Fire Emblem: Three Houses Guide: tips and in-depth strategy for your time at the monastery

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is out now, and it's a dense game with a lot of components to wrap your head around. As such, we've prepared a bunch of in-depth guides for the game to help you to master every facet of it.

On this page, you can find links to our various Fire Emblem: Three Houses guides alongside some tips and tricks we think everybody should keep in mind while playing. With all of this, you'll be the best professor in the monastery in no time at all.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Guide: things to know before you start

Before you get really stuck in to Fire Emblem: Three Houses 

• What Difficulty Should you Choose?
  The choice is yours, but we have recommendations on both the question of Normal or Hard and elsewhere the question of Casual or Classic. If you're worried about the game's difficulty one way or the other, check that page out.

• What about the opening choices and questions Sothis asks you?
  Right at the onsent of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the mysterious Sothis asks you a few quetions including the choice between Ghost, Demon or Mortal and your character's birthday. In previous Fire Emblem games, strange little questions and choices like this might have an in-game impact - so on the linked page, we cover that.

• Consider the characters do you have access to in each house - and how to recruit others
  Your choice of house in Fire Emblem: Three Houses will not only determine the path of your story, but also who you'll be able to fight with in battle. The good news is that you can also Recruit new characters from the houses that you don't pick, and from the monastery path. On the above linked page we detail who is in each house by default, and how to recruit them to your cause once you get going.

• Learn about love and romance, and plan ahead a little if you can
  As is Fire Emblem series tradition, there's many characters you can control in your squad and among them are a bunch of Romanceable Characters that you can take your relationship to the next level with. While this is something you might want to worry about later, it's good to know who you can romance - so on this page we detail who you can romance (and how).

• There's plenty of DLC on the way, if you want it.
  A lot of the upcoming downloadable content for Fire Emblem: Three Houses folds into the main game - new costumes, new items and other such gear. Other content will be set apart from the story. We have a DLC page that details the expansion pass and upcoming lunatic difficulty update if you want more information on what is coming - and when. 

Character Classes, Abilities, Skills, Training, Faculty Training, Instructing and other combat concerns

Combat in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a deeply tactical affair - and as such, it's worth taking the time to look ahead at available classes for each of your characters early on and to plan out which higher-level classes you want to use. This way, you'll have a better idea which Skills you need each character to focus on in order to meet your planned-out promotion schedule, and you won't waste time teaching Skills your characters won't need to learn.

Many of the Master Class units are on horseback, such as the Holy Knight, Dark Knight, and Bow Knight. So, you might want to set aside Lecture time for your mage and archer units to train them up in Lance and Riding Skills beforehand, so they are ready to take those Master Certification Exams when the time comes. The Mortal Savant class requires a Swordsman with a B+ in Reason, so you might want to make sure you have a unit focusing on both skills if you want to use a Mortal Savant eventually.

Characters can change classes they are certified for at any time, except in the middle of battle, so it's not always a bad idea to have a character train for more than one class. Here's all of our prepared advice on classes, training and combat:

• Classes, Abilities and Skills are a complex affair, full of class changes, Master Classes and more...
  But the good news is that we've got a really in-depth Class Guide that goes into detail on all of the above - Master Classes, Class Changes, Abilities, Skills, Certification Requirements and more. This page is a long one, but it's a must read - it has everything you need to know, including information you won't access in-game until much later.

• Class Lectures help to make your squad more powerful - so you should make the most of them
  One very useful way to keep your squad deadly is to ensure you're making the most of your time in-lesson. While combat is one thing, you shouldn't sleep on school time. We've got a page dedicated to Lecture Questions and Answers - which will help ensure that character growth and relationships develop quickly at school. 

• For the Protagonist, don't forget to use Faculty Training to boost their skills
  While the non-player characters have access to lessons and lectures to train themselves up, protagonist Byleth is a professor and so doesn't have that luxury. As such, don't forget to use Faculty Training, an extra feature that allows you to get help from NPCs to train Byleth up in particular skills.

• Many characters have a Hidden Talent, also known as a Budding Talent - and you should nurture this skill if you can
  Budding Talents, also known as Hidden Talents, are secret skills that characters in your squad have a natural affinity for. Characters might not be all that good at these skills to begin with - but nurture them and grow them and you'll unlock unique, useful bonuses.

• If you want to get the powerful Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes, you'll need to plan ahead.
  To get these classes, you'll need a few special items in order to get access to them. We've got a full guide on how to get a dark seal - or multiple dark seals - in order to access these classes.

You also shouldn't forget to use Batallions. While we don't have a guide page dedicated to them, they're incredibly useful. The Battalion Guild will open up after a Quest in the 6th Calendar Month. You'll want to spend the money and place a battalion on each of the units you have, and plan to regularly use them in battle.

