Fire Emblem Heroes / Tropes F to L

Fire Emblem Heroes tropes: A to E | F to L | M to R | S to Z

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This game has examples of:

F

• Faceless Goons: 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.
• Fake Trap: In addition to Bolt, Heavy and Hex 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.
• Fallen Hero:
  • Since February 2018, a yearly banner focuses on otherwise heroic characters who are possessed/corrupted into being villainous, or villains going further insane:
    • February 2018's Fallen Heroes banner features Hardin (from the influence of the Darksphere), Celica (being sacrificed to Duma and turning into a Witch), and Male Robin (used as a Soul Jar for the Fell Dragon Grima), with an accompanying Grand Hero Battle for Takumi (from More than Mind Control and his corpse being fully possessed by the Silent Dragon Anankos). Legendary Female Robin would be released roughly one month later and Fallen Rearmed Female Robin released more than 4 years later, also being possessed by Grima like Male Robin before her.
    • May 2019's Darkness Within 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).
    • May 2020's Dark Burden banner includes Male Corrin (losing himself in rage after losing his mother), Lyon (possessed by the Demon King Fomortiis after forming a pact to save his country), Julia (being mind controlled by Manfroy to serve Loptous), and Ike (going on a murderous rampage after touching Lehran's Medallion), with a Grand Hero Battle for Ashnard (intentionally touching Lehran's Medallion as a last ditch effort to make and prove himself stronger).
    • May 2021's Forces of Will banner includes Dimitri (years of insanity by being isolated and being vengeful against Edelgard after the Time Skip), both Morgans (both being loyal to their parent after they have become Grima and having their memories altered in The Future Past DLC), and Edelgard (becoming a demonic beast and throwing away her humanity as desperation to stop Dimitri and his forces in the Azure Moon route), with a Grand Hero Battle for Orson (betraying his country Renais for Grado to revive his dead wife Monica in return and being overly obsessed with her while neglecting everything else as a result, including his health).
    • May 2022's Beyond Control banner includes Lilith (Anankos' insanity given form and is loyal to him), Ninian (brainwashed by Nergal to open the Dragon's Gate and uncontrollably transforms into a dragon as a result), Gustav (revived by Hel after his death in Book III to serve her), and Rhea (going insane after her body cannot contain her power after being mortally wounded protecting Byleth from the "javelins of light" in her Immaculate One form beforehand in the Silver Snow route), with a Grand Hero Battle for Muarim (unintentionally consumed the Feral elixir from Izuka after the latter mixed it in his food).
    • May 2023's New Heroes & Rearmed Chrom banner includes Female Byleth (possessed by Sothis after her father Jeralt died by Shez's hands and want vengeance against them), Maria (mind controlled by Gharnef to serve and sacrifice herself to Medeus), Anankos (going insane due to dragon degeneration after many years unable to become a spirit), and Chrom (based on his Cipher art where he is a Risen and is called the Risen King), with a Grand Hero Battle for Linus (resurrected as a Morph to protect Nergal).
  • Renning under his Bertram alias also counts as a Fallen Hero, corrupted by the Feral Elixir he was experimented with, despite not being released on any of the Fallen Heroes banners above. Instead, Bertram was released in mid-November 2021 with the "New Heroes & Ascended Laegjarn" banner.
  • Vigarde also follows in Bertram's footsteps, having the aesthetics of a Fallen Hero, but was not released on any of the Fallen Heroes banners above; instead, he was released in mid-March 2023 with the "New Heroes & Rearmed Tana" banner.
• Fanservice: Special Heroes summoning events include (but are certainly not limited to) bridal units, units in bunny suits, and units in swimwear.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Summer Innes wears swim trunks that are longer on one leg.
• Feather Motif: The Original Generation characters are all adorned with feathers (white for the Askr and Nifl characters, and black for Embla and Múspell).
• The Final Temptation: Paralogue 27, "Adrift" has Loki offering child Azura access to her ideal world based on her dream of having a loving family. All she has to do is listen to an offer of hers.
• Fireball Eyeballs: 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.
• Fire-Forged Friends: 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.
• Fish out of Temporal Water:
  • The Player Character 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. The "A Star Is Born" update introduces characters from Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, who likewise come from modern-day Earth and are pulled into a medieval world.
  • The Illusory Dungeon "Wings Carry Me" is set in Shibuya, and has your medieval-era characters take a trip to the modern world.
• Fixed Damage Attack:
  • 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 Splash Damage 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.
• Flat "What": In the Abyssal Light Forging Bonds event, Hilda reacts to Balthus' declaration that he's going to pick fights with strong-looking people with a completely deadpan "What."
• Flavor Text: 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.
• Fluffy Tamer: 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 the Mysterious Man, and clearly cares more about him than anyone else she interacts with. 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? Somewhat subverted, it's not the actual Líf himself, but an alternate Alfonse naming himself after the first king of Askr.
  • The Adrift Paralogue in November 2018 as a whole was foreshadowing the theme of Book IV, that being dreams, nightmares, the dream world, and even butterflies.
  • Several Forging Bonds supports have this that seem to foreshadow the finale of the story, for some reason:
    • The "Bonds of Trust" Forging Bonds starts this with Pent's support chain. In it, he studies long and heard to figure out the cause of all of the endless battles in Askr. In his A-Support, he says that one of the reasons Askr is constantly attacked is because the other realms lack a Summoner. In his S-Support, he says Askr's constant invasions stem from the Summoner's presence, but he also says they are not the root cause. He says the root cause is an enemy that has not yet revealed himself, and that the Summoner was likely called forth to defeat that foe. Given how the story has unfolded, it seems as though he is referring to Alfaðör.
    • The main story of the "Abyssal Light" Forging Bonds event involves the Ashen Wolves hiding from the Order of Heroes in the Great Library of Askr. In it, they find a mysterious glowing book with an iron cover. Constance reads the book, which talks about the Nine Realms, depicting each of them, as well as the crest of Askr in the middle. She then reads "All battles...are here...". However, when Constance tries to read what will happen at the end of the story, Loki destroys the book, telling them they can't read any further. What Constance was going to read was the Grand Finale of the story, presumably against the creator of everything himself.
    • "Flow of Power" involved Rearmed Female Robin (actually Grima) pondering why she has her full power in Askr, and decides to investigate the kingdom with the help of her faithful assistant, Fallen Male Morgan. After finding out that Askr is home to all kinds of unique individuals such as fallen heroes and creator gods, the two wonder how and why the Summoner could and did summon them, including them. In their S-Support, they conclude that Grima's summoning and the added contract was not by Summoner's choice, but by a greater, unseen force pulling the strings, and believe the Summoner was chosen to carry out their will. Additionally, they realize that with the countless number of gods the Summoner had gathered in Askr, they could unite them or pit them against each other, and thought yet another force that only the might of gods could hope match. This Forging Bonds likely refers Alfaðör and the death of all gods: Ragnarök.
• Fountain of Youth:
  • The "Adrift" banner introduced a Young variant of Azura that was released as a Tempest Trials unit.
  • The "The Start of It All" banner in April 2020, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Fire Emblem franchise, introduced Young variants of Marth, Caeda, Merric, the Whitewing Sisters (as a trio unit operating as a Duo Hero), and Minerva (as a Tempest Trials unit).
  • Halloween Hector, who was the first Duo Unit introduced, comes with a younger version of his daughter Lilina.
  • The "Childhood Encounter" in April 2021 introduced Young variants of the Renais twins Eirika & Ephraim (as a Duo Hero), Tana, L'Arachel, Lyon, and Innes (as a Tempest Trial unit).
• Fragile Speedster: With the Ninja Katana/Yari/Masakari+, players can Invoke this with characters that can inherit these weapons, as while they only have 9 Might (compared to 14 on inheritable melee weapons) and inflict -4 Def/Res on the user, they also give +4 Spd to the user and allows them to attack twice in one round of combat if they initiate combat, allowing the user to be able to attack more than once at the cost of their defenses and Atk.
• Full Health Bonus:
  • Some skills initially start as this with the Tier 1 versions but later averts them in the higher Tier versions. For example, Bold Fighter 1 allows the user to gain a guaranteed follow-up attack and +1 special buildup per user's attack if the user initiates combat and is at full HP at the start of combat, but lower that to 50% HP or above for Bold Fighter 2 and no HP requirements for Bold Fighter 3.
  • The Tier 1~3 versions of the Push skills allow the user to have +5 to their Atk and one other stat during combat if the user is at full HP at the start of combat, but deals 1 damage to the user after combat if the user attacked, which outside of external factors to heal the user's HP, invokes It Only Works Once. Averted with the Tier 4 version, where it will give +7 to their Atk and one other stat during combat if the user is at 25% HP or above at the start of combat, with the damage dealt to the user after combat increasing to 5.
  • Regular Celica's unrefined Ragnarok and Fallen Celica's unrefined Beloved Zofia, as well as the Ylissean Summer weapons grant boost to the user's stats during combat if the user is at full HP at the start of combat, as well as damaging them after combat if they attacked, with Ragnarok granting +5 Atk/Spd during combat, but deals 5 damage to the user after combat, Beloved Zofia granting +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, but deals 4 damage to the user after combat, and the Ylissean Summer weapons granting +2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, but deals 2 damage to the user after combat, also invoking It Only Works Once. Averted with the refined versions of Ragnarok and Beloved Zofia, where it removes the full HP requirements to activate both the combat boosts and after combat damage.
  • Brave Celica's Double Lion and the unique refine for Regular Alm's Falchion allows the user to attack twice in one round if the user is at full HP and initiates combat, but deals 1 damage to the user after combat for the former, and 5 damage after combat for the latter. However, both Brave Celica and Regular Alm have access to HP regeneration in their loadouts to help them go back to full HP, with the unique refine for Brave Celica's Royal Sword restoring 7 HP to the user after combat if the user is at 25% HP or above at the start of combat, and Regular Alm's Falchion having Renewal 3 built into it.
  • The Ideal skills are a Downplayed version, as the Tier 1~3 skills give boosts to two of the user's stats if the user either is at full HP at the start of combat or have a [Bonus] applied to them. Played Straight with the Tier 4 version where in addition to granting the user +7 to two of the user's stats during combat with those conditions, the user gains an additional +2 to those stats if the user is both at full HP at the start of combat and there is a [Bonus] applied to the user during combat.
  • There's also the Inverted case with weapons and skills gaining additional effects if the foe's HP is at full or is above a certain HP threshold at the start of combat, such as Legendary Chrom's Randgríðr allowing the user to inflict -6 Atk/Def on the foe during combat and allowing the user to ignore any penalties inflicted on the user if the foe is at full HP at the start of combat, Larcei's Edge for Regular Larcei allowing the user to gain +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat and ignore any field stat buffs on the foe during combat if either the foe is at full HP at the start of combat or the user's Spd is greater than the foe's at the start of combat, and the unique refine the Divine Tyrfing allows the user to gain +5 Atk/Def during combat and a guaranteed follow-up attack if the foe is at 50% HP or above at the start of combat.
• Fur Bikini: Winter Tharja's outfit is a red bikini with white fur trimming and a matching cape.
• Future Badass: 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.

