Is Being F2P in FEH Not Possible Anymore? 

The way I see FEH is a card collecting game, the main thing I've always done is collect the characters that I like so in that sense yeah I'm very much a F2P player

I'd say the issue isn't F2P not being possible to a wide audience, it's instead this: *"There is no such thing as a "safe investment" anymore."* Way back in the day, the best thing we could do is save for a favorite one-off & try to +10 any amount of the many 4 star candidates that would show up willingly or no. Slap on budget skills like Fury+Desperation or give them some TLC via some rarer T4 fodders that could truly make them look nice, and it was sign & seal. Today? I was attacked in AR by a fully flowered, invested, and supported +10 Brave Marth sat in front of my +0 Neutral W!Dimitri who only had my lowly Panic Manor hit some of B!Marth's allies and W!Edel's T4 Ploy hit B!Marth & pals. W!Dimitri ran up, prf pre-combat charged his No Quarter, and promptly 1-shot the B!Marth. Turn 2, instant surrender by the attacker. Today, it feels as if unless you have the newest flavor of dumbness/the newest release heroes, you simply cannot compete. We couple this with the time required to garner the required resources to build said 4 star focus or special/Grail Unit/5 star to our tastes: - The X orbs/grails required to summon said unit that'll always vary person to person - 5-30 Flowers needing 600-3260 flowers hoarded to upgrade stats +1 - +6 based on year of release - 10 additional copies to upgrade all stats +4 - Anywhere between 1 to 3, sometimes even 4 or 5 desired high quality units to sacrifice skills to give them ABC, Special, and Attuned Slots suited to taste, made worse if the unit is prf-less, adding a Weapon fodder requirement for typically the latest Arcane weapon of that type The cherries on top: Did you miss Engage Marth? No optimal special charging. Did they receive a Resplendant form? $10-15 to purchase FEH Pass to access a further +2 to all stats that cannot be gotten anywhere else. And finally, the lynchpin of it all: There will always be that non-zero chance that the very next banner releases a unit that does the entire kit & caboodle of your "max" invested unit better than said unit ever could thanks to a basekit that just so happened to have all of the desired effects and mayhaps also come with a prf weapon, skill or special to widen the performance gap. That's all I got, ZeShado. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

Honestly, i just play only to get daily orbs and whatnot and then summon for characters i really like, but otherwise i dont do shit. The game has become too powercrept for me to enjoy it otherwise.

9:13 its the same with Yu-Gi-Oh where people ask why are Japanese people so good in Master Duel (Yu-Gi-Oh "sim")? And it's because their card text is more clean and organized than in the west where is more jumbled and can be a overwhelming wall of words

F2P I can’t compete at all, I’ve resorted to being a fun casual to preserve my sanity.

I’ve been f2p for a while aside from getting a couple resplendents, and I’ve completely given up on aether raids since there’s no way I can compete there

I am a F2P and I only play AR as a competitive mode but not to the point of staying in Vault of Heaven. I mean, staying in VoH is way harder then getting in - one season I get in VoH, then the next I fall off. I could stay but I require merged mythics and must demolish every team on offense while getting all the pots, and that's incredibly hard if you are maintaining it while being a F2P.

As a F2p player i rarely play aether raids and summoner duels because I'm mostly saving my orbs for new alts of my favourite characters and don't have the meta stuff so theres really no hope for me winning

I have played the game for 5 years and never wasted a single penny on the game

I'm fully f2p and I've basically just gotten this game down to a png collector. I don't play Aether Raids, Summoner Duels or even really Arena at this point because it's not even that fun for the amount of effort you need to put into it. With the orbs I get naturally, I can generally get 1-2 5-star units on each seasonal banner and the occasional 5-star or two on the standard banners and I'm content with that.