Battalions not only come with useful Gambit actions (the Gambit 'Stride' in particular from the Battalion 'Seiros Holy Monks' has been very consistently useful), but Battalions can also raise the stats of the unit leading them. You can dish out more damage and take in less damage.

Additionally, having a Battalion equipped will slowly raise the unit's Authority Skill, which in turn can be used to hire better Battalions down the line. There are a few characters who have unqiue ability-based buffs when without a Battallion, but they're few and far between.

Use your downtime around the Monastery wisely with these guides

The monastery is your place of work, your home - basically it's the hub of everything you do in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. You'll regularly have time to explore and hang out there, and when you do, you should make the most of it...

• Interact with students, staff and everybody you can - and be careful what you say
  Everything that you say during Fire Emblem: Three Houses can have an effect. While not every single thing does, it can - so when the game gives you a dialogue choice, think about it. And if unsure, check out our Dialogue Choices, Consequences & Support Guide to make sure you're boosting your character supports and relationships as much as possible.

• Search the monastery and collect blue items once a month (starting in Calendar Month #5).
  These pickups can include Lost Items, Professor Level EXP, and other random consumables. And yes some of these items do appear in the dorm rooms. You'll be glad to know that those important blue pickups (Lost Items and Professor Level EXP items) will appear the next month if you miss them, so don't worry about permanently missing any of these items. Other random consumable items do disappear the next month if you miss them, however.

• Check the Counselor NPC in the cathedral every visit
  Don't just do this once a month, either - this is one feature that refreshes every single time you have a fresh day to explore the monastery. This is a great place to earn some free support hearts - by dishing out advice as a sort of unofficial school counselor. We've got a complete Advice Box Answers guide page, too, so you don't give bad advice.

• Search for Lost Items once a month and return them to their rightful owners
  Becoming a lost property expert might not sound that exciting, but it's a great and free way to raise your support rank with various members of the eclectic cast of Three Houses. By returning an item a character thought they'd lost forever, you'll rank up your support with them. If you don't want to puzzle it out for yourself, check out our full Lost Items list and guide. 

• Harvest and plant new flowers/vegetables at the Greenhouse garden
  This doesn't take any Activity Points, so there's no reason not to do a lot of gardening at the greenhouse. You can get vegetables for meals, Flowers for Gifts, and even some stat-up items.

• Pick up Gifts from the shop once a month, when they restock - and give out the gifts to characters
  Gifts will restock once a month at the merchants in the marketplace, so be sure to stock up if you want to. Note, these merchants become available after a Quest in the 8th calendar month, and gifts can also be found as blue items and obtained through side quests. If you're not sure who to give a gift to, check out our Gifts and Flowers guide.

• Scan your Amiibo (if you have them) in order to get cool extras
  There's great extras to be had through scanning amiibo figures - especially if you have Fire Emblem brand figures. Other characters will work, however - so you can scan Mario, Sonic, Zelda amiibo and beyond to get bonus items. Check out our Amiibo compatibility guide in order to see what you can unlock and how. Not only will you unlock some extra map music tracks to use in auxiliary or Quest battles, but also, green pick-up items begin to appear in the area around the Gazebo once a month.

• Take time to host the occasional tea party for your friends in order to boost your support ranks
  A little way into Three Houses you'll unlock the Tea Party or Tea Time feature - and this lets you have some one-on-one bonding time with characters over a hot brew. This can raise your support rank, which has benefits both in and out of battle. Hit the previous link to see our full guide to tea time. 

• Make use of the Paralogue Missions to unlock excellent bonuses.
  Some really great stuff is available via the time-limited, character-specific paralogue side quests. Be sure to check out our paralogues list and paralogue rewards guide page for more on what they unlock.

• Use your renown points at the statues when you can. No reason to hold onto it. These open in Calendar Month 8.

• At those same merchants, you'll want to buy all the available bait and use it all fishing.
  The merchant's stock of bait replenishes every month. Fishing does not take any Activity Points, and every time you fish, you can a small amount of Professor Level EXP. It's basically free Professor Level EXP, so, you'll want to fish when you can. The money spent on bait is not an issue, as you'll largely make it up with sellable fish anyway. As an extra note, for those players REALLY wanting to get the most out of your bait, you can stock up on bait and wait until Calendar Month 12, when the 'Fistfuls of Fish' event takes places, where you can get even more Professor Level for each piece of bait used. There's more detail on all this in our Fishing Guide and bait list.
• And of course, make sure you visit the blacksmith to keep your equipment up to snuff.

• Finally, A Note on Quests and quest objectives...
  Most of the Quests in Fire Emblem: Three Houses are very straightforward. But as a final note, for search-type Quests, the item you are looking for will appear as a glowing spot on the mini-map. So you really don't have to go out of your way to find where the item is, just check your map. Similarly, for Quests that require you to give a Gift to a certain person, just follow the Quest marker on your minimap, it'll take you right to the right person