G

• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Because of Pawns of Loki was updated to reduce the number of turns from 9~12 to 9 in update 5.5.0, it causes anyone playing the May 19th~21st 2021 Pawns of Loki event within Tier 4 and above to crash the game whenever players start on Intermediate or Advanced difficulty due to being unable to load other player's Brigades from update 5.4.0 and earlier. Luckily, that event still allowed players to play on Beginner difficulty due to that difficulty generating AI teams instead and is unaffected by the bug, which the developers recommend players at those Tiers to play on that difficulty to complete the "PoL: Complete a Game" quest and gain points to earn rewards from the event itself, as well as gifting 5 orbs to all players as compensation for the error.
  • Update 6.1.0 in January 2022 has two instances that results in the game crashing: exiting the status screen from a friend's hero from the Friend List when the player's personal card is scrolled off view, and anyone attempting to enter the January 11-12th 2022 Grand Conquest event, thus unable to complete the "GC: Earn Score" quests running at the time. The issues resulted in the Grand Conquest event to be postponed to January 23-24th 2022 where the 6.1.1 update fix released two days later was be applied before the event runs again, as well as having everyone being gifted 10 orbs as compensation for the error.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The inability for dancers and singers to rejuvenate each other becomes a plot point in Phina's Forging Bonds event.
  • The game's lack of Permadeath is brought up in Fallen Edelgard's Forging Bonds event. Kronya loves it, she can go out into battle and cause as much carnage as she wants, and if things turn bad she gets summoned back and healed.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • 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 Fire Emblem Fates 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, Elibean Legendary Weapons, 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. Also, just like in The Binding Blade, Eckesaches still lacks dragon effectiveness despite being crafted for that same purpose.
  • 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 Arms, 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.
  • Enemy spawns during stuff like Tempest Trials are determent on unit types (i.e. close infantry) and doesn't take account just who the main boss might be. For example, during "Tempest Trials+: Ice & Flame 3", one of the enemy spawns in the final map is a close cavalry, meaning that Nifl has a real chance to spawn to help her supposed archenemy Múspell.
• Gendered Outfit: Played with for both Regular Morgans of Awakening. While Regular Male Morgan wears the standard pants-full Tactician outfit and Regular 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.
• Gender-Concealing Writing: The notification for Flame Emperor's Grand Hero Battle, as well as the unit's entry in "Meet the Heroes", refers to Flame Emperor with "they", hiding their true identity.
• Gentleman Thief: The Risk and Reward banner in August 2022 has the male units be this, with Sothe and Rickard dressing up as classical thieves. Bonus points for the both of them being actual thieves in their home games.
• Geo Effects: Defensive tiles boost the Def/Res of a unit standing on them by 30%, including fliers.
• Glass Cannon: With the Life and Death skill, players can Invoke this on characters by equipping this skill. Life and Death grants an Atk and Spd boost at the cost of Def and Res, with Life and Death 3 granting +5 Atk/Spd but -5 Def/Res, and Life and Death 4 granting +7 Atk/Spd but -5 Def/Res. It can stack with the Life and Death 3 Sacred Seal, so you can have a unit with up to +10 or +12 Atk/Spd at the cost of -10 Def/Res. The unique refine for Raven and Regular Linus' Basilikos and Lon'qu's Solitary Blade grants Life and Death 3, allowing them to get up to +15 or +17 Atk/Spd but be inflicted with -15 Def/Res. Finn's Loyalty Spear, Ninja Duo Lyn & Florina's Tailwind Shuriken, Ninja Igrene's Nabata Kunai and the inheritable weapons from the In the Moment banner also encourage this playstyle, as they're weapons that can strike twice consecutively similar to Brave weapons (and in the Loyalty Spear's case, regardless of phase), but they grant +4 Spd to encourage quadruple strikes, in exchange for inflicting -4 Def/Res on the user. Ninja Duo Female Corrin & Elise's Ninjutsu Scrolls and the inheritable Ninja Training drop the +4 Spd for the latter in exchange for dealing true damage equal to the difference their Spd the user has over their foe's Spd if the user initiates combat, with the inheritable Ninja Training granting 50% of the difference, up to +4 true damage, and the Ninjutsu Scrolls granting 70% of the difference, up to +7 true damage.
• Going Native: When a hero gets a Resplendent upgrade, it comes with new clothes based on Fire Emblem Heroes' native characters. For example, Lyn and Roy's outfits have the blue and white snowflake theme from Nifl, while Robin and Takumi have tattered black and white outfits from Hel.
• Golden Snitch: 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.
• The Good Kingdom: The January 2020 Voting Gauntlet focuses on Kingdoms vs. 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.
• Gradual Regeneration:
  • Renewal restores 10 HP to its user at the start of every fourth, third, or every odd turn, including the first 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, as well as the Scions of Twelve weapons, heals the user 10 HP at the start of the user's turn.
  • The Healing Tower in Aether Raids recovers from 10 HP to 45 HP (depending on its level) to all ally units within 3 spaces of it at the start of each turn.
  • The Ovoid Staff heals 7 HP to its wielder and adjacent allies at the start of their turn. The unique refine for Spring Sharena's Muninn's Egg has a stronger effect, where it allows the user to restore 7 HP to the user and all allies within 2 spaces of the user at the start of the user's turn.
• Green and Mean: Not green-skinned in a sense, but all of the main villains of each of the books up to Book VI are all green in the Weapon Triangle: Veronica is an infantry Green Mage, Surtr is an Axe Armor, Hel is an Axe Flier, Freyja is a Green Beast Cavalry, and Eitri is a Green Mage Flier. Embla is an aversion, as she's a Red Beast unit instead.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • 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. It wasn't until the release of Forma Souls that you can have one (and only one) Forma join your barracks, but lose any merges and Sacred Seals they're equipped with, as well as unable to be used as a source for skill inheritance or be merged into identical heroes (but can be used as a base for merging identical heroes), if one exchanges 3 Celestial Stones for one around every 7 months, and cash to get more.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • 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.
  • There are weapons and skills that state that the user can ignore penalties on their stats during combat, but how they interact with the foe's weapons and skills such as Regular Gunnthrá's Blizzard, Brave Micaiah's Light of Dawn and the Broadleaf Fan+ that check on those penalties and gain boosts from them either completely remove those penalties altogether as if they were never there in the first place or just neutralize it while still having that penalty there. For example, Regular Idunn's Demonic Breath remove penalties completely during combat and do not give boosts to the foe, while Spring Est's Eagle's Egg neutralizes her penalties during combat but still give boosts to her foe. This has later be rectified in update 4.6.0, where it now is consistent with each other to function like Regular Idunn's Demonic Breath.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot:
  • Male Corrin uses his Cool Sword, while Female Corrin transforms into a dragon and uses her Breath Weapon.
  • The Spring Festival characters: Chrom and Xander wield an axe and a lance respectively, while Lucina and Camilla cast spells with 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 tossed seashells and a bow and 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 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 Bishōnen Soren are tome users.
  • Summer Vibrance's Ashe and Caspar are respectively lance and axe units, while Mercedes wields a red tome, Leonie uses a bow, and Hilda/Marianne are a staff duo.
  • Weave of Fate, the sixth iteration of Brave Heroes, has the men Seliph and Chrom carrying a sword and a lance respectively, while the ladies Byleth and Tiki use a tome and a Breath Weapon respectively.

