Fire Emblem Heroes battle guide

You will fight many battles as you play Fire Emblem Heroes, so it's important to understand the basics of combat as quickly as possible. In this guide, we'll teach you about fighting in Fire Emblem Heroes, from the combat screen to weapon colors and ranges and more.

Battle phases

Battles take place in phases. All of your party members can make their moves as part of a phase, and then the phase ends automatically (or if you want to end it prematurely, you can tap the end turn icon that is located on the bottom bar). At that point, the enemy troops move.

Taking your turn

Grid View

When you are taking a turn, you can tap a unit to see a grid that lets you know how far you can move (blue spaces), where you can attack (red spaces) and where you can assist an ally with assist skills (green spaces). Tap on the desired space to move there, or to prepare to take action on the space, and then tap again to confirm. If you need to chart a specific course, you can instead tap a unit and then drag your finger along the desired route, but that's typically not necessary.

Weapon colors

One important fact to keep in mind, before you even worry about moving units, is that weapons have associated colors. In other games, those colors would represent elemental affinities. In Fire Emblem Heroes, the colors signify weapon types. Red weapons are strong against green ones, which are strong against blue ones, which are strong against red ones. You need to always keep that dynamic in mind, so that you have the right warriors attacking the correct foes, and so that you have the appropriate defenders taking the brunt of any incoming attacks.

Foes will naturally try to find ways to exploit your weaknesses, and you should return the favor. A handy icon appears at the lower right corner of the screen to make it easier to keep such matters sorted. If you can't seem to scratch a particular enemy, such as the armored lance knights (which tend to use green weapons), try attacking them with a unit that carries red weapons.

Danger areas, attack ranges and the battle screen

While in battle, you can tap on the banger area icon (also located on the bottom bar) to see what areas currently fall within the enemy's attack range. This allows you to avoid unnecessarily making a target of yourself. Sometimes, it is better to let the enemies come to you. Not all foes will oblige, however.

When an ally and an enemy unit interact, the perspective shifts to show the two units facing one another. The two units exchange blows, if both are within range (sometimes this won't be the case, like when you attack an enemy with an archer from a safe distance). Otherwise, one or the other attacks and then the skirmish ends.

Fighting and dying

The goal in each skirmish is to eliminate the opponent's HP, without giving him or her a chance to drain yours first. When your hero's HP reaches zero, that hero is out of action for the remainder of the fight and will miss out on experience gained. Losing even one hero could be enough to cost you the battle in some instances. If that happens, you can continue by spending an orb or using the light's blessing item, but you're usually better off just accepting your loss and coming back after improving your party members so that you can spend orbs on more important things (like summoning better warriors). Besides, you will have to grind anyway. If one map has your current party stuck, the next map won't likely be any easier.

Additional actions

As you fight, you will discover that there additional actions that you can take on certain maps. You can destroy obstructions like walls by attacking them, which can be important. Walls sometimes keep your party members apart, so that a healer can't help a weakened warrior, and they may prevent you from approaching enemies. Units such as archers can fire through the walls, and that's bad news if it means enemies can pick you off from a distance without fear of retaliation from your army. Pay close attention to destructible walls and prevent such scenarios.

Winning and progressing

Once all enemy units have been vanquished, a map is cleared and you finally receive the promised reward. If your activity helped you to progress toward completing a quest, you also receive an update on that progress. Now you are free to return to your base, or perhaps to head off to the next battle.

Learn more in our Fire Emblem Heroes guide

This article is also part of Polygon’s Fire Emblem Heroes guide. Be sure to check it out so you can learn more about battle basics, summoning, heroes, the arena, the tower, quests, missions and more.