A Support is a bond or affiliation between multiple playable characters through which they can gain certain in-game statistical bonuses.
Different Types of Supports
Support
Used in: The Binding Blade, The Blazing Blade, The Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, Fates, and Shadows of Valentia.
The most familiar form of supports first appeared in The Binding Blade. In this type of support, supports have three different ranks, A, B, and C. Supports must be built by having characters end their turn adjacent to each other or while one character is rescuing the other, with the speed of the support varying from support to support and each character having between 3 and 7 available supports. When a certain number of support points is reached, the Support option becomes available and the characters can initiate a conversation that will increase the rank of their support. The characters get the bonus for being within three squares of each other, with the nature of the bonuses being determined by elemental affinity and higher ranks of support giving stronger bonuses. Depending on the game, you can raise a support rank between two characters more than once per map. For example, in The Binding Blade, you can have two characters raise their support rank twice in one chapter, while in The Sacred Stones you can only raise the support rank between two characters once per chapter or map.
Most support conversations further smaller side-stories, or give the player an insight on a particular character's history. In addition, many characters can get a different ending if they have an A support with another character by the game's end. For example, in The Blazing Blade, Bartre and Karla will ultimately get married post-game if an A level support is made between the characters before the ending. Support conversations are added to a library that can be accessed in the Extras menu.
A character may only get 5 support conversations in one playthrough (This limit was removed in Awakening). Therefore a player would have to play the game multiple times in order to achieve hundred percent support for every character.
A variant of this system appears in Radiant Dawn. In this title, any two characters can be made to support. Many various actions can build support points, such as healing, shoving, being adjacent, and being deployed in the same chapter. As before, supports have A/B/C ranks, but characters may now only have one support at a time. Character-specific conversation events were also removed. While supported units can speak to each other, it typically takes the form of a generic single line of dialogue with few exceptions.
Bond Support
Used in: Mystery of the Emblem, Thracia 776, Path of Radiance, and Radiant Dawn.
Mystery of the Emblem introduced the original form of the support system, later named Bond Support in Path of Radiance, representing characters having a relationship before the events of the game. Supports were originally a hidden feature that gave a boost to Accuracy, Avoid, and Critical if the supporting characters were within three spaces of each other. Characters who support start off with the ability to do so, and supports cannot be made or built higher. Several supports are one way, where one unit supports another, but not vice versa.
Instead of the Love System used in Genealogy of the Holy War, Thracia 776 returned to Bond Supports as seen in Mystery of the Emblem. Supports give a flat bonus to Hit, Critical, Critical Evade and Avoid when the characters are within three spaces of each other.
Bond Supports reappeared in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, where they were fixed bonuses to Critical and Critical Evade, and activate only when the characters are adjacent. In Radiant Dawn, if two characters reached an A support, the Bond between them is increased by 5.
The support system in TearRing Saga: Utna Heroes Saga functions quite similarly to Bond Supports, except some bonuses can be increased through events, which often occur automatically if the involved characters are present. Supports give a bonus to the same stats as in Thracia 776.
Love System
Used in: Genealogy of the Holy War
In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, characters could fall in love by accruing a certain number of love points. Each pair of male/female characters in the game start with a predetermined number of points, and their points increase when they are on the map together (different characters will fall in love faster). Love points can also be acquired by having characters end their turn adjacent to each other, or by having them engage in certain events. The number of points a character has can be estimated by having them talk to the Fortune Teller in the castle, and when they reach 500, the two characters marry and can no longer be paired with other units. Characters that have been paired get a +10 bonus to hit and avoid while within three spaces of each other (similar to Charisma), and most notably, will produce children in the First Generation. The statistics, skills, items, and holy blood of parents are used to determine those of the child. Certain characters being in love can also unlock events, and in the 2nd generation it will affect the ending.
Siblings cannot fall in love. However, both siblings and lovers get a +20 critical bonus when adjacent.