H

• Halloween Episode:
  • Named "the harvest festival", IS releases Halloween seasonal banners nearing its date, with characters in their Holiday Mode.
  • 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 Holiday Mode 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.
  • 2020's "Dragons Harvest" features Fallen Female Robin as a werewolf, Xane as a harlequin, Dheginsea as a vampire, Ena as a jiangshi, Young Tiki as an Oni, and Ninian as a tennyo (basically the Japanese Buddhism equivalent of a female angel), with the latter two paired up as a Harmonized Hero, being the Japanese equivalent to the angel and devil pair.
  • 2021's "Shared Bounty" features Grima returning as a werewolf but in Male Robin's body, Rhea as a witch, Kurthnaga as the Great King Enma, Sophia in a spiderweb-themed dress, Sothis as a witch and Male Byleth as the devil, with the latter two paired up as a Duo Hero.
  • 2022's "Divine Harvest" features Female Corrin dressed as a witch, Male Corrin dressed as a sorcerer, Naga dressed as a ghost, Nils dressed as a prince, Duma dressed as Baron Samedi and Mila dressed as a Witch Doctor, with the latter two paired up as as Duo Hero, and not the first time Female Corrin being dressed like that.
  • 2023's "Merchant's Harvest" features Timerra dressed as a ghost, Flayn dressed as a cat, Seadall dressed as a wizard, Kellam dressed as a ghost with a pumpkin head, Engage Anna dressed as Awakening Anna and Awakening Anna dressed as Engage Anna, with the latter two paired up as a Harmonized Hero.
• Hard Mode Perks:
  • Playing the Coliseum modes, Tempest Trials, Mjölnir's Strike, and Pawns of Loki on higher difficulties will earn you more points. The extra points make it possible to get a higher rank (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.
• Harder Than Hard:
  • 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 impossibly high) stats and incredibly powerful skillsets.
  • Legion's Grand Hero Battle introduced an 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.
• Head Swap: 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.
• Healer Signs On Early: Averted, none of the characters players start with^note Anna, Alfonse, Sharena, Raigh, Matthew, Virion, and Takumi (after the 2.5.0 update) 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 three fighting types, the others being a manakete and a beast not given by default.
• Healing Hands:
  • All staff users have the ability to heal other allies with their support Assist, but how much HP the user restores depends on the assist, such as Physic+ healing allies equal to 50% of the user's Atk outside of combat to any allies exactly 2 spaces away from the user after movement, while Martyr+ healing allies equal to 50% of the user's Atk plus half the amount of HP missing on the user to adjacent allies after movement, while the user also recovers half of their missing HP. Imbue allows the user to recover an additional 10 HP to the target when their healing assist is used when it activates.
  • Heavenly Light, exclusive to Staff units, allows the user to recover 10 HP to all the user's allies after using their healing assist.
  • Ardent Sacrifice allows the user to recover 10 HP to a damaged ally, but removes 10 HP on the user, with the condition that the user is not at 1 HP remaining and their HP cannot reach 0 when they use that assist.
  • Reciprocal Aid can play this Straight or Invert this trope, where it allows the user to swap their current HP with their target ally if either the user or their ally is damaged and either one has more HP than the other.
  • Breath of Life allows the user to recover 3/5/7 HP to adjacent allies after combat if the user initiates combat and survives combat. Regular Linde's unrefined Aura has the same effect as the Tier 2 version of Breath of Life, while the Performing Arts weapons have the Tier 3 versions. Absorb+ has a similar effect, where in addition to recovering HP to the user equal to 50% of the damage dealt per attack during combat, allows the user to recover 7 HP to all allies within 2 spaces of the user after combat if the user attacked, which can be stacked with Breath of Life.
  • The Odd/Even Recovery skills allow the user to restore 20 HP and remove all penalties on all allies within 2 spaces of the user at the start of every odd or even turn, depending on the variant used.
  • Regular, Brave, and Bridal Duo Micaiah's Sacrifice, in addition to reversing any field stat debuffs on their ally, allows the user to restore HP equal to the current user's HP -1 to the target and reduces the user's HP equal to the amount restored. Legendary Micaiah's Maiden's Solace also has the same effect, with the addition of having the effect of Harsh Command+ instead Harsh Command from Sacrifice.
  • The Heron Wing weapon, wielded by Reyson and Leanne, restores 7 HP to any ally within two spaces of them at the start of their turn.
  • The Ovoid Staff+ allows the user to recover 7 HP to the user and any adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn. The unique refine for Spring Sharena's Muninn's Egg has a stronger effect, where it allows the user to restore 7 HP to the user and all allies within 2 spaces of the user at the start of the user's turn.
  • Regular Eir's Sparkling Boost and the Staff of Twelve+ allows the user to recover 10 HP to the ally with the most amount of HP missing at the start of the user's turn. Regular Eir's Sparkling Boost+ has a stronger effect, where it recovers 20 HP instead.
  • Young Merric's Righteous Wind allows the user to recover 10 HP to the user and all their allies after combat when it activates, even if the user was defeated during that combat.
  • Regular Guinivere's Aureola and the unique refine for Regular Genny's Springtime Staff allows the user to recover 7 HP to the user and any allies within 2 spaces of the user after combat. The Staff of Tribute(+) has a stronger effect, where it recovers 7 HP to the user and any allies within 3 spaces of the user after combat, but only triggers if the user is within 3 spaces of an ally.
• Healing Winds: Young Merric's Secret Art Righteous Wind gives off this trope, where in addition to boosting the user's damage equal to 30% of the user's Spd during combat, allows the user to recover 10 HP to the user and all their allies after combat when it activates, even if the user was defeated during that combat.
• Heal Thyself:
  • The Martyr(+) assist skill allows the user to recover HP equal to half the user's missing HP when the user healed their target ally.
  • Live to Serve allows the user to recover HP equal to 50%/75%/100% of the amount of HP the user healed their target ally with a healing assist skill.
  • Skills such as Mystic Boost, the Bulwark skills and Legendary Ephraim's Solar Brace II allows the user to recover a fixed amount of HP after combat, even if the user did not counterattack.
  • Flow Refresh, in addition to allowing the user to ignore any of the foe's skills that deny the user from performing a follow-up attack, allows the user to recover 10 HP after combat if the user initiates combat.
  • The 2017 Spring weapons allows the user to recover 4 HP after combat if they initiate combat. The refined versions remove the initiation condition to activate.
  • Summer Ingrid's Starpoint Lance allows the user to recover 10 HP after the first combat the user participates in each player and enemy phase. The 2020 Summer weapons and the -rabbit weapons have the same effect, except it heals 7 HP after combat instead.
  • Fallen Edelgard's Armored Wall, Legendary Nanna's Lands Sword, and the unique refine for Brave Celica's Royal Sword allows them to recover 7 HP after combat if they were at 25% HP or above at the start of combat.
  • Oliver's Tome of Favors allows the user to recover 7 HP after combat if the foe is not a Beast unit.
  • The unique refine for Regular L'Arachel's Ivaldi allows her to recover 7 HP after combat if the foe was at 75% HP or above at the start of combat.
  • The unique refine for Male Kana's Dusk Dragonstone allows the user to recover 7 HP after combat if the user is within 3 spaces of an ally. Ascended Fjorm's Nifl's Bite has a weaker effect, where it allows her to recover 7 HP after combat if the user is within 2 spaces of an ally.
• Heart Container: 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.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player can give any name they like to the new Summoner and tactician of the Order of Heroes.
• Hidden Depths: The game gives this to Grima of all people. He doesn't have a very good understanding of how being heroic works, and feels exploited and betrayed by his own worshipers.
• Highly Specific Counterplay:
  • Some weapons and skills exclusive to characters with unusual statlines have certain effects that make them great against certain characters, but not so much against others. For example, Regular Flora's unrefined Hoarfrost Knife allows her to gain +20 Def during combat if she initiates against a foe that wields a melee weapon, as well as gaining a guaranteed follow-up attack if the same foe can counterattack. Alongside her high Res and good Atk, but low Spd and Def, this makes her a Lightning Bruiser against melee foes that can counterattack her if she initiates combat, while also being a good Mage Killer with that statline. This however does not work for her defensively since she cannot take a strong physical hit, since with her low Spd and Def, alongside her below average HP, is also holding her back, her Hoarfrost Knife does not activate if the foe initiates combat, its guaranteed follow-up attack does not activate if those melee units cannot counterattack at all or have skills like Null Follow-Up, and both effects does not activate at all against Bow and Dagger users, who can reliably take her down with ease. In short, she is great against magic units and melee units that have Distant Counter and its variants if she initiates combat, but is below average otherwise, which was later rectified with her refined Hoarfrost Knife.
  • The tier 1~3 Null skills counter against specific effects, where Null Follow-Up ignores skills that grants the foe a guaranteed follow-up and deny any of the foe's follow-up attack and Null C-Disrupt ignores skills that prevents the user from counterattacking, but do not do anything else. The tier 4 versions avert this by granting additional effects, where Phys./Mag. Null Follow additionally inflicts -4 Spd and Def or Res on the foe during combat, depending on which one, as well as halve non-special Damage Reduction effects on the foe, and Null C-Disrupt 4 additionally inflicts -4 Atk/Spd on the foe during combat and reduces damage taken from the foe's first attack by 30%.
  • The -breaker B skills. These skills allows the user to perform a guaranteed follow-up attack as well as deny any of the foe's follow-up attacks if the user is at 50% HP or above at the start of combat, but only activates against one specific weapon type and is completely useless against everything else, where for example Swordbreaker only activates against Sword units, and B Tomebreaker only activates against Blue Tome units. There is also the fact that Bowbreaker and Daggerbreaker only works against only Colorless Bows and Daggers, meaning that they also do not activate other colored Bows and Daggers, and that R Tomebreaker, B Tomebreaker, and G Tomebreaker does not activate against Colorless Tomes.
  • The Cancel Affinity B skill. They're designed to reverse the effects of Triangle Adept, the Gem weapons and their stronger versions such as Seth's Silverbrand in order to have units a fighting chance against those who use those skills heavily, especially against the -raven and Triangle Adept combo against Colorless units. However, it's useless against everything else, and it's not helped that Triangle Adept is not often as used as much by players later on in the game's life. However, the Cancel Affinity status effect, given by the unique refine for Maribelle's Punishment Staff, is a whole lot more useful since she also inflicts the [Triangle Adept] status to foes and therefore gives the full benefits of Cancel Affinity without occupying the B skill slot on herself and allies.
  • The Disarm Trap skill, which allows the user to disable a trap by ending their movement on the space the trap occupies, only works in Aether Raids, and even then it only works against Bolt and Heavy Traps, and not the Hex Trap.
  • The [Stall] status effect restricts the affected unit to move only 1 space, but only if they have the +1 movement status effect active on them as well. Unlike the [Gravity] status effect, which does the same thing without any restrictions, the [Stall] status effect only works against units that have the +1 movement status effect.
  • Legendary Marth's Binding Shield allows him to have a guaranteed follow-up attack, prevent his foe from performing a follow-up, and prevents the foe from counterattacking if he initiates combat, all which activates if he is against a Dragon foe, and no one else. This was later rectified with update 5.11.0 in November 2021 with the release of Binding Shield II, where in addition to activating all those effects against Dragon foes, also allows it to activate if Legendary Marth's Spd is 5 or more higher than his foe's Spd during combat.
  • Canto Control and the unique refine for Adrift Mikoto's Doting Staff allows the user to inflict [Canto Control]^note reduces the amount of spaces moved with Canto to 1 for melee units, and immediately ends their turn with ranged units on any foe within 4 spaces of the user if they trigger Canto, but only against that.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics:
  • Players can Invoke this with units equipped with skills and weapons that gives them an Extra Turn, such as Galeforce and Legendary Edelgard's Raging Storm, as there can be some situations where retreating after activating those skills is the best decision if going against another foe instead would most likely having that unit be overwhelmed and be defeated.
