]] beat green weapons, green weapons[[note]][[AnAxeToGrind Axes]], [[WindIsGreen Wind Magic]], Green Bows, Green Daggers, and Green Breath[[/note]] beat blue weapons, and blue weapons[[note]][[BladeOnAStick Lances]], [[YellowLightningBlueLightning Thunder]]/Light Magic, Blue Bows, Blue Daggers, and Blue Breath[[/note]] beat red weapons, the color scheme making it similar to the [[ElementalRockPaperScissors Fire, Water, Grass triangle]] from the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' series. Colorless weapons[[note]]Colorless Bows, Staves, [[KnifeNut Daggers]], and Colorless Breath[[/note]] are excluded from the weapon triangle, although the -raven tomes and Nagi's Ethereal Breath give the user an advantage against colorless weapons.
** The gem weapons (Ruby Sword, Sapphire Lance, and Emerald Axe) and Triangle Adept skill and effect exaggerate this; while a favorable match-up will boost damage dealt and reduce damage received even further, an unfavorable match-up [[HoistByHisOwnPetard will also apply the changes against the user]].
* TagTeam: The Pair Up mechanic returns in a limited fashion. Only certain Legendary Heroes and the fourth team member during Allegiance Battles can use it, the pairs have to be pre-set before battle, and Pair Up can only be used in certain modes on top of all that.
* TakeAThirdOption: Surtr gives Alfonse a choice: stay and fight a hopeless battle that will surely get him killed, or flee and let Surtr massacre an Askran village instead. Alfonse chooses [[spoiler:to flee to Nifl, but not before secretly using a smoke signal to warn the villagers to evacuate]].
* TakeThat: In the English version of the "Family Bonds" paralogue chapters, Ephraim gives his opinion on rumors about [[IncestSubtext him and his sister Eirika]], dismissing them as disgusting lies. Then he promptly jumps into NotHelpingYourCase.
* ATasteOfPower: Some of the Tactics Drills challenges gives players some powerful units and/or skills to use to solve the maps, especially those who have yet to summon those units.
* TechPoints: In this game, characters obtain new weapons, learn new skills, and upgrade weapons at the Weapon Refinery by spending Skill Points. Each character has their own SP, which is increased by defeating enemies, leveling up, merging with duplicates, or for healers, healing allies.
* TeleportGun: Breidablik summons Heroes by drawing them through portals it creates.
* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: Clothing (or lack thereof) aside, the primary difference between the male and female chibi sprites are that female characters have eyelashes, with the exceptions being Lucius, Libra, and Reyson, [[DudeLooksLikeALady men who have very feminine features]]. Some male characters, namely Walhart, Garon, Duma, Mordecai, and Caineghis, have rugged facial features in their chibi sprites.
* ThemeNaming:
** The Specials that [[ArmorPiercingAttack ignore Defense/Resistance]] have names related to the moon, while the Specials with a LifeDrain effect have names related to the sun.
** Each stat is associated with an element, and some skills are named accordingly. For instance, both Fire Boost and Blaze Dance boost a unit's Atk. Sometimes they can be combined, such as Geyser Dance which boosts Def (like Earth Boost) and Res (like Water Boost).
** OriginalGeneration locations, weapons, and, as of Book II, characters derive their names from Myth/NorseMythology.
* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman:
** Some heroes who are considered either on par or subpar can be built to counter specific heroes usually common on enemy defense teams in Arena and Arena Assault thanks to either their default weapons and/or statspread, and especially so when they inherit the -breaker skills. For example, Leon equipped with Bowbreaker and Bonfire to go along his refined +Def Slaying Bow+ can hard counter many other Colorless Bows, such as Brave Lyn and Claude.
** The Røkkr Siege modes sees a lot more use of skills that are otherwise considered subpar or useless in other modes due to countering how the Umbra specials works and the Umbra weapon's ScratchDamage to allow survivability, and to an extention more damage, against the Røkkr, the big examples being [[CooldownManipulation Guard]] and [[LifeDrain Noontime]].
* TimedMission:
** Some story and paralogue chapters force you to win in 4-6 turns, otherwise you fail.
** All of the Tactic Drills are timed as well, except they count phases, including the enemy phase, so some missions need to end at the enemy phase for the player to succeed.
** Battles in Aether Raids require players attacking keeps to rout the enemy within 7 turns; otherwise, they fail.
** Battles in Allegiance Battles requires players to rout all the enemies within 10 turns; otherwise, they fail and don't get scored.
* TokenEvilTeammate: Beating Grand Hero Battles will reward you with new Heroes, which are typically various villains from the franchise. Their dialogue makes it clear that most are still pretty evil, and at best only listen to you out of a very slight degree of respect. Then there are the units from the [[FallenHero Fallen Heroes]] banner as well as Legendary Female Robin, all of whom have succumbed to DemonicPossession.
* TooAwesomeToUse:
** Light's Blessings, which fully heal units, revive any downed ones, instantly ready all Specials, and can be used even if everyone has fallen started at this. They were somewhat uncommon from launch to the end of April, but from May to July 2017, you could only get Light's Blessings through the My Nintendo rewards system, and were limited to three at that. They eventually came back as a quest reward in August 2017, and have become a monthly reward since. That being said, they've lost a lot of their value over time as they can't be used for the harder content like Grand Hero Battles and Squad Assaults which left a lot of players using them just to win Voting Gauntlet battles or to revive characters when grinding levels or SP. However the Voting Gauntlet was eventually changed to allow you to immediately fight again if you lose, while the 2.5 update made it so characters don't lose all EXP and SP gained upon death causing many to see them as useless beyond clearing quests that require all units to survive or specific units and getting Hero Merit for surviving allies.
** Leveling up past 20 using crystals requires a large amount and obtaining new crystals is a slow process, most save crystals for whenever a quest requires a hero (that is usually not the greatest to begin with) to slay high level foes and will rarely use this method to level up units they plan to use.
** Legendary and Mythic Blessings, which double the SP a unit earns, and grants them a stat bonus if they are deployed with a Legendary or Mythic Hero with a matching blessing on the respective season (e.g. water-blessed units who go into battle with the water-aligned Fjorm during a water season get +3 HP and Speed) and specific mode (Aether Raids for Mythic, and everything else for Legendary). Once a blessing is used, it can't be removed, and there are very few ways to earn extra blessings, so it can be hard to decide who should get what blessing.
** Defied with First Summon Tickets, which let you perform the first summon of a session without spending orbs. Normally, these tickets would be the kind of thing to hoard, but they are only usable on certain focuses, and any unused tickets disappear once those focuses rotate out, so there's little reason to save them. Players also cannot choose to use a ticket or spend orbs--if they have tickets for a focus, they have to use those tickets before they can start spending orbs on the first summon of any session started on that focus.
** Units with hard-to-get skills, like Wrath or Distant Counter. There are several levels of agonizing decisions to make - keep the unit or fodder them off for their valuable skills? If you choose to fodder them, who should get the skill?
* TrailOfBreadCrumbs: In one of the Forging Bonds events, Alfonse discusses this with Keaton to help the latter who often gets lost. Keaton mentions that animals could eat said bread crumbs and defeat the purpose of the tactic, but Alfonse replies alternate objects can be substitute for the expression.
* TrickArrow:
** Summer Gaius is an archer that uses arrows with popsicle tips.
** Summer Noire shoots coconut-tipped arrows from her bow.
** Summer Takumi shoots fish-tipped arrows from his bow.
** Spring Loki shoots carrot-tipped arrows from her bow.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:U]]
* UnbreakableWeapons: Like in ''Gaiden'' and ''Fates'', none of the weapons are breakable.
* UnderdogsNeverLose:
** Shanna took home a win in November 2017's "Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents" Voting Gauntlet while outmatched in all three rounds, eliminating Hinoka, Amelia, and Takumi in that order.
** Played entirely straight in the 2018 "Heroes and Legends" Voting Gauntlet, with the minority party winning each time, until the majority-supported Gunnthrá defeated Alfonse in the final round.
* UnexpectedGameplayChange: Tap Battles trade the turn-based tactics for a RhythmGame mode where you knock away enemies to the music.
* TheUnfought:
** Felicia and Gunter are both never encountered in the story, but are in the rotation for normal Hero Battles and can be fought in the Training Tower.
** Draug, Sheena, Igrene, Perceval, Echidna, Chad, Larum, Azura, both Corrins, Jakob, Male Byleth, and Ylgr are never encountered as enemies in the game's Story Mode or regular Hero Battles, but, with the exception of the refreshers Larum and Azura, can still be fought in the Training Tower. They have also appeared in certain special maps, and Male Corrin and Azura even had their own Bound Hero Battle.
** Arvis, Valter, and Berkut are absent from the story, but are all in the weekly rotation for Grand Hero Battles.
** Gharnef, Fallen Delthea, Julius, Saias, Lyon, Haar, Walhart, Garon, Fallen Takumi, and Kronya are absent from the story and are only fought in Grand Hero Battles that have not entered the weekly rotation yet.
** All Legendary Heroes are absent from the story, but (with the exceptions of Fjorm, Gunnthrá, Ike, and Ephraim) can be fought in Legendary Hero Battles that recur every few months. Likewise, Mythic Heroes (with the exceptions of Eir and Thrasir) are absent from the story and can be fought in a Mythic Hero Battle under similar circumstances.
** Anna, Alfonse, Sharena, Brunnya, Sigrun, Masked Marth, Young Azura, Fjorm, Gunnthrá, and the Legendary versions of Ike and Ephraim are never fought as standard enemies; they can only be battled in the Arena, the Voting Gauntlet, Aether Raids, Heroic Ordeals, or limited-time special maps.
* UniqueEnemy: The enemy has no access to generic ranged armors, dagger fliers and cavalry, armored or colorless manaketes, or beast units, so any such Heroes they field against you are one to three of a kind.
* UnlockableDifficultyLevels:
** At launch, each Story Mode chapter could initially only be played on Normal, but completing the chapter would unlock the Hard and Lunatic versions of their maps. Update 3.0.0 eventually removed this restriction.
** The special maps that have [[HarderThanHard Abyssal]] difficulty requires beating Infernal to unlock.
** Grand Conquests have difficulties unlock when you reach a certain tier, with 8th being the highest tier needed to unlock them all.
* UnusableEnemyEquipment:
** The Mysterious Man's Valaskjálf, Veronica's Élivágar, Líf's Sökkvabekkr, Hel's Hel Scythe, Gustav's Glitnir, and Triandra's Flower of Sorrow are unobtainable by players.
** Downplayed by Thoron+, which cannot be obtained under normal circumstances. You can get it temporarily in Hall of Forms, though.
** Players do not have access to the Sacred Seals Embla's Ward or Múspellflame either; such Seals would completely trivialize nearly all of the game's content otherwise, especially the maps and quests in which [[NoCasualtiesRun no units are allowed to fall in battle]].
** All of the Umbra Burst weapons, which allows them to counter-attack regardless of range and will always deal at least 1 damage (and has Wrathful Staff built into the Staff version), as well as the Umbra Specials and the Røkkr Sacred Seal (which on outside of combat only takes damage from specials, and can only reach 0 HP from allied armies, but cannot be healed) are only available to the Røkkr in Røkkr Sieges.
* UpToEleven:
** Before the release of Choose Your Legends 2, all A, B, and C skills with tiers had up to 3 tiers. However, since then, that limit has been broken by increasing skills to a 4th tier, and sometimes even giving them an additional effect, and sometimes with additional restrictions.
** Brave Celica brings [[FourIsDeath Death Blow 4]], which give +8 Atk on initiation during combat, rather than +6 Atk from Death Blow 3.
** Kliff brings Fortress Def/Res 3, which gives +6 Def/Res at the cost of -2 Atk, rather than +4 Def/Res at the cost of -3 Atk from Fortress Def/Res 2.
** Surtr brings Steady Stance 4, which give the user +8 Def and -1 special buildup for the enemy during combat if the enemy initiates, rather than +6 Def during combat if the enemy initiates from Steady Stance 3. However, Steady Stance 4 cannot be inherited to Staff users, while Steady Stance 3 can be inherited to them.
** New Year's Hríd brings Hone Atk 4, which gives +7 Atk to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn, rather than +4 Atk with the same conditions for Hone Atk 3.
** New Year's Gunnthrá brings Joint Hone Spd, which gives +5 Spd to the user and all adjacent allies if the user is adjacent to an ally at the start of their turn, rather than +4 Spd to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn with Hone Spd 3.
** Tibarn brings Sturdy Impact, which gives the user +6 Atk, +10 Def, and the enemy cannot perform a follow-up attack if they initiate combat, rather than +4 Atk/Def if the user initiates combat from Sturdy Blow 2. However, Sturdy Impact is restricted to Infantry and Flying units, rather than being available to all movement types with Sturdy Blow 2.
** Valentine Greil brings Fury 4, which gives the user +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res at the cost of -8 HP after combat, rather than +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res at the cost of -6 HP after combat from Fury 3.
** Sue brings Hone Spd 4, which gives +7 Spd to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn, rather than +4 Spd with the same conditions for Hone Spd 3.
** Caineghis brings Distant Def 4, which gives the user +8 Def/Res during combat and negates enemy stat bonuses like from Rally and Fortify skills if the enemy initiates combat and they wield a ranged weapon, rather than +6 Def/Res during combat if the enemy initiates combat and they wield a ranged weapon from Distant Def 3.
** Legendary Alm brings Darting Blow 4, which gives the user +9 Spd on initiation during combat, rather than +6 Spd from Darting Blow 3.
** Fallen Mareeta brings Flashing Blade 4, where if the user is faster than the opponent, they gains +1 special buildup and +5 Damage during combat, rather than just +1 special cooldown with the same conditions from Flashing Blade 3.
** Fallen Berkut brings Warding Stance 4, which give the user +8 Res and -1 special buildup for the enemy during combat if the enemy initiates, rather than +6 Res during combat if the enemy initiates from Warding Stance 3. However, Warding Stance 4 cannot be inherited to Staff users, while Warding Stance 3 can be inherited to them.
** Summer Laevatein has Mirror Impact, which gives the user +6 Atk, +10 Res, and the enemy cannot perform a follow-up attack if they initiate combat, rather than +4 Atk/Res if the user initiates combat from Mirror Strike 2. However, Mirror Impact is restricted to Infantry and Flying units, rather than being available to all movement types with Mirror Strike 2.
** Summer Laegjarn has Swift Sparrow 3, which gives the user +6 Atk and +7 Spd if they initate combat, rather than the +4 Atk/Spd with the same conditions from Swift Sparrow 2.
** Summer Wolt has Brazen Atk/Spd 4, where the user gains +9 Atk and +10 Spd during combat if the user is at 80% HP or under before the start of combat, rather than +7 Atk/Spd with the same conditions with Brazen Atk/Spd 3.
** Brave Camilla brings Atk/Spd Push 4, which if the user is at 25% or more HP, they gain +7 Atk/Spd during combat, but if they attacked, they lose 5 HP after combat, instead of +5 Atk/Spd during combat if the user is at full HP before combat, but the user loses 1 HP after combat with Atk/Spd Push 3.
** Brave Micaiah brings Atk/Res Bond 4, where the user gains +7 Atk/Res during combat and neutralizes any penalies on the user's Atk and Res during combat if the user is adjacent to an ally, as opposed to +5 Atk/Res with the same conditions with Atk/Res Bond 3.
** Brave Alm brings Threaten Atk/Spd 3, where at the start of the user's turn if the user is within 2 spaces of a foe, they gains +5 Atk/Spd and inflicts -5 Atk/Spd on all foes within 2 spaces of the user, rather than inflicting -4 Atk/Spd to all foes within 2 spaces of the user at the start of the user's turn from Threaten Atk/Spd 2.
** Dancing Reinhardt brings Joint Hone Atk, which gives +5 Atk to the user and all adjacent allies if the user is adjacent to an ally at the start of their turn, rather than +4 Atk to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn with Hone Atk 3.
** Forsyth brings Joint Hone Def, which gives +5 Def to the user and all adjacent allies if the user is adjacent to an ally at the start of their turn, rather than +4 Def to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn with Fortify Def 3.
** Zofia's Call Catria brings Atk/Spd Bond 4, where the user gains +7 Atk/Spd during combat and neutralizes any penalies on the user's Atk and Spd during combat if the user is adjacent to an ally, as opposed to +5 Atk/Spd with the same conditions with Atk/Spd Bond 3.