Supports in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem
In Shadow Dragon, the support mechanics borrow various elements from other games, combining elements of Bond Supports with the Support system introduced in The Binding Blade. Supports are again built by deploying characters in the same chapter and have ranks from A to C. C supports provide +5 to Hit and Avoid, B supports provide +10, and A supports provide +10 to Hit and Avoid and +5 to Critical and Critical Evade. Like Thracia 776 and the original Monshō no Nazo, supports can again be one way. There is no limit to the number of supports you can have.
New Mystery of the Emblem uses the same system as Shadow Dragon, but also adds Base Conversations between supporting units between chapters.
Supports in Awakening
Supports in Awakening are earned by acquiring Support Points.
| Action | Support Points Awarded |
|---|---|
| Battle an enemy with a Support Unit (such as a Pair Up) | +6 |
| Battle an enemy while adjacent to an ally (A unit not Supporting in battle) | +2 |
| Healing or Dancing for an ally | +2 |
| Partner Dual Strikes or Dual Guards | +2 |
| Trigger an event tile conversation in a Pair Up | +9 |
| Relationship Barracks conversation | +9 |
| Use a Seed of Trust while in a Pair Up. | +9 |
Each Support Level between two units require a certain amount of Support Points in order to activate each level. Point amounts differ between each character, Support Level and difficulty level, but they usually require 18-45 points. On a map, a pair can earn up to 27 Support Points. However, any points awarded via Event Tile or Seed of Trust do not apply to the 27 point cap.
Supporting
Supports affect numerous Dual System bonuses including Stat bonuses, Dual Support bonuses, Dual Strike, and Dual Guard activation rate boosts. The higher the unit's Support level, the higher the bonuses received in battle. Characters are allowed to A-Support as many units that are applicable to them. However, each character can only create one S-Support by pairing them with an opposite gender, same generation unit. When S-Support is reached, the characters will marry and be listed as Wife or Husband (or Companion) on their partner's status screens.
Children
Once an S-Support has been achieved, a new paralogue will be unlocked as long as Chapter 13 has been completed. These paralogues revolve around the recruitment of their child. All children characters, besides Lucina and female Morgan, are fixed to their mothers. Thus Sully will always have Kjelle for a daughter and not Owain or Nah. The child is generally recruited by having either Chrom or the child's mother talk to them, though there are exceptions. If they are recruited and they survive their paralogue, they will automatically unlock C-Supports for both parents as well as their sibling if they have one.
If any male child character is the sibling of Lucina or female Morgan they will lose the ability to S-Support them. Their lover support will be replaced with Morgan or Lucina's sibling A-Support.
Supports in Fates
The support system from Awakening returns in Fates. Like Awakening, two characters can build support points with each other, given them bonuses in battle. Like Awakening, there is no limit to how many Supports can be built for a character, allowing them to support with all applicable units if the player puts in time to do so.
S-Supports
S-Supports makes a return, resulting in children once two characters reach that Support level. For characters married to the Avatar, their Bonding dialogue (Skinship dialogue in the Japanese version) changes in the player's My Castle Personal Quarters and they will share the room with them. Also, players can have same-sex S-Supports if they attain the rank with Niles and Rhajat for males and females respectively, although they cannot have children. When any two characters S-Support, the spouses gain the ability to use a Partner Seal to allow them to reclass to their spouse's base class. However, there are exceptions for the Avatar, Azura, Keaton, Kaden, Velouria, both Kana, Mozu and Selkie, in which their spouse will access their secondary class instead. In the case the spouse's base class is the same as the secondary class of the listed, they will get another class provided.
Children
Children characters are tied to their fathers except for Shigure and male Kana. Children characters inherit the base class and secondary class of their determinate parent, though there are a few exceptions such as Midori and Shigure. They will also inherit the base class of their other parent unless their parents share base classes, in which they will inherit that parent's secondary class. Once recruited, they automatically unlock their C-Support conversations with their parents and their sibling in the case of siblings of Shigure and male Kana. All children will adopt the hair color of their mothers except for male Kana. If Shigure or male Kana has one of the female children as a sibling, they will lose their romantic support and their support will become Shigure and Kana's sibling support.
