Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Information on Skills and Abilities

What are Skills and Abilities

In addition to regular attacks with weapons, characters can use skills in battle. These have a variety of effects, ranging from dealing damage to enhancing the performance of allies.

Skills are classified into three categories: personal, skill level, and class skills. Characters can have up to nine of them at a time. These consist of one personal ability, up to five skill level skills, and up to three class skills.

Personal Abilities

Personal skills are exclusive to named characters. They are typically skills connected to the character’s personality, backstory, or lineage. These skills are retained even when the character changes their class.

Since personal skills are fixed for each character, they tend to suggest what classes a character is suited for. Ferdinand, for instance, has the Prescience skill. This gives him +15 Hit and Avoid when his HP is full. Because of this, the archer or thief classes are good options for him.

Skill Level Skills

Skill level skills are those gained by enhancing a character’s skills through education. These include swords, axes, lances, faith, wisdom, horsemanship, and authority. Increasing any of these allows a character to learn new weapon and magic skills. Note that using these consumes a certain amount of the equipped weapon’s durability. When a weapon reaches 0 durability, its attack power and hit rate will significantly drop.

Skill level skills offer the most flexibility among the three types. A character’s starting skill levels can also suggest what classes they would excel as, though not as straightforwardly as personal skills. For example, a character who starts out with low levels in swords can still opt for the myrmidon class with enough mentoring.

Class Abilities

Class abilities or  are exclusive to each of the different unit classes. A character gains them upon changing to a specific class and removed when switching to a different one.

Changing classes can be done by passing certification exams. A character will have a high chance of passing them by having reached significant levels in their key skills. For example, the cavalry class exam can be aced with a high enough level in horsemanship.

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