** Legendary Leif brings Atk/Res Push 4, which if the user is at 25% or more HP, they gain +7 Atk/Res during combat, but if they attacked, they lose 5 HP after combat, instead of +5 Atk/Res during combat if the user is at full HP before combat, but the user loses 1 HP after combat with Atk/Res Push 3.
** Duo Ephraim & Lyon bring Heavy Blade 4, where if the user has higher Atk than the opponent, they gains +1 special buildup and +5 Damage during combat, rather than just +1 special cooldown with the same conditions from Heavy Blade 3.
** Igrene brings Life and Death 4, which gives the user +7 Atk/Spd but inflicts -5 Def/Res, rather than just +5 Atk/Spd and -5 Def/Res from Life and Death 3.
** Peony brings Fortify Res 4, which gives +7 Res to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn, rather than +4 Res with the same conditions for Fortify Res 3.
** Osian brings Mirror Stance 3, which give the user +6 Atk/Res and -1 special buildup for the enemy during combat if the enemy initiates, rather than +4 Atk/Res during combat if the enemy initiates from Mirror Stance 2.
** Winter Sothis brings Threaten Atk/Res 3, where at the start of the user's turn if the user is within 2 spaces of a foe, they gains +5 Atk/Res and inflicts -5 Atk/Res on all foes within 2 spaces of the user, rather than inflicting -4 Atk/Res to all foes within 2 spaces of the user at the start of the user's turn from Threaten Atk/Res 2.
** Shannan brings Steady Posture 3, which give the user +6 Spd/Def and -1 special buildup for the enemy during combat if the enemy initiates, rather than +4 Def/Spd during combat if the enemy initiates from Steady Posture 2.
* UselessUsefulSpell:
** The Absorb staff has a LifeDrain effect, healing the user for 50% of the damage they deal. The problem is that it has a very low Might stat of 4 and staff users are {{Support Party Member}}s with reduced damage output on top of that, so the healing barely makes a difference. This can be more viable if the unit uses Absorb+, which has 7 Might and heals 7 HP to allies within 2 spaces of the user after battle, and upgrades it to have Wrathful Staff.
** The Gravity staff reduces the enemy unit hit by it to one movement. While this is a powerful effect since most units move 2-3 spaces, this leaves the [[SquishyWizard squishy healer]] exposed to the enemy struck by Gravity, [[NotCompletelyUseless unless the healer is behind an obstacle the target can normally go around or has an ally that can move them out of the way with Reposition/Shove/Smite/Swap/Draw Back or get in between them with Pivot]]. Furthermore, it doesn't do much damage as the staff's Might is low. The Gravity+ staff, on the other hand, is far more effective. In addition to having more respectable attack power, it also inflicts Gravity on all enemies adjacent to the target, potentially inflicting the entire enemy team with Gravity.
** Harsh Command allows a unit to reverse a friendly unit's debuffs into buffs. Only Daggers, Staff and certain units focus on debuffs, outside of Seal/Threaten/Chill/Ploy skills. Harsh Command takes up the slot for more valuable Assist skills like Draw Back, Dance, or Rally [Stat(s)]. Should the user use it, it will also eat up their turn, which they could've spent attacking or healing, and the user must be adjacent to an ally to use it. Harsh Command+, however, allows the user to also remove negative status effects on top of inverting stat debuffs into buffs, so recovering status effects on an ally are now no longer being limited to Staff allies.
** Obstruct prevents enemies from moving through adjacent spaces to the user so long as the user is above or at a certain HP threshold. [[NotCompletelyUseless While it can prevent Wings of Mercy teleportation]], the skill is useless the vast majority of the time since it accomplishes barely anything more than a unit sitting in a chokepoint can. Furthermore, the small maps and low collective movement of units prevents it from actually doing much to limit enemy movement.
** Pass allows the user to move through enemy units as long as the user is above or at 75%/50%/25% HP. Like with Obstruct, the small maps and limited movement prevent this skill of being much use to any unit at all, and moving through the enemy team generally means leaving that one unit at the mercy of the rest of the surrounding enemy units. A weaker version is built into Takumi's Fujin Yumi, freeing up the B slot, but it's still useless on its own merits. Pass is even more useless for armor units because they are limited to one movement, preventing them from passing through other units and thus having no effect whatsoever.
** Brash Assault is the full inverse of Quick Riposte, granting a followup attack regardless of Speed if the target can counter. Problem is, it is only usable at half health or less (if the skill is maxed out) and requires the enemy to counterattack, meaning the attacker is highly likely to be KO'ed before the skill can activate. However, Brash Assault got more viable when it became available as a Sacred Seal, since now units can combine its effect with Desperation, meaning Brash Assault users can attack twice before the opponent can counterattack.
** The mode Hall of Forms invokes this on otherwise practical skills. Since you're restricted to specific units, the skills offered after a map clear can present some questionable options. For example, Tactic skills (stat boost that require no more than 2 units per movement class) could appear as options even if the Formas are all infantry units.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:V-Z]]
* TheVerse: As opposed to ''Awakening'' establishing every ''Fire Emblem'' as being in the same world, this establishes a multiverse. These may not be mutually exclusive, however, as the multiverse is used to explain how you're able to have multiple versions of the same person in your barracks.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential:
