What is the Support System?

Characters can build up relationships with certain characters by earning Support Points. These are invisible counters that can be earned by having these characters fight together in combat or through various your actions around the monastery. Once the two characters’ support points for each other reach a certain threshold, a conversation/scene will take place and the support level will increase.

Byleth is a most versatile unit since he/she can have Support with almost everyone that can be recruited. Furthermore, there are more options for Byleth to increase his/her support with a character like selecting the correct Dialogue Options, giving the proper Advice in the Advice Box, undergoing Faculty Training, participating in various activities in the monastery, inviting characters to Tea Parties, etc.

How to know which characters support each other?

To see which characters a unit supports, just open the menu and select Support. All the other units your selected characters can have support with will be displayed, including the ones you haven’t recruited yet. You can use this feature to plan ahead and decide which characters you’ll want to “pair up” most of the time.

How to improve character supports?

If you want to have units earn support points for each other, the easiest way will be in the battlefield. Completing combat actions while the units are beside each other or within their attack range give support points to participating (valid) units. You should see two heart icons that will appear briefly above the heads of the units that supported each other. Mission Assistants will earn Support Points with Byleth by simply participating in combat even when they’re not fighting beside him/her.

Byleth has more options to increase his/her support levels with characters both in the monastery or battlefield. Selecting the correct Dialogue Options, giving the proper Advice in the Advice Box, undergoing Faculty Training, participating in various activities in the monastery, or inviting characters to Tea Parties are some examples.

When selecting a unit on the battlefield, the game will conveniently display the other units he/she has support with. Once you have more Adjutant slots, setting a valid support unit as an adjutant will allow them to earn support points as well.

Other methods to improve the support level between two characters can only be achieved with your help as the professor like selecting them in activities like sharing a meal, Group Tasks, or Choir practice.

What are the support levels?

Support levels indicate the closeness of your characters to other units. These are represented by letters from C to A. Some characters can only have up to B-support while others can reach A-rank. There are certain character combinations where they have extra levels like C+, B+, or A+. Also, only Byleth can reach Support Level “S”, which usually includes a romantic relationship with a chosen character. Since you can only S-rank one character in a playthrough, you have to choose which one you want to “marry” and work your way in recruiting that character as early as possible and building your support points with him/her. Both male and female Byleth can have specific same-sex partners should they choose to. Please refer to our guide's Romantic Options page for a complete list of potential romantic partners for Byleth.

There are support conversations that are tied with your progress in the story. Like during the pre-timeskip, you won’t be able to reach Rank A or S on any character. When this happens, you may want to pair these temporarily “maxed” out characters with other units that they can build up support levels with.

How to view Support Conversations?

If there’s an exclamation point beside the Support option, it means there are new conversations available for viewing. Support conversations between characters is required to increase their support level. This means that if you haven’t triggered their support conversation yet, any support point they’ll earn will go to waste. That’s why it’s recommended to view them as soon as they’re available.

You can only view a support conversation in the activity selection screen back in the monastery or while during exploration. There are also some support conversations that can be triggered as you go through your days automatically during weekdays or as icons on the Map while exploring.

How to Pair a Character for a preferred Ending

Unlike previous Fire Emblem games where you can deliberately pair various characters and have them reach Support Rank S to each other and secure their endings, FETH makes it a bit trickier to become the matchmaker since only Byleth can achieve Rank S to the character of your choice.

One thing to take note is that characters with A support to each other will have a paired ending when you complete the game. And it's possible for the same character to have several A-supports to other characters. That means that character will have a paired ending from a "pool" of other characters in which he/she has A-support with.

If you’re planning to pair up specific characters for their endings, have them reach their A-support and avoid viewing the A-support scene of the characters you don’t want to be paired up with. This is because if a character has attained A-support with several characters, those characters will become potential partners for that character’s ending. If the pair you want to end with has A-support only for each other, then that will pretty much lock their position as their closest ally.

You still have to make sure that the characters you want to have a paired ending work together often as Adjutants or Linked Attacks in the battlefield, so they’ll still earn support points for each other and end up as the top pick as their closest ally in both of their lists.