  • Skills and Weapons that give [Canto] allows the user to move after they performed an action once per turn, including attacking a unit or obstacle, and using an assist skill, such as the Near/Far Trace skills and the unique refine for Sumia's Flower Lance, with Canto (X) using up to the allocated number, Canto (Rem.(+X)(; min. 1)) using the remaining spaces the user did not use beforehand, plus X spaces if any, Canto (Unit X) within a fixed area around the user, and a minimum if any, Canto (Dist.(+X); max Y) where using the amount of spaces the user moved before and action, plus X spaces if any, Canto (Yx Y) allowing the user to move to a spaces within a certain area after an action, Canto (Ally X) moving to an adjacent space of an ally within the allocated space, and Canto (Recall) moving back to the starting space of the unit before the action. However, there are limitations to this, where it cannot stack with other Canto skills and only the highest movement value applies, the user can only move by the amount of spaces given by Canto effect, the unit can only warp to another space if it is within the amount of spaces Canto provided, and Canto skills that uses the remaining of the amount of spaces the user has moved before performing their action will have that number be reduced to 0 if the user has warped before performing their action.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • The [Panic] status effect reverses any field stat buffs the user has, where for example if the user has +4 Atk and +6 Spd, the Panic status changes them into -4 Atk and -6 Spd instead, so the stronger the initial field stat buffs has, the larger the reversal will be.
  • The [Stall] status effect allows the user to only move 1 space if the user was given +1 movement, meaning that if the user has increased movement, they get inflicted with Gravity instead until Stall wear off.
  • There are some weapons and skills that makes the user stronger or the foe weaker if the foe's HP is at or above a certain threshold at the start of combat. For example, Shannan's Balmung allows him to gain +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and ignore any penalties inflicted on him during combat, if the foe is at full HP at the start of combat, and the unique refine for Legion's Sneering Axe giving him +5 Atk/Spd and gain +1 special buildup for each attack he does during combat if the foe is at 75% HP or above at the start of combat.
  • Regular Laegjarn's unrefined Níu boosts her Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat equal to 50% of her foe's total field stat buffs, while her refined Níu boosts her Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat equal to 40% of her and her foe's total field stat buffs (though only up to +10). Her Ascended variant's Flame of Múspell has a similar effect, where, in addition to granting the user +6 Atk/Spd, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res equal to 50% of her and her foe's total field stat buffs has, up to +12, as well as ignore skills that deny any of her follow-up attacks if that sum is 10 or more.
  • The Cleaner(+) and Legault's Hurricane Dagger adds the target's total field stat buffs value to the user's Atk during combat, so the more field stat buffs the foe has the more damage the user can deal.
  • Kliff's Sagittae grants him +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if his foe's Atk is 5 or more higher than his Atk, while the refined versions just need the foe to have higher Atk than him to gain +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, as well as granting him true damage before and during combat equal to 15% of the foe's Atk.
  • Fates Selena's eponymous 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 their foe's Atk, but goes up to 40% if they're against a Dragon or Beast foe instead, meaning that it only gets stronger the more Atk their foe has, and moreso if the enemy is a Dragon or Beast.
  • The unique refinement of Regular Henry's Corvus Tome allow him to inflict -6 Atk/Res as well as -1 special buildup if the foe has 3 or more Atk than him.
  • Bramimond's Void Tome allows the user to gain +5 Atk/Def/Res during combat if the foe either has a [Penalty] inflicted on them or if their Atk is 50 or more at the start of combat, and allows the user to gain a guaranteed follow-up attack if the foe either has a [Penalty] inflicted on them or if their Spd is 35 or more at the start of combat, and the unique refine grants the user +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the foe is at 50% HP or above at the start of combat, grants -1 special cooldown before the user's first attack during combat if the foe has a special equipped and has a -1 maximum special cooldown effect, grants true damage equal to 15% of the foe's attack if the foe has 50 Atk or more at the start of combat, and grants Damage Reduction percentage equal to the higher of the foe's Def or Res at the start of combat if the foe either has 35 Def or Res or more at the start of combat or if they have a [Bonus] active.
  • Skills and weapons such as [Grand Strategy], Fallen Ike's Chaos Ragnell, and the unique refine for Legendary Marth's Exalted Falchion allows the user to give stats during combat equal to double their debuffs he has at the start of combat, essentially reversing any debuffs onto them. For example, if they has -7 Atk and -5 Spd, they effectively gains +7 Atk and +5 Spd during combat.
  • Legion's Sneering Axe allows the user to inflict debuffs on the foe equal to double their field stat buffs during combat, essentially reversing their buffs on them like the Panic status effect, which the weapon also inflicts after combat. For example, if the foe has +6 Spd and +4 Def/Res, he inflicts -12 Spd and -8 Def/Ref, essentially inflicting -6 Spd and -4 Def/Res onto them.
  • Weapons such as Valentine Gustav's Loyalist Axe, Pirate Surtr's Sea-Sear Lance, and the Stout weapons reduces damage taken from the first attack during combat by 75% for the former two, and 50% for the latter if the foe either initiates combat or have 75% HP or above at the start of combat for the former two, and the user has 50% HP or over at the start of combat for the latter, and the foe can perform a follow-up attack, either by having higher Spd than the user and have any of their skills negated by Null Follow-Up and similar effects or they have a skill that can guaranteed a follow-up attack such as the -breaker and Fighter skills.
  • Skills and weapons such as Freyja's Binding Necklace, Legendary Caeda's Wing-Lifted Spear, and Fallen Linus' Dead-Fang Axe that basically steals the field stat buffs of foes during combat and inflicts penalties on those stats on the foe during combat equal to those values, where for example if the foe has +6 Atk/Spd and +4 Def, the user gains +6 Atk/Spd and +4 Def and inflict -6 Atk/Spd and -4 Def on the foe during combat.
  • Azelle's Sparking Tome, in addition to inflicting -6 Spd/Res on the foe during combat, allows him to inflict penalties on the foe's Spd and Res equal to double the foe's field stat buffs to those individual stats if the foe is at 50% HP or above at the start of combat, where for example if the foe has +4 Spd and +6 Res, he will inflict -8 Spd and -12 Res on the foe during combat, effectively inflicting -4 Spd and -6 Res on the foe, for a total of -10 Spd and -12 Res on the foe during combat. The unique refine for Regular Linus' Fanged Basilikos has a similar effect, where, in addition to inflicting -5 Spd/Def on the foe during combat, also effectively reverses any field stat buffs on the foe's Spd and Def during combat if the foe is at 75% HP or above at the start of combat.
  • Fallen Dimitri's Vengeful Lance allows him to deal damage equal to 50% of the difference of his Atk and the foe's Def during combat if he cannot perform a follow-up attack and he is not adjacent to an ally, meaning that he will still be able to deal half his second attack's worth of damage if the foe either has high enough Spd to prevent him from performing a follow-up attack or the foe is equipped with weapons and/or skills that denies any of his follow-up attacks such as Wary Fighter and the Impact skills.
  • Skill such as Monica's Wind Genesis and Legendary Elincia's Absolute Amiti have effects that gets stronger the lower the foe's max special cooldown has, especially if they have the -1 maximum special cooldown effect on their weapons, where for example Wind Genesis inflicts -11 Spd/Res on the foe during combat, deducted by 2 times the foe's max special cooldown, with a minimum of -3 Spd/Res, and Absolute Amiti granting an additional +11 Atk/Spd during combat, deducted by 2 times the foe's max special cooldown, with a minimum of +3 Atk/Spd, and both of them have that minimum threshold if the foe does not have a special equipped.
• Hold the Line:
  • 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/Niðavellir Axiom/Gold Perfection), 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 its victory conditions, as while having players have 7 turns to deal damage against a Damage-Sponge Boss 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 9 units, 8 of them paired up into 4 units on the map and one of them your Summoner, and 2 more paired into 1 if you have a Mythic Hero with the Special slot and is matching the same season, and have defensive structures to help even the odds.
• Holiday Mode: 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 (and later Double Special Heroes banner) a few months after their initial banner. 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.
• Honest Axe: Parodied in Lex's Forging Bonds conversation. Lex accidentally tosses an Iron Axe into a lake. In rank C, Bartre came out of the lake and invited him to CHOP. In rank B, it's Azura (in her Performing Arts attire) who emerges and invites him to HACK.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Some Main Story bosses (like Ike in Chapter 10-1 of Book I, and Surtr in a few Book II maps, Eitri in Chapter 13-2 of Book V) are impossible to defeat since they are equipped with a special Sacred Seal (either Embla's Ward, Múspellflame, Niðavellir Axiom, or Gold Perfection) 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 surviving a specific number of turns.
• Hot Springs Episode:
  • 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.
• Hotter and Sexier: Given the less serious tone of the game overall, there are plenty of banners and alternate skins dedicated to characters wrapped in a Modesty Towel for a Hot Springs Episode, swimsuits for summer banners, playboy bunny costumes for Easter banners and even winter banners aren't safe, as shown by Tharja's Christmas Bikini and Hilda's Sexy Santa Dress.
• Human Sacrifice
  • The Rite of Flame and Rite of Frost from Book II require a human sacrifice to work. Surtr was going to sacrifice Veronica to increase his power, while Laegjarn uses it to fight the heroes, which leaves her with hours to live. Fjorm uses the Rite of Frost to empower Breidablik by offering herself as the sacrifice. Like Laegjarn, the Rite has left her with a limited amount of time, but so far it hasn't killed her.
  • Used more jokingly by Tharja when summoned as part of the Dark Desert Ritual event. Her outfit is from an ancient Plegian festival, and she wonders if it was used in human sacrifices, worn by the sacrificial maiden or the one performing the deed.
• Humble Hero: Most of the non-Original Generation Legendary Heroes have at least one line expressing shock, confusion and/or humility at earning such a status.
  Ike: I'm not so sure about this "Legendary Hero" business, but I'll help you out. / Legendary Hero? Well, in my world, we do tell tales of heroes from days gone by. That's the kind of thing you're talking about, right?
  Ephraim: I am Prince Ephraim of Renais. You say I'm a...legendary Hero? I was only able to defeat the Demon King thanks to all those who lent their strength to me. / 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? / A Legendary Hero? Hmm... I suppose I should be honored that my blade is known across worlds.
  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.
  Chrom: I'm Chrom. Huh? You think I'm a... Legendary Hero?
  Seliph: A Legendary Hero? If that is what the people want, then I shall play the role.
  Female Corrin: A... Legendary Hero? If you're looking for a great warrior, I'd suggest one of my siblings instead...
  Lilina: Legendary Hero? Are you talking about Roy or my father?
  Sigurd: I, a Legendary Hero? I find that difficult to credit.
  Micaiah: Legendary...Hero? I think you're confused.... Are you positive you're not looking for Commander Ike?
  Fae: I'm Fae, Legendary Hero! Sounds like a pretty big deal, right? ...Er, can you tell me what it means? / Legendary Hero? (gasp) That sounds like a big deal! ...What is it?
  Caeda: I never expected to become a Legendary Hero. I'm a little overwhelmed, to be honest.
  Nanna: I'm a Legendary Hero...? A-Are you sure this is not some misunderstanding?
  Myrrh: I'm Myrrh. Legendary Hero? What's this all about? / It's a shock to be discussed in this way...a legend? Me?
  Xander: I'm a Legendary Hero? To think that my name would be known across the worlds...
  Deirdre: My name has been passed down in legends...? Are you certain?
  Male Robin: Me, Legendary? I don't see how. / If my achievements are worthy of legend, it's only because I've had the support of so many wonderful friends and allies. / I'm sure Chrom will find it hilarious that people think of me as a Legendary Hero.
  Yuri: Me, a Legendary Hero? Well, fancy that.
  Hinoka: I'm a Legendary Hero? ...Might be a stretch, but I'll take it.
  Elincia:Please just call me Elincia. I’ve done nothing worthy of recognition.
  