** Because the game uses many characters from their respective games, you could have certain characters attack another significant character like Lilina killing Hector (daughter and father) or Lucina killing Chrom (not only daughter and father but she came to the past to prevent his death).
** You can make Eliwood kill Ninian again, except unlike in ''The Blazing Blade'' it won't be an accident.
** You can send Fjorm acquired from the story home. The concept of sending her home, which is razed and occupied with her enemies, alone, is cruel enough on it's own. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Not that sending her home affects the story of Book II in any meaningful way.]]
** You can deploy the Black Knight in the final part of the Greil's Devoted paralogues, just to watch him kill Greil all over again.
* ViewersAreGoldfish: During the Feh Channel, Feh constantly clarifies the types of units and weapons, even if it's plainly obvious what they're holding. For example, during the Choose Your Legends presentation, she repeatedly points out the colors of the respective heroes, even when their faces are shown on the summoning screen (and they were presented a few minutes ago).
* VillainEpisode:
** Tempest Trials+: Loki's Flames is one from the perspective of Múspell, focusing on Loki instead of Masked Marth.
** The Regal Rabbits paralogue is one that involves the Embla royals and Loki, with the Askr royals not even making a single appearance.
* VillainSong: Though it doesn't become obvious until several chapters in, Book 3's boss theme is one [[spoiler:for Lif, explaining his backstory and motivations.]]
* WakeUpCallBoss: The first few bosses from the "Labyrinth of Mists" Tap Battle are easy enough to defeat if you know what you're doing. Then Sophia comes... with her ''{{flunk|y Boss}}ies''. Suddenly you have to pay attention to the whole screen while beating her attacks back.
* WalkingSwimsuitScene: Summer units wear their swimsuits wherever they go, but they're no less capable in battle for it.
* WarriorPrince: Of the OriginalGeneration characters, Alfonse is both the prince of the kingdom of Askr, and a swordsman of the Order of Heroes. Many summoned heroes are princes and fight as well, including Marth, Ephraim, Chrom and male Corrin. Sharena, Eirika, Caeda and female Corrin are gender-flipped examples.
* WeaponOfXSlaying:
** Manaketes (namely and specifically ones that use Breath weapons) and Julius with the Loptous tome equipped take extra damage from the Falchion (wielded by Marth, Alm, Chrom and Lucina), Julia and Deirdre's Book of Naga and Divine Naga, Tiki's Breath of Fog, Summer Young Tiki's Summer's Breath, Legendary Young Tiki's Divine Mist, Fallen Young Tiki's Razing Breath, Naga's Divine Breath, Legendary Julia's Virtuous Naga, Nagi's Ethereal Breath, any unit with the "effective against dragons" status effect granted by Naga's Divine Fang, Roy's refined Binding Blade, Legendary Roy's Dragonbind, Brave Alm's Dracofalchion, Brave Lucina's refined Geirskögul, the Cloud Maiougi dagger, the Splashy Bucket dagger, the Dragonslasher dagger, and Thrasir's Ífingr.
** The -raven tomes, in addition to Male Robin's Tactical Bolt, Female Robin's Tactical Gale, Lyon's Naglfar, Sophia's Eternal Tome, and Nagi's Ethereal Breath, are downplayed examples. They have triangle advantage over colorless units, but do not deal effective damage against them.
** The -wolf tomes, Ridersbane, Zanbato, Poleaxe, Dusk Uchiwa, Taguel Fang, Bunny Fang, and Hermit's Tome do effective damage against cavalry.
** The Armorslayer, Hammer, Heavy Spear, Sky Maiougi, Pegasus Carrot, Nephenee's Dauntless Lance, Bartre's Axe of Virility, Florina's Lance, Est's Whitewing Spear, Idunn's Demonic Breath, Selena's Blade, Frederick's Axe and Halloween Hector's Conjurer Curios deal bonus damage to armored units, as do the upgraded versions of the first three.
** Caeda's Wing Sword, Micaiah's Thani, Clair's Rhomphaia, Yukata Micaiah's Dawn Suzu, and Brave Micaiah's Light of Dawn all deal bonus damage against both armored and cavalry units.
** Kinshi Hinoka's Warrior Princess and Summer Lyn's Deep-Blue Bow are effective against armor and flying units.
** Poison Dagger(+) is effective against infantry.
** The Kitty Paddle(+) is effective against mages.
** The Assassin's Bow imparts a Daggerbreaker effect, allowing its wielder to always double attack colorless dagger wielders and disallow them from making follow-up attacks.
** As in the main series, bows are effective against fliers. The regular Excalibur, regardless of whether it's refined, is also effective against fliers.
** Picnic Flora's Sæhrímnir, Picnic Felicia's Eldhrímnir, and Petra's Hunting Blade deal effective damage against beast units.
** Brave Eliwood's Ninis's Lance has dual effectiveness against beast and dragon foes.
* WeaponTombstone: After the [[DefeatEqualsExplosion explosion of the Røkkr]] on the result screen, their weapon is lain standing on top of a pile of dark fiery rubble.
* WeAreAsMayflies: Discussed by the winter variants of Cecilia, Eirika, and Ephraim during the Tempest Trial "Life Is But Fleeting". They comment on how they will not have enough time to do everything they wanted, while manaketes like Fae will live for centuries. The Renais twins even worry that Fae will miss them once they're gone.
* WeddingDay: The spring bridal events, "Bridal Blessings" and "Bridal Bloom" are not weddings, but a festival that is meant to bring good luck for wannabe brides, complete with catching a bouquet.
* WhamEpisode:
** Chapter 10 of the main story begins with Veronica [[spoiler:directly invading Askr with Heroes from the World of Radiance, and the Askr trio are actually unnerved by the idea of facing Ike and his group. This time, Veronica somehow obtained a seal that makes Heroes invincible and until it wears off, the Summoner's units can't damage Ike at all.]] In the last chapter, the Summoner and the Askr trio follow the Heroes of Radiance into their world, and just as they claim victory [[spoiler:the gateway between the worlds begins to close, and the player ends up temporarily trapped and very nearly killed by Veronica, only managing to return to Askr due to a timely rescue by Zacharias.]] Not only is this a shift in tone for the main story, but it's also a Wham Episode from a gameplay standpoint; this chapter had new objectives, such as surviving the battle for 6 turns and having a limited amount of time to defeat all enemies.
** Chapter 11 has a big story revelation at the chapter's end: [[spoiler:Bruno states that he killed Zacharias and next on his list is Anna, Alfonse, Sharena, and you.]]
** Chapter 12 one-ups it again by revealing that [[spoiler:Bruno possibly ''is'' Zacharias, and he's either suffering from DemonicPossession or is otherwise NotHimself]].
** Paralogue 10 also drops a huge one on us in the meanwhile: [[spoiler:while all that's going on, another team of your army tries to free some Magvellians who have fallen under Veronica's sway. Veronica, however, gets what she was looking for: [[TomeOfEldritchLore the tome of Naglfar]] that Lyon once wielded. She then gives this to Loki, who says it's a key to freeing her "king", revealed later to be Surtr.]]
** Book II Chapter 7 gets very dark near the end [[spoiler:where Surtr actually burns Gunnthrá to death in front of the heroes, making Gunnthrá the first character in the game to actually die in the story.]]
** Book II Chapter 8: [[spoiler:Surtr officially turns on Veronica, overpowers Xander and leaves him for dead, and forcibly takes control of Veronica's Hero Contracts before ordering her sent to Múspell to become a HumanSacrifice. In addition, it is heavily, ''heavily'' implied that Fjorm is now slowly dying as a result of the Rite of Frost needed to defeat Surtr.]] [[spoiler:It was later proven true at end of Book II, where Hríd said that just like the Rite of Flames, the Rite of Frost also requires a sacrifice]].
** Book III Chapter 4: [[spoiler:Alfonse has been cursed by Hel with 9 days left to live. Eir explains to the party that there is no escaping the death curse, and Gustav appears to be accepting of Alfonse's death. The Askrans are determined to spend Alfonse's last days trying to kill Hel and break the curse, to no avail. After 9 days pass, Hel comes to kill Alfonse, but Gustav, the king of Askr, pulls a HeroicSacrifice at the last second and is murdered by Hel, branding Alfonse as the new king.]]
** Book III Chapter 8: [[spoiler:The Askr trio learns that the Sharena of the alternate Askr they've arrived in is dead, and that the cost to defeat Hel would kill nearly all life. Alfonse realizes that "Líf" is, in fact, the alternate Alfonse.]]
* WindIsGreen: The wind-based tomes are Green Tomes, and their magic is depicted with green effects. The same can be said for the wind insignia for Legendary Wind Heroes and the Wind Blessings.
* WolverinePublicity:
** Characters from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' are put front and center in the intro movie (largely because they already had cutscene models and it was cheaper). They and characters from other high-selling games, such as ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Mystery of the Emblem]]'', ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'', and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'', are also prominent in the trailers, the early story chapters, and the early gacha focus banners.
** Ike and Eirika, who are both featured in the main promotional image, were not in the game upon release. Eirika was added two weeks after launch, and Ike was added 2 months after launch along with fellow Tellius characters Mist, Soren, and Titania.
* WorldsStrongestMan: According to the Askrans, Ike is said to be the strongest hero of all worlds. Anna and Alfonse have an OhCrap reaction at the idea of fighting him, and he's formidable in the story levels since you can't even damage him until the last stage of his world [[spoiler:because of Veronica's wards]].
* YouMeanXmas:
** The Spring Festival is an Easter counterpart, featuring painted eggs and characters dressed up like bunnies.
** At the end of October, the characters go to an event involving pumpkins, dressing up as monsters, and playing tricks if not given candy. It's not Halloween, but "the harvest festival."
** There's also the winter festival, an Askran holiday about their death gods that just happens to involve gift giving, decorated trees, and all the trappings of Christmas. This is even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when Sharena starts to tell the Summoner (who is from our world) about the celebration, only to get cut off because the Summoner already gets the gist just from hearing her mention presents.
** The Day of Devotion is a festival dedicated to giving gifts of candy to those you love, just like Valentine's Day.
* ZergRush:
** Some story and paralogue maps have reinforcements spawn after a certain number of turns, all of which rush to attack your units.
** Some Grand Hero Battles and other special maps employ a near constant amount of reinforcements that immediately rush towards you. Others have them appear when a certain amount of turns pass, or when a certain enemy is eliminated. Managing these reinforcements without losing any units is part of the challenge of the maps, especially on higher difficulties.
** The special ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriors'' maps pit the player against a large amount of weak enemies. These enemies lack skills, and instead try to wear the player down through their sheer numbers.
** The Relay Defense maps have constantly spawning enemies aiming to take down your camps and fortress. However, they also follow NumericalHard levels of stats on the higher difficulties, so be prepared to be overwhelmed by enemy units much stronger than yours.
[[/folder]]