I'm mostly F2P until now. I've had 17 merge projects completed as of now. In terms of summoning a demote unit you like, sometimes, it takes months to get that demote you want as a merge project. When my Shez (F) was stuck at +8, it literally took me 4 months to get my 9th merge then 5 days later, I got the final copy to +10 Shez (F). For Arena scoring purposes, you need a Legendary Hero to get the highest score possible. If you don't have that Legendary Hero, it's pointless. The only way to get them is summoning on a Legendary/Mythic banner or Legendary/Mythic Hero Remix banner. In terms of Aether Raids, the important part is the Mythic merges to gain more lift and it requires a lot of orbs to get merges on a particular Mythic Hero. For Summoner Duels, it's mostly busted units like V! Lyon and probably stay away from that game mode especially if you're F2P and don't have any good units to use or don't know how to play this game mode properly. Also regarding about sparking on a banner, seasonal, Legendary/Mythic, Double Special Heroes banners require FEH Pass in order to get the spark after 40 summons. F2P players without FEH Pass won't have access to the spark. About the Forma Soul, if you want to get more than 1 Forma Soul, you have to wait before the Celestial Stone Shop reset which will take a few months if you want to get a specific Forma unit you like, that's for F2P players who don't spend money on getting a Forma Soul. Otherworld Bond is paywalled and F2P players won't get that resource for Binding Worlds. In terms of the current meta, I would consider that F2P might slowly be dying but can still be possible until now depending what units you currently have

I feel like investing in a +10 is a bad idea since it will be overpowered by a random +1 in two months. Moreover, investing in your favorite, even with the bests skills is still not enough for the monsters that are released every months (and already come with a full kit). That's why I pull my favorites but almost never +10 them and aslo I don"t care about most game mods ranking (I'm glad being in vault of heaven every other week but that's it)

Yes. Easily. Trying to keep up with modes like AR and Summoner Duels is a suckers game unless you've got amazing luck. Powercreep absolutely comes from the units, not the skills. Unique units who do things nobody else does stand out more than flying lance unit number 52. Legendary Camilla deleting your health as combat begins, Duo Lyon taking Fomortiis Nightmare skill to it's extreme, Tina stealing buffs, Legendary Alear offering pierce DR on special activation via ally support, Christmas Edelgard with her ridiculous kit of pierce DR and non special miracle on top of galeforce and a huge atk/def debuff and 2 extra movement buffs, Christmas Byleth being the best far saver with Null C and pierce DR and a -3 scowl effect, etc. It absolutely comes from unique units. No question. Any new player gets access to all of these new toys. All of the old toys have been thrown to the waysides of weekly revival banners or Legendary/Mythic hero remix banners. The only critical issues new players have to deal with are a lack of game knowledge (which good luck with that), resource creep (which I'd say is a bigger issue considering that we have 1000+ heroes), and being overwhelmed by the many modes (both good and garbage) on offer, and a lot of which have been abandoned (Blessed Gardens lol). So, no. Being F2P is not dead. If you want to be F2P and keep up with the competitive modes, I hope you have a lot of patience and discipline. If you ignore that crap and try to have fun in your own ways, you'll be fine.

Im mostly ftp and very ocassionaly buy a feh pass (because I reach a spark and I get pissed at not getting anything) or some times once every 4 or 5 months a forma pack. As long as you dont act on impulse and spend your free orbs in the units you believe will bring power to the way you play you are mostly fine. Another good tip is to not act on impulse with the fodder. If you get 2 copies of a cool unit do not merge them, save it in the reserves. Eventually you could need that fodder for another unit you might want to build that could bring a ton of value to your game. Merges are mostly worthless since at the current pace everything gets devaluated way too fast. And speaking of devaluating, do NOT invest in tanks. Those are the ones that lose their value the fastest. Best investments are supports, a good nuke with some useful gimmik and favorites.

I am a former dolphin who went cold turkey when the pass dropped, because I finally saw the writing on the wall when the predatory pass came out. I don’t touch summoner duels or arena other than bare minimum to get basic rewards. AR I’ll play since my gold throne rank is pretty high but I don’t summon any units with AR in mind. And many modes, I’ll just completely forget to do because I’ve lost so much interest in FEH that I don’t really care if I don’t remember to do my pawns of Loki run or whatever. I don’t even summon for SI to dump on my existing waifus because it’s so expensive to go get the fodder. I always said for many years that the SI system as it’s currently implemented is highly toxic, but for years I got a lot of pushback from the community. But it seems as the SI powercreep is completely out of control, more people are finally waking up to that fact. The basic gist of the problem with SI is that it’s basically like the equipment system of FEH, except it’s a permanent one-time use decision, so unlike pulling for CEs in FGO, you’re stuck with whoever gets the SI. I just cannot recommend this game to new players.