• Hypocritical Humor: 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.

I

• Idle Animation: From the Darkness Within banner onward, certain characters have been given idle animations in their chibi sprites when they are able to be selected for an action in battle:
  • 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. This carries over to his Brave and Legendary Hero variants.
  • Sothis has an idle animation for both her variants. As her regular self, she covers her mouth with her hand and yawns, referencing her Heavy Sleeper tendencies in Three Houses. The way she does this also calls to her sassy demeanor which carries over from Three Houses into this game. As her Christmas self, she sways her feet back and forth (also something she does in Three Houses) while momentarily closing her still smiling mouth.
  • Thórr adjusts the braid in her hair. This is both seen during Mjölnir's Strike and with her playable variant.
  • Valentine's Rudolf periodically hits the ground/floor with the bottom of his shield.
  • Winter Bernadetta looks at her hedgehog doll happily and blushes.
  • Pirate Lifis flips a coin in his hand.
  • Rennac shakes a key around on his finger.
  • Winter Annette sings a song.
• I Hate Past Me: In the Forging Bonds event "A New Future", Dimitri's conversation series shows his past as a Blood Knight coming back to haunt him, and he dreads those memories.
• Implied Death Threat:
  • During his special conversation, Regular 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.
  • Several Heroes, usually villainous ones, combine this trope with Stop Poking Me!. The Death Knight and Surtr's Pirate variant don't exactly do "implied", though. Some highlights include:
    Regular Ursula: Never poke an assassin... lest she. Poke. You.
    Surtr: Those who dare touch me will be swallowed by the flames.
    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.
    Surtr (Pirate): Do you not know? To touch me is to die.
    Fafnir (New Year): You have some spine, approaching me like that.
    Medeus: Do you tempt my wrath?
    Ymir: (gasp) How bold you are, to test a dragon.
• Improbable Weapon User: Combined with Nerf Arm, 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 Due to a large amount of such weapons in game, it needed its own page.
• Inconsistent Dub:
  • In Path of Radiance and 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 Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War was previously referred to as "Raquesis" in the English version of Awakening, while the middle pegasus sister from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is referred to as "Thite" in Choose Your Legends and "Thea" in Heroes.
  • 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 and by fallen Lyon, but Ephraim and Sacred Memories Eirika pronounces it as "Lee-ohn".
  • Ephraim himself is pronounced as "Ey-fram" by regular Eirika and "Ef-ram" by regular Innes, but their variants and the other Sacred Stones characters pronounce it as "Eh-frum".
  • Hardin pronounces Archanea as "Ar-KAY-nee-uh", but in Shadows of Valentia and Fire Emblem Warriors, 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, referred to as such with Julius's personal tome and mentioned by name in one of Fallen Julia's quotes, but Legendary Leif's description states that he defeated the Loptr Church, a similar spelling to what it was originally.
  • 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.
  • Gawain's name is pronounced as "Ga-wayne" by the Black Knight in both Path of Radiance and Heroes, and by Zelgius in Radiant Dawn, but is pronounced as "Ga-win" by Ashnard in Heroes.
  • Sanaki's name is pronounced as "Sah-na-ki" by the narrator in Radiant Dawn, and by Regular Sanaki and Regular Sigrun in Heroes, but is pronounced "Sa-na-ki" by the Resplendent version of Regular Sanaki and Winter Sephiram in Heroes.
• Inconvenient Summons: 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.
• Infinity +1 Sword: 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.
• Informed Attribute: The Farfetched Heroes^note Regular Mia, Regular Lute, Regular Dorcas, and Tempest Trials reward Regular Joshua and Brave Redux units^note Regular Loki, Owain, Kliff, and Grand Hero Battle reward Aversa 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.
• Innocuously Important Episode: Paralogue 10 is by all appearances just a random early paralogue with a few Magvel characters, but Seth's "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards Veronica serves as the catalyst for her Character Development and eventual Heel–Face Turn.
• Instant-Win Condition:
  • It doesn't matter if you only have one unit left who is completely surrounded and on death's door, you will win a Hold the Line map as long as somebody is alive once the turn limit is up.
  • Zigzagged 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.
  • You automatically win Resonant Battles if there are no more Thieves on the map, even if there are other enemy heroes breathing down on your units.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: 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.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence:
  • 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.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • 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 next banner was going to be.
  • With each new book, the game used a picture of the book's Arc Heroine as the application icon, except for the first book which didn't have one, so it just used the villain, Veronica. In book VII, the game would do this again when it used the latest villain, Gullveig, instead of the latest hero, Seiðr. It turns out that Seiðr and Gullveig are the same person.
• In the Hood: The late October 2020 Voting Gauntlet "Hood-Up Throwdown" features characters that are wearing hoods, but some of them don't usually wear them up, with Fallen Male Robin, Fallen Female Halloween Robin, Regular Velouria, Regular Bernadetta, Bantu, Gharnef, Halloween Rolf, and Rutger among the selection that players can support in the gauntlet.
• Intimate Lotion Application: The 5-star quote of Dorothea's Solar Songstress skin has her flirtatiously requesting the protagonist to "lotion up (her) back".
• Invisible Bowstring:
  • 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., 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 III, we are introduced with a temporary alliance between Veronica and the Order of Heroes. Even with Veronica temporarily allying with them, they still face contracted heroes under Líf. As learned from the previous chapter, "Líf" is an Alternate Self 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.
  • Practically every skill in Legendary Edelgard's base kit is designed for her to work alone, and yet, she is a Pair Up Legendary, which lets her pair up with another ally for stat boosts and the ability to switch off to them.
• Item Crafting: You can create new Sacred Seals by spending Sacred Coins and Badges at the Sacred Seal Forge.
• It Only Works Once:
  • Most Duo and Harmonized Skills can only be activated once in an entire battle, with a few of them being able to activate again with certain conditions. However, the Duo's Indulgence Offensive structure in Aether Raids allows those skill to be activated again, but must be activated within a certain amount of turns, from turn 1 to turn 3~7, depending on its level.
  • Legendary Deirdre's Circlet of Balance only once per map allows her to survive lethal damage with 1 HP remaining if she has greater than 1 and must meet both conditions: either she or her foe have their special ready at the start of combat or triggers it during combat, and either she initiates combat or the foe is a ranged unit.
• I Work Alone:
  • The Tier 3 Solo skills, as well as Regular Lethe's Brazen Cat Fang, Ced's Winds of Silesse and Summer Duo Hilda & Marianne's Sunshade Staff, give the user +6 in two of their stats in combat if there are no allies adjacent to the user, while the Tier 4 version gives +7 to two of the user's stats during combat. 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. The exclusive refinement for Siegbert's Dark Greatsword, in addition to giving the user +4 Atk/Spd if the user initiates combat, also has the same condition, except it gives him +5 Atk/Spd and ignores any field stat buffs the foe has during combat. Regular Shinon's Double Bow has the same activation conditions, except it gives him +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and Close Counter. Regular Shamir's Survivalist Bow has Atk/Spd Solo 3, as well as being able to prevent enemy counterattacks if the foe has 80% HP or above at the start of combat with the same activation conditions. Fáfnir's Hreiðmarr has the same activation conditions, except he gains +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat, inflict -1 special build on the foe per attack, and inflict the Guard status effect to the target and all foes within 2 spaces of the target after combat if he attacked. 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 Victorious Axe, the unique refine for Laid-Back Blade and the unrefined Dracofalchion, Flame Siegmund, Storm Sieglinde, and Wolf Berg 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.
  • The Rouse skills give the user +6 to two of their stats and the Tier 4 versions give the [Null Panic] status at the start of their turn, but only if they're not adjacent to an ally. The unique refine for Gerome's Masking Axe allows him to gain +6 Atk/Def at the start of his turn if he is not adjacent to an ally.
  • The Armored Stride skill allows a physical melee armored unit to gain +1 movement if they're not adjacent to an ally at the start of their turn.
  • Panne's Taguel Fang and Regular Altina's Ashera's Chosen also downplays it by giving the user +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and +6 Atk/Def respectively during combat if the user is adjacent to only dragon or beast allies, or not adjacent to any allies.
  • Fallen Female Corrin's Savage Breath is another downplayed 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. Fallen Male Corrin's Brutal Breath has a similar effect, from +5 with no allies within 2 spaces of him, +3 if there is one, +1 if there is two, and +0 if there is 3 or more, and also has another downplayed effect where he inflicts -1 special buildup on the foe if there is either one or no allies within 2 spaces of him during combat. Orson's Bereft Lance has a similar effect, where he gains Atk/Def during combat, where he gains +6 if there are no allies within 2 spaces of him, +4 if there is one, +2 if there is two, and +0 if there is three or more, and has another downplayed effect where he ignores any field stat boosts the foe has if there is either one or no allies within 2 spaces of him during combat.
  • Regular Mareeta's eponymous Sword 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, if the user is not adjacent to an ally.
  • Zigzagged for Regular Hilda's Freikugel, where if she has an ally within 2 spaces of her and she has more Def, she gains +6 Atk/Spd during combat, but if they have more Def and are within 2 spaces of her, she gives her allies +4 Atk/Spd during combat instead.
  • Legendary Edelgard's skill kit is focused on her doing this, on top of have her default Atk/Res Solo 3 and Armored Stride:
    • Her Aymr allows her to inflict -6 Atk/Def and deny any of the foe's follow-up attack if she is not adjacent to an ally.
    • Her Raging Storm allows her to gain an Extra Turn if she initiates combat and gains a guaranteed follow-up attack if she's fighting against a Beast or Dragon foe, both of which will activate if she's not adjacent to an ally at the start of combat.
  • Fallen Julia's Dark Scripture allows her to inflict -6 Atk/Res during combat, and gains a guaranteed follow-up attack if the foe does not have a Dragon effective weapon or status effect, if she is not adjacent to an ally during combat. Duessel's Obsidian Lance has a similar effect, where it allows the user to inflict -6 Atk/Def on the foe during combat and gain a guaranteed follow-up attack if the user is not adjacent to an ally. Pirate Naesala's Crossbones Claw has a similar effect, where it allows the user to inflict -6 Spd/Def on the foe during combat and ignore skills that deny any of the user's follow-up attacks, and allows the user to have any of the user's follow-up attacks go before the foe can counterattack if the user initiates combat and is transformed, all which activates if the user is not adjacent to an ally.
  • The Unbound weapons, Pirate's Pride weapons and the Blackfire Breath+, as well as Pirate Tibarn's Sky-Pirate Claw, Pirate Harmonized Veronica & Xander's Gate-Anchor Axe, Pirate Naesala's Crossbones Claw and the unique refine for Gerome's Masking Axe allows the user to gain effects if the user is not adjacent to an ally, with the Unbound and Pirate weapons and Blackfire Breath+ inflicting -5 to two of the foe's stats and negating any field stat buffs to those stats during combat, Sky-Pirate Claw allows the user to gain +5 Atk and inflicts -5 Atk on the foe during combat and gain a guaranteed follow-up attack, Gate-Anchor Axe allows the user to gain +5 Def/Res and inflicts -5 Def/Res on the foe during combat and gain a guaranteed follow-up attack, Crossbones Claw inflicting -6 Spd/Def on the foe and ignore skill that deny any of the user's follow-up attacks during combat as well as if the user initiates combat and is transformed allows the user to perform any follow-up attacks before the foe can counterattack, and Masking Axe allows the user to inflict -5 Atk/Def on the foe during combat as well as gain +6 Atk/Def if the user is not adjacent to an ally at the start of the user's turn.
  • The Dark Desert Rituals and Vulture weapons, as well as Plegian Katarina's Fell Flambeau, allows the user to debuff the foe during combat if the user is not adjacent to an ally, with the Dark Desert Rituals weapons applying -5 to two of the foe's stats during combat as well as doubling any stat penalties the foe has on those stats at the start of combat, and the Fell Flambeau applying -5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res on the foe during combat as well as double any stat penalties the foe has at the start of combat.
  • Fallen Dimitri's skill kit is focused on him doing this, on top of having Atk/Spd Solo 4:
    • His Vengeful Lance gives him +6 Atk/Spd during combat, and if he cannot make a follow-up attack and his Atk is higher than his foe's Def during combat, he deals damage equal to 50% of the difference between his Atk and the foe's Def during combat, if he is not adjacent to an ally.
    • His Murderous Lion allows him to inflict -3 Spd/Def on the foe during combat and prevent the foe from counterattacking, if he is not adjacent to an ally.
  • Downplayed with skills and weapons like Volke's Fireman's Hook, Eitri's Grimm Brokkr and the refines for Regular Ishtar's Mjölnir, Regular and Legendary Ephraim's Flame Siegmund, Legendary Eirika's Storm Sieglinde, Brave Alm's Dracofalchion and Walhart's Wolf Berg, where they gain effects and/or stats if the user either initiates combat or is not adjacent to an ally.