** Lull skills inflict -3 to two of the foe's stats, as well as ignore bonuses on those stats during combat.

** Close Call allows the user to reduce damage from both combat and non-Røkkr AOE specials if they're faster than the enemy, with 4% damage reduced for each Spd the user is higher, up to 40% damage reduced. New Year Selkie's New Foxkit Fang and New Year Lethe's Guardian Fang also has this effect, but Selkie's Foxkit Fang compares Res instead of Spd.

** Osian brings Mirror Stance 3, which give the user +6 Atk/Res and -1 special buildup for the enemy during combat if the enemy initiates, rather than +4 At/Res during combat if the enemy initiates from Mirror Stance 2.

** The 8 Heroes featured on the first ever focus banners were given special summoning movies and were shown on the downloading screen alongside the Askr trio. As of the 2.5.0 update, they were replaced on the downloading screen, and as their focus banners are out of rotation, new players may wonder why only those characters got special animations.

** The "Dueling Desires" Forging Bonds event featured the Grand Hero Aversa alongside Brave Redux units Loki, Owain, and Kliff. "Dueling Desires" is unique in itself as well, as other Forging Bonds have only featured summonable units, none obtainable from Grand Hero Battles, Tempest Trials, or anywhere orbs are not needed[[note]]barring Fjorm, who appeared in "The Sworn Oath" and is always recruited by players who clear Chapter 1 of Book II for the first time, in addition to being summonable on certain Legendary Hero banners[[/note]].

** Draug, Sheena, Igrene, Perceval, Echidna, Chad, Larum, Azura, both Corrins, Jakob, Male Byleth, and Ylgr are never encountered as enemies in the game's Story Mode or regular Hero Battles, but can still be fought in the Training Tower. They have also appeared in certain special maps, and Male Corrin and Azura even had their own Bound Hero Battle.

** Lewyn's Forseti, Fallen Mareeta's Shadow Sword, and Summer Laegjarn's Worldsea Wave allows them to perform follow-up attacks before their opponent can counter attack if they have at least 50% HP, provided they has enough speed to double the opponent or is using a weapon-Breaker skill.

** Idunn's Demonic Breath and Brunnya's Fimbulvetr allows them to ignore any penalties they has, as well as gain +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, during combat, if they either has any negative status effect or is not at full HP before the start of combat.

* PinkGirlBlueBoy: The spring variants of Alfonse and Sharena have light blue and pink accents, respectively.

December 5th, 2019 saw the release of Book IV, where the Order of Heroes will find themselves in Ljósálfheimr, the [[DreamLand Realm of Dreams]]. There, they will befriend Peony, a member of the Ljósálfar, while being menaced by a pair of Dökkálfar, Triandra and Plumeria, from Dökkálfheimr, the Realm of Nightmares.

* WeaponTombstone: After the [[DefeatEqualsExplosion explosion of the Røkkr]] in the result screen, their weapon is layed standing on top of a dark fiery rubble.