I remember when I could relatively easily juggle building 2-3 units of the same color while giving them all the most premium skills at the time. There was a period where Swift Sparrow 3 was relatively easy to come by, and the best B-slot and C-slot skills weren't exactly rare either. You could just save up for when there was an 8% banner where all the heroes on a given color had excellent skills, and rack up a ton of fodder for later. Now, that's not as easy anymore. Because new skills get introduced every month or two, which powercreep the previous best skills, keeping up is insanely hard. Like, for example, Guard Bearing 4 and Gambit 4 are the best B-slots for pretty much any melee flier, and they're super hard to get. Previously it was Guard Bearing 3, Dive Bomb 3, and even if you lacked either of those, a priority skill like QR3 or Desperation 3 usually wasn't bad. tl;dr It used to take a lot longer for new "best" skills to come out, making it easier to build multiple strong units at a time. Now since new skills come out so fast, effective fodder is harder to get, and you _really_ have to choose to invest in just 1-2 of your favorite units to build, which may take months. Oh, and of course, by the time you've finally built that new unit, a fancy new 5* exclusive unit with an absolutely busted prf skill (cough - Duo Lyon - cough) comes out, and makes your project unit completely irrelevant. Like, what is the point in using my max-investment Summer Sylvain now that I have a single copy of D!Lyon? Besides the fact that I like him, that is.

As a f2p player, I avoid summoner duels like the plague. I’m not about to test my strengths against a whale’s fully merged winter Edelgard.

Competitively: Yes Casually: oh heck no, OG Black Knight for life!

Honestly I like having harder pve content because it's fun trying to find ways to beat it. The recent emblem marth and liners battle was so difficult to beat that it was really fun. I personally spent a lot of team using different teams that could beat the map. My favourite team beating it was using a wrazzle dazzle savage blow healer and b!chrom and r!lucina to chip and run around the map

I've been a true F2P player since the day this game started. I've never hit the top the of the bar of any game mode, but I've been pretty close. I hover around Tier 19-20 in Arena, Tier 24-30 in Aether Raids, 5-7 wins in Arena Assault, Interval 19 in Resonant Battles, Synergy 79 in Allegiance Battles, and Gold Rank in Summoner Duels R/S. I've never thought it was possible to hit the true top ranks without paying, just by the nature of this game. But as long as Legendaries and Mythics continue to be very economical with 1 or 2 copies, Rearmed Units being sparkable, and orbs continue to be easy to grab, I think you can easily stay relatively competitive. In Smogon terms, I think most F2P units and players always have been and can stay UU-tier, OU in certain seasons and metas. They will never stay in it, and some units are downright UBERS or Anything Goes with dolphin or whale-level investment, but I don't think FEH ever been a game where paying money gets you far more than the game provides out, whether in competition or fun factor. UU is always a great tier to be in.

It depends a lot on what your goals are in this game. If you just play it for collection purpose it is mostly F2P friendly.

Haven't spent a cent in this game since I started in 2017, and I still have my Mae, Leon and Chrom in Arena, still very enjoyable. I think I have to have the mindset of "scaling" back what I can and cannot compete in depending on how good my pulls are. Still love playing for Seers, Hall of Fjorms and other "creative" modes.