J

• Joke Character: Merlinus from The Binding Blade, considering his non-attacking role in that game, has come in here with his only good stat being his rather high HP (which could potentially be good for Panic Ploy, but that's about it). All of his other stats are around below average to average, but his Atk is the lowest in the game and his status as a cavalry not doing any favors for him for said low Atk.
• Jumped at the Call: 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? Eeee!
• "Just So" Story: The reason why dancers cannot dance each other in Zenith besides the Obvious Rule Patch 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.

K

• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery:
  • The bridal units wear 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. Bridal Lyn is even one speed point faster than Cordelia.
  • Ishtar, Nephenee, and Rinea from A Splendid Soiree as well as Ethlyn, Lachesis, and Deirdre (accompanying Sigurd) from To Stay Dreaming are all dressed for the ballroom but no less prepared for the battlefield.
• Kimono Fanservice: All the New Year events are based on Japan's New Year celebrations, so this is in full effect for all the characters taking part.
• Kryptonite-Proof Suit: Shield skills neutralize effective damage, and several units either come with these skills, have them built into their weapons, or have them built into unique skills with additional effects.
  • Iote's Shield neutralizes a flier's weakness to archers. Michalis comes with the skill, and it's also a Seal. Legendary Robin's Dragonskin skill, Regular Altina's Ashera's Chosen skill, Young Minerva's Dragoon Shield skill, Fallen Female Halloween Robin's Dragonscale skill, Ashnard's Gurgurant, and Hel's eponymous Reaper all have Iote's Shield built in while having additional effects. Spring Harmonized Myrrh & Nah's Harmonized Skill also grants this effect, but only on the user for one turn.
  • Grani's Shield neutralizes a cavalier's weakness to anti-cavalry weaponry such as -wolf+ tomes and Ridersbane+. Camus and Walhart both come with this skill.
  • Svalinn's Shield neutralizes an armour's weakness to anti-armour weaponry like Armoursmasher+ and Slaying Spear+. Sheena comes with this skill. Brave Hector's refined Maltet and Ascended Idunn's Dew Dragonstone also has the same effect. Spring Duo Idunn and Fae's Duo skill grants +6 Def and Res to all units within 5 columns and rows centered on them, as well as a status that neutralizes effective damage on armoured units for one turn.
  • At the time of writing, there are no inheritable skills that neutralize a dragon's weakness to anti-dragon weaponry, although some units have such protection built into their weapons. Garon's Breath of Blight, Regular Sothis's Sublime Surge, Winter Sothis's Snow's Grace, and Halloween Duo Sothis & Male Byleth's Eerie Scripture all nullify dragon effective weapons, meaning they only take regular damage from the likes of Falchion and Divine Breath. Spring Duo Idunn and Fae's Duo skill, in addition to its defensive buff and armour protection, also grants a status that neutralizes effective damage on dragon units for that one turn.

