Information about Abilities in Fire Emblem Three Hopes, including the differences between Unique Abilities, Innate Abilities and learnable and unlearnable Class Abilities, how to learn and equip new Abilities, and how to increase the number of Abilities you can have equipped at once.
(1 of 2) Each character has three Unique Abilities that can be improved via the Tactics Academy, but can otherwise not be removed, exchanged or altered.
Each character has three Unique Abilities that can be improved via the Tactics Academy, but can otherwise not be removed, exchanged or altered. (left), You can also expand the number of Abilities each character can equip by expanding the Tactics Academy facility. (right)
What Are Abilities in Fire Emblem Three Hopes?¶
Abilities are traits - earned and inherent - that modify a character in various ways. While many Abilities are passive, Abilities also include most Combat Arts and Magic a character will learn as they master various classes, which are a diverse array of attacks, buff, debuffs and healing maneuvers. Passive Abilities - the focus on this page - include everything from stat boosts, attack and defense modifiers with or versus various weapon types, modifiers that influence the way the Warrior Gauge, dodging, guarding and Awakenings, function to name a few.
Most of the Abilities you’ll acquire will come from mastering various classes, as each class will permanently bestow various Abilities, Combat Arts and Magic as you increase its class rank. Not only are these the most abundant of Abilities, you can actively equip or remove them as you see fit, and aside from a character’s stats and active class are perhaps the most important influencer of a character’s performance in combat. You can initially equip four Abilities at once, but you can upgrade this number to six, eight and finally ten by upgrading the Tactics Academy.
Each character also has three “Unique Abilities” that can be leveled up, but otherwise cannot be altered, removed or exchanged. These typically include two special Abilities that help define the character’s role in combat (some of these may even require activation to function, acting more like Combat Arts and Magic rather than purely passive Abilities) while the third “Unique” Ability is less special, modifying the damage the unit deals or receives when they’re [commanded to attack, guard, defend or sieze] via the Battle Map. In addition, each character can learn a new Innate Trait by mastering a certain class - the specific class each character has to master varies by character. Check out the linked Innate Abilities page to learn more about how these function, specifically what classes each character has to master to acquire their Innate Ability.
Finally, each character will have a variety of Class Abilities that are specific to their current class, and are only active while the character has that class as their active class. For example, the Thief’s Class Abilities include Steal, Locktouch and Axe Buster Lv 2. If you change to a different class, you’ll replace the Thief’s Class Abilities with those of the new class. These are different from the learnable Class Abilities - if you master the Thief class you will permanently gain access to its learnable Abilities, which in Shez’s case include Appraisal, Sword Prowess, Thief’s Ploy and Shadowblade. Once learned, you merely have to equip an Ability to gain whatever boons it imparts.
(1 of 3) Classes have two types of Abilities - unlearnable ones which are only available while that class is active,
How to Learn New Abilities in Fire Emblem Three Hopes¶
As mentioned earlier, most Abilities are typically gained by leveling up a specific class. Each class has three stars of mastery, and a freshly unlocked character will start out with 0-stars in the class. As they engage in battle a class, however, they’ll gain class experience, eventually leveling up to 1-star, 2-star and finally mastering a class at 3-star proficiency. A class must be mastered before you can use a Seal and promote to the next tier in the class tree. For example, a character must master the Monk class if they wish to be promoted to the Priest of Mage classes.
In addition to unlocking higher-tier classes, mastering a class will earn you new Abilities, Combat Arts and Magic, which unlock at various proficiency tiers. The exact Abilities, Combat Arts and Magic learned as a character ranks up their class level varies by character - some characters are just more proficient in swords and will earn more ranks in Sword Prowess, while other characters will earn different types of Combat Arts and Magic. There also seems to be a divide between characters who learn various “Ploy” abilities versus those who learn various “Wisdom” abilities. All characters are not equally competent at every class, so even though you can promote characters into most classes (save unique classes and gender-specific classes), they might not get the same abilities for mastering said classes. Getting Abilities like Luna from the Great Knight, Aegis from the Paladin or any Apex [Weapon] are great and all, but not every character is guaranteed to learn those Abilities, so be sure to scout out each class’s learned Abilities before you waste a Seal.
To master classes more quickly, completing easy, quick battles is probably the way to go. You seem to get more class experience the better a character performs, but if the task is slowing you down, leaving characters you want to level under AI control while you clear an easy map with a stronger character works fine. Of course, keep in mind that the number and types of Seals you’ll earn are progress-gated, so don’t expect to be able to master everything with every character… Even progressing to higher-tier classes with any character will require you to advance a fair way through the main questline.
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