I like tanking. Tanking is not f2p with all the omega nukes that keep coming out. Time to use galeforce I guess. Also how can you tank when you take 60 pre combat dmg and Safy steal ALL your fucking buffs? Stupid units

As a very competitively-minded full F2P, allow me to give my 2 cents on the matter. Overall: Being a competitive F2P is signing yourself up for suffering. It always has been, always will be. I do feel like it has gotten harder ever since around CYL7, but maybe that's just my experience. That being said, of course it's still possible. No matter how uphill the battle might get, as long as FEH doesn't become literal pay to win (in the "pay 10 bucks to win this match" sense), competitive F2Pism will exist. And personally, I like being F2P precisely because of the challenge, even if the amount of stuff IS wants you to summon for is getting somewhat annoying as of late. As for the individual modes: Arena: Arena is suffering, yes. Over a year or two, it's definitely possible to +10 a legendary and compete in the mode, but having to run grail score sticks is awful. T20.5 is very doable for F2P, T21only is you focus arena. ARO: Ladder is F2P, and what more do you really need? Getting a perfect offense week and staying in VoH is quite easy thanks to the average defense design, but if you want to go for ranking then you of course need merged mythics, and in that regard it's even worse than arena ngl. Oh, and having to use askr trio as bonus is incredibly annoying ... but at least better than askr trio in arena. ARD: Awful, seriously. No other mode requires new units like ARD, since you have to constantly keep up with whatever new the offense player may throw at you. Getting a perfect defense is already hard enough for normal players, but with limited resources & units on top of being restricted by AI it is basically just a gamble. SD: So there might be a bit of a personal bias here, but imo SD is the most F2P-friendly competitive mode. Winning in ARO is easier, sure, but it's the only mode where scoring isn't tied to merges in any way. Meaning there's the actual possibility of F2Ps reaching rank 1(and I know many who did just that). Being a player-controlled mode also means that one is able to compensate a lack of credit card through other means, most importantly teambuilding and skill. Competitive SD requires a lot of time admittedly (more for F2P since teams & practice are more important), but time is an F2P currency.

You really should actually try being F2P, because as a F2P actually investing into your favorites is basically never worth it. I think the best case study is probably PM1, dude has probably gotten nearly ever orb someone can get on a F2P account, and he’s definitely successful in modes like Aether raids, but there’s a very clear reason, and that’s because he strategizes his pulls, he basically only gets characters that are good in Aether Raids Hyper offensive galeforce teams, or merges on mythics, and because he’s actually good at the game, he does well, but players like him are honestly pretty rare. If you want to enjoy FEH in a normal capacity, as a F2P getting characters you actually want and getting meta picks can be very contradictory.

i def agree with your point about something to hyper focus on. i haven’t touched arena and aether raids in so long just cause i’m trying to figure out how to keep my orb count up (usually peaks around 100) and decide what banners are important for me to summon on (usually new heroes and legendary/mythics)

i get all my enjoyment out of watching and analyzing banner trailers, which doesnt involve actually summoning. its not really playing the game, but i do think more people need to be doing it personally

Arena might be the most P2W gamemode due to orbs required, like 8 legendaries each year now. AR might be the less orbs demanding as any 2/3 mythics plus 10 would give you the highest scoring and there will be some of the extra slot on remixes. When it comes to threads, however AR is much worse as it's free to make you face any build. As an example, that's inheritable, you can time pulse 4, emblem marth engage with Colm's dagger for a precharge lethality. Add Brave Robin to counter Veyle. That is added with Assasin's strike, flared sparrow if high mov and movement support, the most dangerous and generic part, to reach you turn 1. Btw, this is just a Wind Tribe Claude build at home. That said, you might not need legendaries for 20.5 which gives crowns but the merges on mythics could be essentialfor golden thrones, or more valuable than going for +10 old legendaries. Crowns could still be obtained with a highly merged old demote bonus unit.

You need at least a FeH pass to spark in legendary and seasonal banners, that usually is where the best units are

Being F2P the only modes where I can't reach max ranks are Harmonic Battles (not enough merge on my harmonic heroes) and SDS/SDC (i'm still around rank 17 to 20 in those modes). Remember that you don't need all the new stuff to perform quite well in most of competitive modes, in AR for exemple I just throw my best cav nukes in defense to make a random cavline and build something each week in offense and most of the time this is more than enougth to grab a golden throne (not sure about the english name sorry, i juste translated "trône d'or" from french), same in arena with 3 grail +10 and a legendary. Also you don't need to play competitively when you don't want to, i CAN perform in competitive mode each week, but sometimes i just don't want to spend some time on it, so i DO it only when i want. And I think that powercreep is actually quite f2p friendly, because you can just get one copy of the broken support/nuke units of the moment (i think you need merge to tank) instead of having to invest a lot on some specific units. But one thing is true : you can't (on a unique account, you can with 2 if you have time) play competitively AND max merge your favourite characters at the same time, you must make a choice.