L

• Lampshade Hanging:
  • 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 Teams. 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. The two are quick to point out the discrepancy.
  • In Paralogue 8, Anna lampshades the Sex Sells 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.
  • In the Forging Bonds event Timeless Ties, Shinon observes that the Order of Heroes does most of its work with teams of four— the default deployment limit for the vast, vast majority of maps outside of special modes like Rival Domains.
• Laser-Guided Karma: 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, if) Grima as Fallen or Legendary Robin is summoned, the shoe ends up on the other foot, as the summoning gives him/her amnesia.
• Last Chance Hit Point:
  • Miracle allows the user to survive lethal damage with 1 HP remaining if the user's HP is greater than 1 when it activates. Any refines for Regular Seliph's Tyrfing, Hel Scythe, Hel's Reaper and Harmonized Scion Leif & Seliph's Bow of Twelve also has this effect, except that it activates if the user is at 50% HP or over at the start of combat for the refined Tyrfing, if the user is against non-Tome and Staff users for Hel Scythe and Hel's Reaper, and if either the user initiates combat or the user is at 75% HP or above at the start of combat and the foe wields a Staff or Tome for Bow of Twelve. Ascended Celica's Mila's Testament has this effect, but only activates if the user is at 25% HP or above at the start of the foe's attack, meaning that if the user's HP goes under that threshold, it will not activate with following attacks. Ymir's Everliving Domain gives this effect to the user and all allies within 2 spaces of the user if the user is within 2 spaces of an ally, but only triggers if the user is at 75% HP or above at the start of the attack, so like Mila's Testament it will not activate from following attacks if the user's HP goes under that threshold.
  • Legendary Fae's Life Unending is unusual in that not only it has the Miracle effect, but in addition to granting the user -5 special cooldown at the start of turn 1, but once per map also restores 99 HP to the user after combat if it triggers.
  • Legendary Deirdre's Circlet of Balance, in addition to boosting her attack equal to 40% of her Res, once per map allows her to survive lethal damage with 1 HP remaining if she has greater than 1 and must meet both conditions: either she or her foe have their special ready at the start of combat or triggers it during combat, and either she initiates combat or the foe is a ranged unit.
• Last Lousy Point: Any playable unit that can't be encountered in normal PVE gameplay, is 5-star locked, and isn't granted as a storyline reward can be excruciating to find so that you can mark all heroes in the Catalog of Heroes as seen. Currently, this includes Regular Azura, Regular Gunnthrá, Legendary Ephraim, Regular Larum, Regular Mirabilis, and Regular Heiðr.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Lucina from Fire Emblem: Awakening is advertised as Chrom's daughter from the future, which isn't revealed in her home game until around halfway through the story.
  • The 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 and Nils being Ice Dragons is one of the biggest plot twists in The Blazing Blade. Here, Breath is their primary weapon type right from the start, and some of their artwork depicts them with Dragonstones.
  • While his origins are kept secret throughout Three Houses, Claude's brave variant in Heroes directly refers to him by the epithet Almyra's King.
  • A Meet the Heroes page for Lilina's regular variant was added in late 2019, which mentions a few notable spoilers from the first quarter of The Binding Blade, including her getting captured by rebels, Roy saving her life, and even finding out that her father, Hector, died. Hector's death was also mentioned outright on the page for her Legendary variant, and one of Sharena's drawings portray him as if he was close to dying.
  • During her 5-star Level 40 conversation, Celica from 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 lampshades 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 and wielding the Alondite.
  • 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 (Fell Dragon 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 Final Boss of the Birthright route. He also mentions Anankos, the Greater-Scope Villain 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. The "Our Path Ahead" paralogue is based around them being sisters, and this is repeatedly brought up in lines for their duo unit.
  • "Lovely Gifts" has a multiple case of Shadows of Valentia spoilers: Conrad being Celica's brother and Rudolf being Alm's father. Celica is even addressed as Princess Anthiese by Conrad and Rudolf.
  • Double Subverted as well with the Flame Emperor's identity. At the time of their release in March 2020, their VA went uncredited in both languages and had a voice modulator to mask the voice, concealing their identity. However, at the end of April 2020, Legendary Edelgard was released, and her title practically gives it away, as her title is literally Flame Emperor.
  • Paralogue 53: "A Festival Miracle" is close to revealing Sephiran's true identity and Altina recognizing him despite being from the past, but nothing concrete is said on the matter.
  • The Love of a King banner in February 2021 and Fallen Gustav's release in May 2022 assumes that players have already finished Book III, which has finished more than a year ago since the banner's release for the former and and more than 2 years for the latter, with the identities of "Líf" and "Thrasir" being actually Alfonse and Veronica being casually dropped by the Valentine variants of Alfonse, Veronica, and Duo "Líf" & "Thrasir" in their quotes for the former, and the death and forced revival of Gustav with the latter.
  • The appearance of Fallen Edelgard is a big spoiler for the Azure Moon route of Three Houses, where on that route Edelgard is the Final Boss while taking the form of the Hegemon Husk.
  • Rhea's true identity as The Immaculate One is spoiled with all variants of her. Rhea transforms into The Immaculate One at the end of White Clouds in all Three Houses routes, whether she becomes the Big Bad in Crimson Flower or is the Damsel in Distress in the other routes.
  • Legendary Female Alear's lines make no attempt to hide that not only she's an emblem, but she is the Fire Emblem of her game. She also states her Fell Dragon linage in her 5-star Level 40 conversation.
  • Similarly, Veyle mentions being a Fell Dragon, although her references to this are limited to her monologue if she reaches 40 as a 5* unit.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • Shortly after Book II ended, Helbindi, Laegjarn, and Laevatein were released as part of a summoning banner and were part of the normal banner/enemy battle rotation, with Surtr and Ylgr coming out a bit shortly afterwards (and Loki appearing in the Brave Redux banner around that time). This was before the introduction of Mythic Heroes, where nearly all enemy generals and main villains since then have been been released as Mythic Heroes, making it somewhat strange for a handful of them. Out of them, only Surtr (who was considered too powerful) and Loki (due to the nature of her banner) aren't part of the normal enemy rotation.
  • During the first two years of Fire Emblem Heroes, there was a banner that occurred around the Fall which featured heroes that didn't make the cut for the "Choose Your Legends", but were still voted high enough that they were featured as consolation units in the "Farfetched Heroes" (November 2017) and "Brave Redux" (October 2018) banners, which built some story around the units featured. However, this feature was axed in its entirety during the third year with no explanation.
  • The release of Legendary Lilina in December 2020 introduced the game's first, and so far only AOE special that is a Secret Art (Gifted Magic). This is despite the fact the ones that did exist before then are all inheritable and released in 2017, and that's not counting the Rokkr specials, which are enemy-only and can't be obtained through normal means. Gifted Magic also stands out from the other AOE specials, as it boasts a faster cooldown and is a Blazing Wind clone that deals weaker damage, but it's a bit more Boring, but Practical than the opposite. The same special would later get an upgraded variant in January 2024, which, aside from no longer being affected by a percentage, is by far the only one that grants at least one bonus to adjacent allies.
  • Regular Linus in update 5.11.0 in November 2021, who wields Basilikos (which was already part of an Early-Installment Weirdness due to him wielding a weapon that was a refine update of another previously released hero Raven), gained another exclusive weapon, the Fanged Basilikos, making him the first unit who has an exclusive weapon to gain another one outside of refines, and this is especially strange since units like Legendary Ryoma and Zelgius wield the same weapon as previously released heroes but did not receive a new exclusive weapon through updates and were released earlier than Linus.
  • Eitri & Thórr's Bound Hero Battle release in November 2021 is the first Bound Hero Battle map since the introduction of Bound Hero Battle maps in July 2017 that features a Legendary and/or a Mythic Hero, that is revived with Legendary and Mythic Hero Banners that include either of them as a focus, and one that has Normal and Abyssal difficulty alongside Hard, Lunatic and Infernal from other Bound Hero Battle maps.
  • Legendary Caeda and Legendary Nanna's Legendary Hero Banners in February-March 2022 was the first two banners since the release of Mythic Heroes banners since January 2019 to have a consecutive release of Legendary Heroes instead of alternating between Legendary and Mythic Heroes.
• Laughing Mad: Fallen Berkut, the only one from the Darkness Within banner who took Duma's power and ran with it, laughs as his Idle Animation.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • 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, 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.
• Leeroy Jenkins:
  • Regular and Legendary Ephraim's unrefined Flame Siegmund, Walhart's unrefined Wolf Berg, Legendary Eirika's unrefined Storm Sieglinde, Regular Edelgard's Victorious Axe, Brave Alm's unrefined Dracofalchion, and the unique refine for Gray's Laid-Back Blade 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, Regular Lethe's Brazen Cat Fang, Sirius' Sable Lance, Regular Mareeta's Sword, Ced's Winds of Silesse, Legendary Edelgard's Aymr and Raging Storm, Fallen Julia's Dark Scripture, the Pirate's Pride weapons, Pirate Tibarn's Sky-Pirate Claw, Pirate Harmonized Veronica & Xander's Gate-Anchor Axe, Pirate Naesala's Crossbones Claw, Fáfnir's Hreiðmarr, and the exclusive refinement for Siegbert's Dark Greatsword and Gerome's Masking Axe also encourage an aggressive playstyle, as the users gain buffs or inflict debuffs if they're not adjacent to an ally and can only receive support from specific skills.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Stone Walls 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 potentially be enough to oneshot many units on retaliation.
  • Just about any common 3* and 4* available unit that's built up to the max can be surprisingly potent. At their full potential, they can compete with a freshly summoned modern unit and have something unique to offer thanks to a unique weapon. Such examples include Virion, who's normally a mediocre archer with good HP, but that actually works in his favour with his Dignified Bow's special skill, which casts Panic on any foe that's got less HP than him and is adjacent to another ally. There's also Jagen, who not only has a lower stat total, with low stats except for having actually good Res for a melee unit, but he can actually make that Res work thanks to his Veteran Lance granting him Atk and Res during combat, and his weapon's unique skill lets him debuff any foe for -7 Atk that has less Res than him and is adjacent to another ally, making him a good support unit.
• Lethal Chef:
  • 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 Supreme Chef like Oscar or Flora is behind the counter.
  • Felicia is involved in the Picnic Episode. Leo is revolted at her cooking, and even warns Lukas in advance. In addition, her default weapon is a large pan filled with congealed food.
  • According to Female Kris's Forging Bonds conversation, both versions of Kris are bad cooks. Even Felicia, Fates's resident bad cook, was able to point out what's wrong with their signature stew.
• Life Drain:
  • Daylight is a 3 special cooldown special that allows the user to recover HP equal to 30% of the damage dealt when it activates. The advanced versions Sol and Noontime, as well as Aether, Radiant Aether (II) and Mayhem Aether has Sol, Aether, Radiant Aether (II) and Mayhem Aether recovers 50% of the damage they dealt instead, and Noontime heals at the same percent as Daylight with it being at 2 special cooldown instead. New Year Duo Alfonse & Sharena and Regular and Rearmed Líf's Open the Future, in addition to boosting the user's damage by 50% of the user's Def, allows the user to recover 25% of the damage they dealt when it activates.
  • Regular, Winter and Halloween Duo 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 after combat if the user attacked.
  • Legendary Ephraim's Solar Brace (but not Solar Brace II) lets him recover HP equal to 30% of damage dealt whenever a special triggers during combat. This percentage can stack with the aforementioned Sol, Noontime, and Aether, which can restore HP equal to 80% of damage dealt.
  • Some weapons and skills allows the user to recover HP per attack they perform, even if they deal no damage. For example, Forsyth's Sol Lance heals 10 HP unrefined/14 HP refined for every attack the user performs, Young Duo Eirika & Ephraim's Blade of Renais allow the user to recover HP equal to 20% of the foe's Def during combat for every attack the user performs, but only activates if the user either initiates combat or is within 2 spaces of an ally, and there is either a [Bonus] or [Penalty] applied to the user during combat, and the Tier 4 Finish skills allows the user to recover 7 HP per attack perfomed if the user is within 3 spaces of an ally and the user either have their special ready at the start of combat or triggered their special before or during that combat.
  • Young Merric's Righteous Wind, in addition to boosting the user's damage by 30% of their Spd, allows the user and all allies heal 10 HP after combat when it activates, even if the user was KO'd during combat.
  • Brave Claude's Wind Parthia allows the user to recover 50% of the user's max HP whenever the user activates a combat special during combat and the user either initiates combat or there is an ally within 2 spaces of the user. Fallen Female Halloween Robin's Moonless Breath, Fallen Male Halloween Robin's Moonstrike Breath and the unique refine for Regular and Valentine Hector's Berserk Armads has a similar effect, with them recovering 30% of the user's max HP when the user activates a combat special during combat and there is an ally within 2 spaces of the user for the former two and if the foe either initiates combat or is at full HP at the start of combat for the latter.
  • The Surge skills allows the user to recover X% of the user's max HP whenever the user activates a combat special during combat if the user initiates combat, with X = 20 x the maximum special cooldown the user has equipped, +10, up to 100%. This means at minimum the user can recover 50% of their max HP with 2 cooldowns specials such as Moonbow and Glimmer, and at maximum 100% with 5 cooldown specials such as Aether.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • The tone of the game is pretty lighthearted compared to previous installments despite being a Crisis Crossover 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 Darker and Edgier tone, Book IV instead takes a much different approach, taking place in a realm of dreams with fairies as the inhabitants of the world.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The 2022 Easter event paired up Sonya and Tharja. Sonya really got into the festival and was cheery and energetic, while Tharja was not.
  Sonya: (When activating their Harmonized Skill) Let our beauty enchant you!
  Tharja: What?
• Limit Break: 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.
• Limited Loadout: 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, one Sacred Seal, and one Attuned Skill. Additionally, each Skill has a designated slot: A, B, C or X. 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).
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Karel, Soren, Takumi, and Ryoma, who were the "Long-Haired Gents" of the "Short-Haired Ladies vs. Long-Haired Gents" Voting Gauntlet.
• Long-Range Fighter: While Bows generally only attack from 2 range in most Fire Emblem games, Tome, Daggers, and Staves can only attack from 2 range rather than 1-2 range in most Fire Emblem games.
• Long Song, Short Scene:
  • 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 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.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • 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.
