Taking action in combat will often earn you experience (EXP) and Skill Points (SP), the former of which will level you up every time you accumulate 100 EXP, potentially increasing your stats, while the latter are pooled and used to permanently purchased inherited skills. This page will cover how EXP and SP gains are calculated in Fire Emblem Engage, and will provide tips for how to best farm EXP and SP quickly.

How to Earn EXP and SP in Fire Emblem Engage¶

As mentioned above, various combat actions will earn EXP when performed. These include the following:

• Attacking enemies (participating via chain attacks doesn’t count)
• Using staves
• Using special abilities (via the Dance ability, for example)
• Claiming Spirits of the Fallen (yellow only, ⅓ chance)

We’ll go over these methods in detail shortly, but first, you may have noticed that EXP gains and SP gains haven’t been discussed separately. That’s because the amount of EXP you earn and the amount of SP you earn are linked. They won’t always be the same - you usually gain more EXP than SP - but if you’re getting a lot of EXP from an action, you’re probably gaining a good bit of SP, as well. Likewise if you gain a pittance of EXP, you’re probably not getting a lot of SP, either. Training in the Arena is one of the few actions or activities that yields EXP without also granting SP. For that reason, when we talk about EXP gains on this page, SP gains usually go hand-in-hand.

Earning EXP and SP - Fighting Enemies¶

Characters gain EXP for participating in combat encounters, regardless of performance. Even if your attack misses or you hit for no damage, you’ll gain some EXP. Of course, a better performance yields greater EXP, and defeating an enemy gives you more EXP than merely injuring one. Furthermore, the more powerful the enemy is in relation to the participating character, the greater the EXP rewards. Picking on low-level enemies will only start yielding 2 EXP per kill, while managing to defeat a much more powerful enemy may grant nearly 100 EXP.

Changing classes in Fire Emblem Engage usually resets your level to Lvl 1 (special classes, like Thief and Dancer, may set you back to Lvl 21 instead, depending on what your class/level was before switching), but unlike in some earlier Fire Emblem games, the game remembers your overall level before changing classes. A Lvl 20 character who promotes to an advanced class or changes to another base class will count as a Lvl 21 character for EXP purposes, so over-leveling with one character will see their gains diminish.

Fortunately, the game seems to stop tracking your past level gains after Lvl 20, from that point on counting your current level +20 compared to the enemy’s level to determine EXP gains. The cap seems to be Lvl 40 (advanced class Lvl 20), which is coincidentally the highest level enemies will spawn at. If you hit Lvl 20 as an advanced class (effectively Lvl 40) and respec into the same or different advanced class, the game will consider you Lvl 21 again, allowing you to earn faster EXP for a few levels.

Earning EXP and SP - Using Staves¶

Successfully using a staff for pretty much any purpose will earn you EXP and SP, be it inflicting break with Fracture, creating barriers with Obstruct or moving enemies and allies around with Rewarp, Warp and Rescue. Functionally, however, this means healing, as staves have limited charges, and burning up your irreplaceable staves for some EXP just isn’t a smart play. The amount of EXP and SP you’ll get varies depending on numerous factors, including the amount of HP healed and the number of characters affected. Generally, however, EXP and SP earned from healing is supplemental, not a real replacement for actually participating in combat.

There are some exceptions, however, and both involve Emblem Micaiah. Micaiah grants her wearer numerous boons, chief among them the ability to use grade C staves regardless of their class via the “Cleric” skill, and when engaged, Micaiah will further improve the healing prowess of her wielder via the “Augment” ability, giving staves great range and an AoE. If you can gather a number of injured characters together and heal them all with an engaged Micaiah the healer may gain a great deal of EXP and SP, a trick we call the Micaiah EXP Heal Bomb (name subject to change).

If that’s not enough, Micaiah’s finisher, Great Sacrifice, heals every allied unit on the map while reducing the user’s HP to 1. Used at the end of a battle (or when it’s otherwise safe), this can account for a great deal of healing, and hence, EXP and SP for the user.

Earning EXP and SP - Spirits of the Fallen¶

If you have network features enabled you may find Spirits of the Fallen littering the battlefield. These yellow and purple lights marking various map tiles will grant various boons to characters who end their turn on them. Purple spirits give items, while yellow spirits give either Bond EXP, 10 Bond Fragments (womp womp) or an EXP/SP boost. In the latter case, this boost is substantial regardless of the character’s level, and if you’re otherwise finding enemies giving you few EXP, you may be better off spending turns hunting down yellow spirits, instead.

Earning EXP and SP - Silver Corrupted¶

As time passes (real time, not game time), encounters may spawn on cleared nodes on the world map. These encounters, Skirmishes, repopulate maps with a host of enemies for you to beat up for EXP and SP. While this is a fine way to earn EXP and SP on its own, these Skirmishes can also be populated with Silver Corrupted, special enemies that yield massive amounts of EXP and SP when defeated, regardless of the relative levels of the characters involved.

To get Silver Corrupted to spawn, you must Donate gold to various realms, which will increase the Silver Corrupted spawn rate. Increasing the Donation Level of Solm is especially worthwhile, as it can increase the spawn rate of Silver Corrupted significantly, up to 70% by Donation Level 5. Unfortunately this just increases the odds that an encounter will contain Silver Corrupted enemies - each Skirmish tends to only have two of these enemies.

Earning SP Fast in Fire Emblem Engage¶

With all the means of earning SP discussed, it’s time to put it all together and cover how to best go about quickly earning SP (which, incidentally, will also earn you a fair amount of EXP). Sadly, there aren’t many great SP farming options early game, as the best way to earn SP is simply by defeating enemies.

SP will trickle in as you play through story battles and skirmishes, and aside from collecting yellow spirits, performing heal bombs with Micaiah and killing Silver Corrupted, you’ll ultimately be gated by the level of the enemies you’re fighting. Grind a lot with one character and their EXP and SP gains will decline sharply, and since overall enemy level in Skirmishes are based on your average party level, you really do need to make progress with a variety of characters to keep making reasonable games.

This effectively means you won’t be able to grind for great amounts of SP until the enemies spawning in Skirmishes are Lvl 20 in advanced classes, at which point you should get decent EXP every time you kill one. Once you’re at this point, you should be earning dozens of SP per kill (depending on what level you are - lower levels will earn more), and if you can solo Skirmishes, that character can earn hundreds of SP per fight. Especially if you’re willing to burn Second Seals to keep your level low.

Increasing EXP and SP Gains with Skills¶

Sometimes you need to spend SP to earn SP. Both Emblem Byleth and Emblem Edelgard have skills you can learn that boost the EXP you gain:

• Lineage: Increases the EXP you’ll earn by 20%, Also increases SP gains. At a mere 150 SP, this will more than pay for itself.

• Mentorship: This will increase EXP gains by 1.2x for the equipped character and adjacent allies. It’s more expensive at 250 SP, but if you don’t have the Expansion Pass, it’s the best option you have, and it’ll still end up earning you a net positive SP.