I think it's possible but mainly for PvE stuff (mainly Arena, as bizzare it might sound). With the other modes though being F2P is more or less playing the game with a huge handicap.

Aside from purchasing the Feh pass a few times and spending some money back on Guunthra’s banner, I’ve been very successful being F2P with some good merge projects and doing well in most modes ever since the start of Feh. I do agree with what was discussed in the video like how progressively hard it is to keep up with score/skill creep and potentially having some investments be fruitless. However, with enough goals and dedication towards said goals, you can still manage to succeed as a F2P player. Thanks for this video ZeShado.

It can be done, but is getting increasingly more wacky, yes. You end up having to look in wild old strategies for some of them. PSA FOR ANYONE STRUGGLING WITH DUO LYON: You can tank and beat the paralogue Duo Lyon with a launch edition unit at minimal investment! (Read: the investment is Null-Counter, distant counter seal, and some buffs) Launch edition Seliph can both tank and defeat him both with support, or entirely self-contained with the right skills. Guide: Get yourself launch Seliph. He's an infantry sword unit, comes in the low star levels. Level him up so he has his high HP. His original sword (Not Sigurd's!) has a miracle effect at HP higher than 50%, refine that bad boy if you can. This HP and refine are the key. At +10 it's like 55 or so and that's going to sponge the pre-in-combat damage for you. Due to the nature of the pre-in-combat stuff, his miracle will still go off so long as he has more than one HP after the pre-in occurs. I've seen him survive with up to around 20 HP after it, if you have him +10, but he just needs at least two HP post pre-in shredding. Do you have a spare Nailah? Congratulations you can beat Duo Lyon! (Any source of Null-Counter will work, but she also has Distant Counter which is handy but not necessary now due to the seal.) Important Step for Countering: Inherit Null-Counter to Seliph, as well as Distant Counter, or give him the seal. Without Null-Counter he can't, well, counter, but if you don't have it, you can at least still tank him with Seliph. Go grab "Vengeance" special from someone as well. Slap a special-cooldown effect seal or skill on him. He can do it even with the one-time lowering seal. Just anything that can get him to 2 Cooldown so he can hit back with "Vengeance". Important Step for Defeating: Seliph needs to double Lyon somehow. Slap some speed and attack on him through rallies or skills, or otherwise get him to double. I've found he can self-contained clear with a "Rouse" in the C-slot for this, but any combination should be able to work so long as you can get him to double, so "Vengeance" can go off using his massive missing HP as the base. Put Seliph in range, and check and see if you need to make any minute adjustments to him, the numbers should be pretty close to winning, or succeeding. If he's a little low, make adjustments as necessary to pump the last bits of his stats to manage. Otherwise, congratulations! He's successfully defeated Duo Lyon, and if you've got a healer, he help with the others via his miracle-tank. (If you don't want to deal with all the inheritance as well, so long as he has Null-Counter, he can also manage it with outside support, such as Veyle, buffing his attack enough to not need his special to go off.) Now, good luck everyone! Feel free to spread this free-to-play solution to any who need it, or slap it in a video somewhere. I found it while I was strategizing for Lyon on his launch day and would be glad to know it's helping others!

I'm F2P and been playing since day 1. The last time I genuinely enjoyed this game was when the CYL4 brave heroes came out. I can't believe I'm saying this as a massive fire emblem fan but I want this game to EoS. The powercreep is too much.

