Fire Emblem Heroes: How to re-roll for the heroes you really want

In Fire Emblem Heroes, your default heroes, well, suck. Unless you spend literally months leveling them up, they won't have any of the epic stats and game-breaking abilities of the ones you can buy with orbs.

Yes, I said game-breaking abilities! You can get heroes that can soak up loads of damage, counterattack at any distance, pull friends out of harm's way, make two attacks in a row, hit multiple enemies at once, take two whole turns, or even cheat death.

Thankfully, you can replace your starters with a kick-butt team of freshly summoned heroes -- even if you already used up your orbs. It's called re-rolling, and it does involve deleting your account to start over, but it's the best way to get one or more of those sweet heroes.

OK, yes, it feels a little like cheating, but here's a quick guide if you just want to get down to business and some tips on which heroes to keep an eye out for.

WARNING: If you linked your Nintendo account, you won't be able to re-roll and try for better characters. If you never linked your Nintendo account, congrats! Your laziness is about to pay off. Just make sure not to link to your Nintendo Account until you get a batch of heroes you want to keep.

Re-rolling on iOS

On iOS, re-rolling is a little tedious. You need to:

1. Delete and reinstall the game
2. Download data
3. Go through the tutorial for 15 orbs
4. Beat the prologue for three orbs
5. Collect the two orbs from the owl statue for logging in
6. Summon your five heroes using the 20 orbs
7. Rinse and repeat until you get the results you're looking for

We tested, and the process takes around 20 minutes each time IF you turn off the combat animations in the settings page and turn on auto-battle (under the page and gear icon in each battle)as soon as possible in the prologue.

Re-rolling on Android

With Android the process isn't much simpler. Go to Settings > Apps > Fire Emblem Heroes > Storage and tap Clear Data. The data will be wiped and you can start from scratch.

Once that is done, follow these steps:

1. Download data
2. Go through the tutorial to collect the 15 orbs
3. Beat the prologue to get three more orbs
4. Collect the orbs from the owl statue for logging in
5. Summon your five heroes
6. Repeat until you get a hero set you like

Re-rolling on Android took me around 15 minutes each time with the combat animations in the settings page turned off, and auto-battle (under the page and gear icon) turned on.

Awesome hero basics

OK, if you're not too into gaming -- or at least Fire Emblem in particular -- you may be wondering just what type of heroes you want to keep and when you should consider re-rolling. The fast and easy tip is to look at the stars.

When your new hero is summoned, there will be 5 gold, 4 silver or 3 bronze stars underneath their icons. The more stars, the better the hero -- they'll do more damage, have better weapons and special abilities too. Certain moves are only for four- and five-star heroes. Plus, the higher the star rank, the better your stat gains as you level up.

Higher star ranks can also get skills that lower ranks can't. For example, Oboro can also inflict resistance -5 on foes within two spaces as a five-star hero. This passive skill isn't available to a three-star -- only a weaker version.

If you're lucky -- or re-roll a lot! -- you may even find multiple five-star heroes, or a five-star focus hero (5* for short), one of the Fire Emblem fan-favorite characters that are featured in the game.

You'll know if you get a five-star focus hero right away because as they're summoned, they'll have a super cool animation of the hero brandishing their weapon. Just know that five-star focus heroes aren't necessarily the very best heroes you can get today.

Here are the heroes you want

OK, now that you know the basics, let's get a little more specific about the heroes you should keep.

Five-star Hector, Takumi and Azura are probably the best characters in the entire game and you might want to stop re-rolling if you find one. Why are they awesome? Here are just a few reasons:

• Hector is a beast. If you power him up, he can counterattack from any distance, even if shot by a bow. Another skill can cut the damage in half from any attacker, and his legendary axe Armads will automatically slice at foes which hit him first, as long as his health is high. And speaking of high health, his is among the highest in the entire game.
• Takumi can counterattack foes that hit him up close, getting rid of his biggest disadvantage as an archer. He can slip right past allies instead of being blocked by them, if he's got enough health. He's fast and deadly, and can cut the speed of nearby foes by 5 points, meaning he almost always hits twice in a row.
• Azura isn't just a great fighter with a lance (which is super useful when many of the strongest characters have swords), she can sing to other friendly units to give them a second turn.

Here are some other great five-star picks and a couple reasons why they're fantastic, once you get them some skills:

• Lyn, a swordstress, can move like the wind to attack two separate foes in a single turn with her Galeforce skill. She almost always hits twice because her speed is one of the highest in the game.
• Cordelia also has Galeforce, automatically hits twice when attacking with her spear, and can pass through enemy units to strike them from behind (depending on her HP).
• Ryoma is a beefy samurai with a lightning sword that can strike his attackers far away, and who gets more powerful when he takes a beating.
• Lucina and Chrom have the legendary Falchion sword that cuts through dragons like butter, and heals them once every three turns.
• Leo's magic tome doesn't just do a ton of damage (particularly to armored units), it can slow down your enemy's movement to just one space. And when he attacks, he can unleash an explosion that can hit multiple enemies.
• Fae turns into a dragon, can pull friendly units one space out of harm's way, and can eventually heal herself every other turn.

You can see the ranking of each hero and stats by visiting the (super useful) Fire Emblem Heroes Wiki.

Just know that a lot of the most popular and powerful characters are sword users, and thus vulnerable to characters that use the lance. If you manage to nab an awesome sword user, it'll definitely help you through the game, but it might not be reason enough to stop re-rolling unless your other picks are excellent!

Next, check out our guide on Fire Emblem Heroes strategy.

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