A+ Supports
Every unit, except for the Avatar, can also achieve an A+ Support with one character of the same gender in their support list. Unlike the S-Support, A+ rank does not unlock an additional conversation. Instead, it unlocks the ability to use a Friendship Seal to reclass that character into their A+ Support's base class.
A+ Supports work one-way, meaning that it is not needed to have both units get an A+ Support with each other. This means that Xander can get an A+ Support with Kaze, who can later get an A+ Support with another character. Multiple units can A+ Support with one character.
The Avatar works in a different way; they do not have A+ Supports of their own, but any A Rank support they get with characters of the same gender will technically work as an A+ support. This means when the Avatar gets an A Rank support with Shura and Ryoma, they will get access to the Outlaw and Samurai base class respectively.
Supports in Fire Emblem Heroes
On August 5th, 2017, supports was added to Fire Emblem Heroes as a part of its 1.7 update. Supports come in two varieties: Summoner Support and Ally Support. For both Support types, they require that each character defeats a certain number of Level 35+ enemy units to move up in rank.
There are no special conversations for building Supports for either type to support. Support boosts are not applied to Arena Duel Defensive teams.
Summoner Support
Players choose one unit to bond with the Summoner. Players may choose only one unit at a time and if they switch to a new Bond Unit, the previous Bonded unit loses all ranks and bonuses, even if the player re-supports the unit. This Summoner Support unit receives a unique Background for their status screen and their Hero Icon Border and Stars turn Red. Duplicates of the same Hero do not receive the bonus, thus choosing Azura as your Summoner Support will only apply to the Azura selected.
The bonuses work similar to Fury and Life and Death where the stats bonuses are flat increases and are not considered a buff, thus are unaffected by skills such as Panic Ploy.
| Rank | Bonus | Rank up requirement |
|---|---|---|
| C | HP +3, RES+2 | Starting Rank |
| B | HP +3, DEF/RES+2 | Defeat 23 Level 35+ enemies |
| A | HP +3, SPD/DEF/RES+2 | Defeat 131 Level 35+ enemies |
| S | HP +3, ATK/SPD/DEF/RES+2 | Defeat 353 Level 35+ enemies |
Ally Support
Ally Support allows the player to choose any two units in their army to form a bond. While all units can support any unit, they cannot form a Support with more than one unit at a time. Any attempt to form a new bond between units results in immediate lost in all Support points and bonds earned. Ally Supports work universally amongst all copies of the same character. Thus forming a support between Fae and Nowi will work for all copies of the two characters.
If two units who have formed a support are on a player's team in battle, they will receive stat bonuses based on their current Support Rank and their position on the map to each other. The bonuses themselves are similar to Spur Stat skills, thus are only applied when the unit is in combat. They will receive the strongest stat bonuses if they are adjacent to one another and receive a small boost if they are only one tile apart. If they are separated by two or more tiles, they will receive no bonuses in battle. In order to build support points, the two units must be within two tile spaces of each other in order to gain points for defeating units. The unit used for the Summoner Support can still be selected for Ally Support without losing the bonuses of both boosts.
| Rank | Bonus (Adjacent) | Bonus (One Space Away) | Rank up requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| C | RES +2 | RES +1 | Starting Rank |
| B | DEF/RES +2 | DEF/RES +1 | Defeat 12 Level 35+ enemies |
| A | SPD/DEF/RES +2 | SPD/DEF/RES +1 | Defeat 33 Level 35+ enemies |
| S | ATK/SPD/DEF/RES +2 | ATK/SPD/DEF/RES +1 | Defeat 216 Level 35+ enemies |