I have been playing FEH since day 1, and I have been f2p. It’s both a blessing and a curse because I have a lot of heroes and resources just because I’ve been playing so long but especially right now, I have almost no way to get more orbs to pull stuff which makes it super hard to keep up with the power creep

Trying to play a gacha game competitively seems like asking to get shot in the face, I like that people do it even though because it brings out interesting dynamics. But I personally like to get the characters that are more fun for me to play (not necessarily the ones I like the most story-wise) because I get genuine enjoyment out of playing pve or arena with my builds

Started my 4th F2P account on this game at the very end of book 5 (so a little more than 2 years ago) and i have 624 differents units for more Than 330 differents 5 stars units To be honest , i actually didn't do book 6 and 7 story in easy and most of the books on hard and expert modes and we will not talking about annexes because it's the same I mostly play with the same team since i start (duo sigurd / deirdre , CYL micaiah , CYL lysithea and more recently summer ymir (before it was a basic Julia) and this team manage in a lot of maps so it's good for me I'm just waiting for the best banners to have the best chances to summon the units i don't have , i'm not trying to build them or make them +10 , one copy of each is enough for me I know which units i can't pass and when i see one , i don't waste my time on it , not worth it , that's the way i play it and i like iy

From my point of view, FEH is one of the least demanding gachas possible, it does not require farming or the newest unit all the time to be a good player. In my case I have been in the game since book 4 and being totally f2p I have always been in the highest tiers of arena and AR, I have even made a legendary +10 and some Braves +10 with pure f2p orbs

i've actually tried making a new account at the end of december and for the moment it's going fine , (I have taken feh pass to spark for a few banners but I don't plan on making it a habit however), i have pulled and gotten very lucky for quite a lot of great units for arena AR and PVE, but I also haven't reached the critical point where every ar team is absolute bonkers like my first account did. ultimately I am actually trying to spend orbs feathers and skills much more responsibly on both my accounts and most importantly to not stress too hard on results, if I manage to get my favourite units to good merges I'll be happy

F2f here and I just always summon for +10Duo. Have +10 Duo Corrin, Lyn, Askr, Chrom, Shamir, Byleth and Winter EDel.

It may just be me, who hasn’t played any gatcha asides from FEH, but the whole game is overwhelming in general, but it feels pretty necessary to pay to keep up. Just rolling for the characters I like burns through orbs like crazy. Rolling for skills after that feels damn near impossible.

I was f2p until late last year and the progress I've made is heavens above I did before then...

I think being F2P and being competitive in one mode is feasible, but being F2P and being competitive in all of them is impossible. Now being FEH pass only and competitive in all modes might be doable but would require some serious planning and knowledge on what to do. Or you can just summon your favorite character, play the story on easy and have fun.

My playstyle is: - if a mode is purely PvE, I try to squeeze all the rewards out of it. I have difficulty with Infernal difficulty and with more-recent story maps' Lunatic difficulties, but I know that those modes aren't going away forever so I care less about getting those rewards ASAP. Sometimes when I'm low on orbs and desperately want something I'll go back to a map I had trouble with a year ago, and new units or new skills on old units will allow me to get through them. - if a mode is even partially PvP - Arena and Aether Raids do count - I engage to the best of my ability for the first few instances in order to figure out where I am comfortable, and then I tone back just a bit so I can do those modes mindlessly. This has me sitting at Tier 16-17 in Arena, somewhere in the portion of the Aether Raids background that is themed after the aurora borealis, and then during Chaos Season I am like two tiers higher (and it makes me sad every time because the aurora is so much prettier than the night sky, so when they switch to Chaos Season I'll sometimes have a gut reaction of "oh shit I did too good this week" before realizing). - if a mode is full-on PvP, I just engage the bare minimum. I play with the characters I want to use (I tend to like cute healers, peg knights, and goofy guys) and if I know them from the main series I try to give them skills that match their personalities rather than things that are "meta". Or sometimes I make jokes - the only character I let have the skill Fury, is Legendary Young Tiki, and it's because if you give her the swirly glasses accessory, she looks vaguely like Fawful from the Mario & Luigi series, whose catchphrase is "I have Fury". But this means that anyone who puts even a slight investment into being meta, is going to curb-stomp me. - my Sakura has gathered a collection of every healer-exclusive inheritable skill available, and this means that whenever a new healer comes out I look at their kit to know if I need to summon for them. In the past year or two, FEH has been kind to me in a way that most people would probably hate: on each banner, the character I most care about - either because new healer skill or because they're a character I want - is the free unit, in like 80% of cases. Which a lot of people would hate because it means their skills won't be as good as the summonable-characters' skills, but for me it means I can just save orbs. The only thing I want but don't have, is WoM4 for my Sakura. Her actual kit is a weird synergy between the Live-to-Serve seal, WoM, and Rehabilitate+ that basically means that the more one of her allies needs healing, the easier it is for her to warp to them and heal them to full in order to also heal herself. It creates a decent healer that the AI cannot kill - especially because she *also* has Absorb+ Dazzling refine which means if she decides to attack on her turn instead of heal, she *still* self-heals - and yet it's something that human-controlled opponents can usually tear to shreds. But she's currently at WoM3.