  • Weapons such as the Courtly Fan+, Regular Byleth's Creator Sword, Young Merric's Winds of Change, and Catherine's Thunderbrand negate skills and weapons that deny the user to follow-up, with some of them having certain conditions to activate that effect. This includes skills that the user are equipped with, meaning that Windsweep and Watersweep's denial of the user's follow-up attacks if they initiate combat is disabled, while still able to negate counterattacks on foes within a specific group of weapon types if they're faster than their opponent.
  • Fallen Ike's Chaos Ragnell allows him essentially reverse stat debuffs during combat equal to what he has outside of combat, where for example he gains +14 Spd if he has -7 Spd on him before combat, effectively gaining +7 during combat. However, players were also inheriting the Tier 4 Bond skills, commonly Atk/Spd Bond 4, onto him because there was a strange interaction with the Bond 4 skills, where if the user is adjacent to an ally, it did not remove the debuffs during combat and just add onto it instead, where for example if there is -5 Spd on the user, the skill just adds on +5 Spd on top of the natural +7 Spd the skill gives if the activation requirements are met. With Fallen Ike and Atk/Spd Bond 4 active, with -7 Atk/Spd before combat, he effectively has +21 Atk/Spd during combat. Update 4.6.0 later changed it so that certain skills that neutralizes penalties during combat, the Tier 4 Bond skills included, now removes the debuff on specific stats during combat instead of just adding on, effectively nerfing this tactic, where it now just give +7 Atk/Spd if Fallen Ike uses Atk/Spd Bond 4 instead of the previous +21 Atk/Spd. However, this exploit can be used with the Unity skills, where it give similar effects the Bond skills did before the 4.6.0 update, but has a larger activation requirement, but lower initial boost to +5 to two of the user's stats during combat, as well as the [Grand Strategy] status effect from Legendary Male Robin's Master's Tactics and Valentine Duo Chrom & Male Robin's Duo Skill, which has the same effect as Fallen Ike's Chaos Ragnell, especially if those two are combined together since those effect will stack. Later released heroes and skills such as Regular Dagr, who was released after update 4.6.0, as well as Legendary Marth, can perform the same exploit with Dagr's Skinfaxi and the unique refine for Legendary Marth's Exalted Falchion, as well as anyone that inherits the Winter 2021 weapons.
  • The Special Slot for Dark and Anima Mythic Heroes allows either themselves or other allies with either the matching blessing or a Legendary Hero matching with the co-running elemental season to occupy the 7th slot of Aether Raids Defense teams, with the downside of unable to take action on their turn until one of their allies is defeated. However, how they were program to "not move" actually means at the start of their turn, they immediately end their turn. This means that they can be refreshed by a Dancer and are now able to move during that turn, meaning that players intentionally set up their defenses in such as way that the downside of unable to move during their turn does not hinder them at all and sometimes gives them a better defense strategy in Aether Raids than some Rally and Restore Trap setups common in the Aether Raids Meta Game.
  • Skills and weapons such as Nyx's Ginnungagap and Eitri's Divine Recreation allows them to reduce damage taken from the foe's first attack during combat and allows them to boost their damage equal to the amount reduced until the end of combat, where Ginnungagap reduces damage by 40% if the user is at 25% HP or above at the start of combat and either the user initiates combat or the foe wields a Tome or Staff weapon and they initiate combat and Divine Recreation reduces damage by 30% if the foe is at 50% HP or above at the start of combat. While the damage they can reduce can stack with other sources of Damage Reduction from allies such as Flayn's Caduceus Staff and Nifl's Domain of Ice, which can increase that to 58% damage reduced with their 30% boost for Ginnungagap and 51% for Divine Recreation, this also include Miracle as their Special or have effects from skill such as Ymir's Everliving Domain or Fallen Maria's Sacrifice Staff as well, which allows them to survive with a Last Chance Hit Point when it activates, and since those skills work by reducing the damage taken to make sure that they can survive with 1 HP left, that is also added to the total that they can use to deal damage with their next attack to potentially even One-Hit Kill the foe, especially if the foe also activates a damage special with their attack like Glimmer or Dragon Fang, and even more so with Divine Recreation if the foe wields a flying effective weapon like bows against Eitri, who is a Flying unit.
  • The Safety Fence Structure in Aether Raids has it immediately end the the turn of the entire Defense Team after activating all their start of turn skills until a certain turn has passed, and can only activate if the Offense Team either is within 2 rows and 7 columns centered on the structure and/or is outside of anyone on the Defense Team's attack range at the start of the foe's turn. However, since it activates at the start of the foe's turn, players can start their turn by sniping a foe or two and then run back with assistance to either back near the structure or go outside of the attack range of any of the remaining foes.
• Lost in Translation:
  • In the "War of the Clerics" Voting 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.
  • In the "Divine Hair Duels!" Voting Gauntlet, the contestants are Caineghis, New Year Yarne, Regular Ash, Regular Askr, Celiné, Female Alear, Garon and Nemesis, where most of them either have unusual hair and/or are divine beings, but not everyone fits the theme. This is because the Japanese name of the the Voting Gauntlet is "自分のカミを誇れよ！", translated as "Take pride in your kami!", where "カミ", katakana for "kami" in Japanese, is the pronunciation for "神", translated as "god", "髪", translated as "head hair" or "噛み", translated as "(to) bite", so kami is actually a homophone used as part of the title of the Voting Gauntlet and explains the contestant choices, especially when some of them fit multiple of the homophones, which is nearly impossible to tranfer over fully in English, where even "hare" and "hair" as homophones is not enough to fit the entire theme.
  • The Harmonic Lance is the lance counterpart of the Wo Dao. They have the same stats, ability^note +10 damage to Specials, and have similar designs^note The Wo Dao is a red katana, the Harmonic Lance is a red naginata. The translation direction was likely inspired by Shigure's (the one introducing this weapon) singing talent. In Japanese, the lance's name continues the Theme Naming 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 Regular Sigurd 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."
  • With the release of Huginn's Egg and Muninn's Egg in the 2018 Spring Banner and Veðrfölnir's Egg in the 2019 Spring Banner, Eagle's Egg from the 2020 Spring Banner seems to be off the mark unless one reads into the lore of Veðrfölnir in Norse Mythology, being that they are a hawk that rides between the eyes of an unnamed giant eagle. However, the Japanese name of Eagle's Egg is "ヴェズルの妖卵", translated as "Vedr's Fay-Egg". This is one half of Veðrfölnir because the Japanese name "ヴェズルフェルニル" is too long for the name format of weapons and skills in Heroes, so the other half is actually in the Japanese name of Veðrfölnir's Egg "フェルニルの妖卵", translated as "Folnir's Fay-Egg".
  • In general, some skills and weapons that have long Japanese names would have their translated names be too long for the character limit, and as a result lose some context of their name when removing some of the words to fit the character limit. For example, Legendary Roy's weapon is called "魔竜封印の剣", which can be translated as "Sword of Mage Dragon Sealing", which can be localized to "Demon Dragon-Binding Blade", but had to be named "Dragonbind" in English to fit the character limit, since "Binding Blade" was already long enough, and they have to reference the "Demon Dragon" into the name. Some of the beast weapons also have it rough with their weapon names, where in addition to attempting to shorten the name, they have to remove one of their physical features they can use to attack. For example Regular Lethe's weapon is called "剛なる戦猫の爪牙", translated as "Claws and Fangs of the Tough War-Cat", but was named "Brazen Cat Fang" in English, and Regular Tibarn's weapons is called "鷹王の嘴爪", translated as "Beak and Claws of the Hawk King" but was named "Hawk King Claw" in English.
  • The Near/Far Save skills have their Japanese names have actually different words associated with what stats they boost as well, while also matching their icons as well, where for example A/D Near Save's Japanese name is "鎧の護り手・近間", translated as "Armor Save: Near", A/R Far Save's Japanese name is "兜の護り手・遠間", translated as "Helm Save: Far", and D/R Near Save's Japanese name is "盾の護り手・近間", translated as "Shield Save: Near".
  • The English localization can't convey the Japanese Sibling Terminology of the original text, so some characters end up putting the younger siblings on a First-Name Basis with their older siblings, or directly translate to the vocative "Brother" or "Sister". It's not even consistent between the same terms, as characters like Olwen and Ethlyn address their older brothers by name, while Say'ri and Laevatein go out of their ways not to, despite all of them using the respectful, formal, and archaic aniue (兄上) and aneue (姉上).
  • Similarly, the translation loses out on some significant pronoun changes for both Bruno and Líf. Bruno uses the polite watashi, but uses the more informal assertive ore as Zacharias. Likewise, Líf also uses ore, but when referring to what he did before adopting that name, uses the same pronoun as Alfonse does: boku.
  • In Diamant's Forging Bonds events, Alfonse and Sharena, pretending to be his retainers, call him "Lord Diamant" rather than "Prince Diamant." The change in how they address him makes more sense in the original Japanese, in which they went from calling him "-ouji"(literally "Prince Diamant"), a term used on him by people who aren't from his country (e.g. the other nations of Elyos' princes and princesses), to using "-sama" on him like his retainers do (although in Engage, the retainers call their lieges "Prince/Princess" unless they're close enough to forego titles, like Hortensia and Fogado's retainers do).
  • In Kagetsu's Forging Bonds events, Kagetsu meets Navarre, Lon'qu, Niles and finally Seteth, who then invites Kagetsu to a tea party because he feels a "kinship" with him. The tea party includes the three other heroes Kagetsu encountered as well as Lewyn, Pent and Saber. Every character involved was voiced by Takehito Koyasu in Japanese, which would be lost on players only familiar with the English cast. The English translation has Kagetsu mention he feels a similiar kinship with Wolt and Nils (Voiced by Kohi Dao, Kagetsu's EN voice), to clue EN players into the joke.
  • Emblem Ike introduces a skill called Laguz Friend. Despite what the skill implies, it does not support Laguz or other Beast units in any way and is not exclusive Ike himself. It instead being a skill that sacrifices some of a unit's own precentage-based damage reduction in favor of flat damage reduction if their special cooldown is greater or equal to 3. This is unfortunately a carryover from Engage where the skill is translated from Immovable (不動) to Laguz Friend.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • 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. Since the map preview feature was added, this is no longer the case as players can see if both the map and enemies are undesirable to face against and refresh it until there is a more desirable one available.
  • 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, in Arena it costs a Dueling Sword before your matchups are shown, and even then it might have taken up to dozens of tries to find your target score. Update 7.2.0 later changed it for Arena, where players that deploy a Legendary Hero that is also a Bonus unit will now reach the highest possible score per battle from other player's defense teams instead of fluctuating.
  • In Arena Assault(+) and Resonant Battles, whoever gets the boosts from Naga's Tear and whoever gets an Extra Turn from the Dancer's Veil is random, but can be manipulated if either two units who do not need it already ended their turn for Naga's Tear, and the specific unit who needs that Extra Turn is the only one who ended their turn with the Dancer's Veil.
  • 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. Later alleviated in an update when one can exit the map and try again to find a better matchup.
  • 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 without using Trait Fruits.
  • A minor example: seeing The Unfought characters for 100% Completion 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 or Mythic Heroes can either be fought in Legendary or Mythic Hero Battles which recur every few months or recruited as free storyline rewards, and some heroes that do not spawn normally can be fought in Bound Hero Battles. But if you missed the chance to recruit Regular Gunnthrá, Legendary Ephraim, or Regular Larum, you need to encounter them in the Coliseum, 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.
  • Succeeding in Hall of Forms can be strongly dependent on this. Losing or surrendering a map counts as a waste of a forma torch, and you're only given free forma torches at the first few chambers and the last chambers. Because of this, you have to rely on the enemy placement - as sometimes even ONE enemy has the potential to sweep your entire team with no chance of you to counterattack properly. The hero that kills first gets a chance to learn a new skill or level up, but even then there's a chance you just have options that would be complete garbage for them. The strong enemy selection has been alleviated with the removal of heroes released after Book II within the random generated heroes, with only a few select heroes released during Book I and II still being large threats.
  • How much points you get in Pawns of Loki will depend on how lucky your selection of heroes are in the initial and mulligan lineups at the start of each turn and which other player teams you face against from from Turn 4 to the end if you're not at the Beginner difficulty or in Tier 1. You may get a full synergistic team early and steamroll the opposition on every turn, or you may whiff a few selections of your heroes and face against teams full of powerful mixed-phase Mighty Glacier and Lightning Bruiser units and lose those battles.
  • Frontline Phalanx have players support 1 of 4 heroes to deal damage to defeat 3 bosses in succession and earn points after a new hour passes, where there is a percentage chance that if the hero you're supporting gets a Victory that battle they will give player points equal to the multiplier, where if more players support that hero the higher the multiplier becomes, while also lowering the Victory chance and increasing the multiplier for the next hour, or only earn 1.0x when the hero get a Defeat while also resetting the Victory rate to 100%. There are also additional multipliers that have a chance to happen, where there is a chance that a Victory will turn into a Triumph, which will add a 2.0x multiplier to the damage and score, and there is a chance a Defeat will turn into a Total Loss, which will give a 0.5x multiplier instead of the 1.0x. The event also gives 3 Guardian Shields to help cheat the chances of a low percent Victory rate, where players can use one to both add an additional 1.2x multiplier and give players points to the current multiplier, even if the hero they supported suffered a Defeat that round, and if enough players use their Guardian Shields on the same hero during the same hour, a Skjaldborg will happen, where not only everyone who supported that hero will get an additional 1.2x multiplier on top of the Guardian Shield one, but will guarantee a Victory, but the higher the hourly multiplier is the more Guardian Shields are needed to trigger a Skjaldborg.
  • In Heroes Journey, viewing all the Memento Events becomes this, as while there are 5 different types of events per Heroes Journey event, those 5 also have 3 variations of them giving 3, 4, and 5 Rapport each, totaling at 15 Mementos Events per Heroes Journey event with the initial versions, and an extra event with reruns, adding an additional 3 Mementos Events per update. Slightly alleviated with update 5.10.0 with the introduction of Memory Fragments being given as rewards for watching Memento Events already seen by players equal to the amount of Rapport given on that Mementos Event, where players spend 20 Memory Fragments to view a specific unseen Mementos Event, even those from previous Heroes Journey events.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: 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...

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