** The Mysterious Man's Valaskjálf, Veronica's Élivágar, Líf's Sökkvabekkr, Hel's Hel Scythe, and Gustav's Glitnir are unobtainable by players.

** Duo Ephraim and Lyon's Reginleif grants the user a guaranteed follow-up attack if the user either has more Atk than the enemy during combat, or has extra movement granted onto them.

* CounterAttack: While counterattacks are par for the course for ''Fire Emblem'', this game introduces skills and weapons that can counterattack enemies regardless of range, with Distant Counter allowing melee heroes to counterattack ranged ones, while Close Counter allows ranged heroes to counterattack melee ones. Distant Counter is also included in weapon skills (most of the time being the weapon's only effect), such as Rajinto, Ragnell, and Lightning Breath+, as well as Armored Beast weapons when the user is transformed. Other weapons also have conditional Distant Counter alongside other effects and drawbacks, such as Osian's Vouge having Distant Counter if he is at 50% HP or more at the start of combat, Fallen Berkut's Kreimhild having it alongside denying any of their follow-up attacks if he has an ally within 2 spaces of him, but deals 20 damage to the nearest ally after combat if he counterattacked a ranged foe, and the unique refine for Saber's Golden Dagger, where if the user has their special ready, gives Distant Counter as well as +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat. Currently, only Boey's unique refine for his Inscribed Tome has the Close Counter effect, and even then it's conditional as it excludes him from counterattacking dragons.

** Close Call allows the user to reduce damage from both combat and non-Røkkr AOE specials if they're faster than the enemy, with 4% damage reduced for each Spd the user is higher, up to 40% damage reduced.

*** You can have 3 different versions of Tharja[[note]]Regular, Winter, Bridal[[/note]], Cordelia[[note]]Regular, Bridal, Summer[[/note]], Olivia[[note]]Regular, Performing Arts, Ylissean Travelers[[/note]], Celica[[note]]Regular, Fallen, Brave[[/note]], Kagero[[note]]Regular, Spring, Halloween[[/note]], Sakura[[note]]Regular, Halloween, Bath[[/note]], Elise[[note]]Regular, Summer, Bath[[/note]], Hinoka[[note]]Regular, Kinshi, Bath[[/note]], Fjorm[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Bridal[[/note]], Gunnthrá[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Summer[[/note]], Laevatein[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Summer[[/note]], Laegjarn[[note]]Regular, New Year's, Summer[[/note]], Micaiah[[note]]Regular, Yukata, Brave[[/note]], Alm[[note]]Regular, Legendary, Brave[[/note]], Berkut[[note]]Regular, Fallen, Dancing[[/note]], Reinhardt[[note]]Regular, World of Thracia, Dancing[[/note]], Catria[[note]]Regular, Spring, Zofia's Call[[/note]], or Nino[[note]]Regular, Scattered Fangs, Winter[[/note]] fighting at once.

** Legendary Celica's Soul of Zofia, which the user negates any skills that guarantees the foe's follow-up attack and ignore skills that deny any of the user's follow-up attacks, as well as if the user initiates combat and is at 75% HP or under, have any of the user's follow-up attacks go before the foe counterattacks.

** Desperation lets the user strike twice before the target can react when the user initiates combat, but requires the user to have HP less than or equal to 25%/50%/75% and they still need to follow the normal Speed rules. When unrefined, regular Lyn's Sol Katti has the second tier of this effect. Lyn's Sol Katti and Athena's Concealed Blade gains the third tier upon refinement, whereas the inheritable Sketchy Summer weapons have the third tier regardless of refinement. Thrasir's Killing Intent also has this effect, except it activates if the enemy is either not at full HP or has any debuffs on them. The unique refine for Brave Ike's Urvan allows the ''enemy'' to attack twice before the user attacks, but to compensate, it reduces the damage of the first attack by 40%, while still having the 80% damage reduction for any enemy consecutive attacks onwards.

** Null Follow-Up disables enemy skills that guarantee a follow-up attack for the enemy, as well as enemy skills that prevent Null Follow-Up's user from performing any follow-ups attack. Both Byleth's Creator Sword has the same effect. Mareeta's Sword, in addition to +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, also has the same effect, but only if the user is not adjacent to an ally.

** Null Follow-Up allows the user ignore skills that negate any of the user's follow-up attacks, and negates any skills that guarantees any of the enemy's follow-up attacks.

* CounterAttack: While counterattacks are par for the course for ''Fire Emblem'', this game introduces skills and weapons that can counterattack enemies regardless of range, with Distant Counter allowing melee heroes to counterattack ranged ones, while Close Counter allows ranged heroes to allow them to counterattack melee ones. Currently, only Distant Counter is included in weapon skills, such as Rajinto, Ragnell, and Lightning Breath+, as well as Armored Beast weapons when the user is transformed. Osian's Vouge also has the Distant Counter effect, but only activates if he is at 50% HP or more at the start of combat.

** Characters that had previously been unplayable antagonists and supporting characters in their home games can be recruited in ''Heroes'' as playable units. Naga, Duma, Reinhardt, Kempf, Idunn, Greil, Yune, Altina, Garon, Mikoto, Berkut, Rinea, Sothis, and Kronya in particular have never been controllable in any form.