Pretty much all of this yeah. I think about it every now and then, and I think the only reason I'm not struggling as much as some other people as an F2P player is because I started playing this game when it was only roughly half a year old, maybe just a little more, so I've had time to really just slowly pick up SOME of the good stuff. But yeah, even as someone who's been with the game as much as I have or more in other cases, there's literally so many units and so many skills and so many effects and just so much stuff that I literally cannot remember it all. A glossary would indeed be very much appreciated. And yeah, I effectively just do not do competitive game modes. I gave up on Aether Raids years ago after I struggled so hard to get past tiers 18 and 19. I'm not gonna consider even trying to go up any little bit higher until I've one day years from now maxed out all my structures for both offense and defense, and they keep raising the caps for those, so I've gotten used to the idea of just never doing much more than the auto dispatch. Arena itself has always been sucky for me since year 1. Bad maps, an incredibly demanding scoring system, and the fact that now in order to really succeed you need to keep having the latest legendaries and brand new units, not only because they're good, but because they're actively made into bonus units that then on top of everything else add onto your scoring even more. And summoner duels would be great if I could face people who weren't either at quadruple my rank or at literally 0 favor level. That then just leaves me with the periodic legendary/mythic/now soon also more emblem hero battle maps and other game modes like Seer's Snare if I want something that's a challenge by the end of it that's still justifiably feasible and not ridiculous to adapt to. The story maps and paralogues themselves are also hard enough as it is when it comes to the very latest ones due to them more and more often having a unit that absolutely shatters the just previous meta in one way or another, especially when it comes to the chain challenge versions of those maps. So yeah, I feel like now FEH is slowly shifting towards a more F2P unfriendly design. Especially with Emblem units. The only way to max out a unit now is to also max merge an Emblem. And Emblems are gonna be in the same type of treatment in terms of availability as Legendaries and Mythics. One copy gets you their main effect, but one at max merge gets you essentially another +5 merges on whatever unit they're engaged with. Which, eventually that could just add up to make attacks like Ruptured Sky that target enemy stats to base their damage off of even stronger, but it's not enough to outweigh that extra stat bloating with everything else such a unit would also have on them. Like, I know og male Corrin is far from anything meta with his refine, but if he had his refine, R-Duel Infantry 4, a max merged Emblem engaged with him, max dragon flowers (30 for gen 1 infantry units at the time of writing this) and max merges, that's a static +14 to all his stats except HP, which gets a static +17 instead. And that still leaves his B, C, and Seal slots open, while he could also have an X skill and then receive support from other units, and then you could even add season boosts from blessings. On any modern meta unit, you trade +2 to all stats except HP for a weapon with so much description text they literally have to shrink the text to fit it all in or it's stuff like what winter Edelgard has that literally shuts down units like a refined Hel or any unit depending on the support of Ymir or stack lots of damage reduction like a max investment Alear at the snap of a finger by just shutting off other effects that are otherwise very powerful. And it's not that I'm hating on Edelgard here, we started to see a teeny tiny bit of this with Byleth, then saw a bigger example with legendary Nanna, then later on Lucia, and in terms of visible status buffs things like summer Thórr with her duo button, etc. and I'm probably missing some examples all in between there. All that said, it's not impossible, yeah. You just really gotta have a specific goal in mind like what was said here, which can be hard for new players to figure out more quickly. Edit: I realized I made a couple mistakes when talking about the static stat increases, but when it comes to modern meta units they have comparatively inflated stats anyways so I think it still balances out lol.

I am more of a casual, buying the mid-month pack and feh pass, and tbh since AR is a thing I have ALWAYS used the same unit as my offense carry, and thats my grail boi Joshua sometimes it works to stay in VoH with him and unmerged mythics (my highest offense mythic is a Plumeria +3 as example), its basically a 50/50 depending what opponents I get if I am able to stay in VoH or drop out, like right now I am currently out of the vault, it is hard to keep up with Joshua but it is possible to keep being in top 6k with him depending on matchups

I honestly just play the game to build up my favorite units, maybe they not as top tier anymore but I like building them to the point where I wanna challenge AR or SD

At this point, im just playing to treat my favs. AR was the only mode i took seriously but now i just coast in and out of VoH.

Ive been playing since winter edelgard came out. Shes what got me into the game. I felt called out when ya said "if your favorite is meta then congrats you win" cuz that was pretty much me lmao

Currently I find myself spending lots of orbs for merges on my projects that I never use like A Idunn…. While getting lucky one pulls like Igrene that just makes everything soooo easy. I feel like new units are sooo overpowered that you dont really need merges or inheritance for them to work. So just spark one and you can pretty much destroy most content outside summoner duels

Short answer is basically, yes you can still play, but having fun is another story. As a f2p launch player, the few things that keep me playing aren't related to the game itself (mostly sunk cost fallacy and liking the characters) Aether Raids was arguably the only fun and somewhat fair mode but powercreep killed it. Summoner Duels you could play a bit if you had some key roles, but now if you don't have the latest meta units (that have a lifespan of 3 months) and/or the busted skills, you just insta lose as soon as you run into them. Arena was always bad but is borderline unplayable now unless you just stop caring about your score. And pve is as boring as ever. But I think the worst of all is, most people just want to play with their favorites, but the amount of resources needed to optimize just 1 unit (and keep it up to date) is absurd, and even after spending months to achieve it, you'll just see it get curbstomped by any new unit with zero investment, so why bother?

I'm mostly f2p with the exception of the occasional feh pass, a fave gets added, or if I'm just a few summons away from a spark but have exhausted every orb resource in the game. There's really only an issue if you're competitive. If you're just casually playing, it's fine, even moreso if you have someone to play with. My partner and I build to challenge each other's keeps, which i find very fun

I stopped playing nearly 2 years ago because of the ludicrous power creep. The amount of investment I’d have to make just barely get by was really demoralizing

Tbh I think being f2p is easier than ever. Back in Day 1 you weren't méta if you didn' have +10 hector or +10 takumi. And sur you could counter them with some 4* but you still didn't have +10 hector. Then if you wanted to score well in arena you needed full +10 most recent armored units. Now thanks to arcane weapons And broken skills you can make à random 4* stand against all the prefered weapons+ prefered skills +10 whale characters. And sure you have to summon for them but that's kind of the point of à gacha to summon. And as I play many gacha games I can say that feh is very generous in terms of free orbs And 5* rates on banners. Most gacha stop at 1 or 2% chance of getting a 5* And unlike feh the rate doesn't go up the more you summon. Feh color separation also allows you to choose who you want to summon while other gachas put everything in the same box so you're never guaranteed the character you want. And having free summons on every new banners + tickets is a god sent. Let's take some gachas as exemple Food fantasy: most new banners require paid ressources And they limit the number of summon you can make with free ones, Poor drop rate and no free summon Genshin impact: they're so tightwad that when they put an event every 3 months to get the equivalent of 3 orbs in feh everyone is celebrating as if it was the most generous thing ever. Also to buy the equivalent of 1 orb you have to pay 160 of another ressource wich is also rare. If you want to pay real money it's 30€ to make what we call "à full circle" in feh. Also the drop rate is abyssmal and no free summon, you also have to summon for the weapon of the character 7ds grand cross: abysmal drop rate. You sometimes get banners with free summons but the only 5* avaible are the garbage one. Need to make 300 summon to get to the pity, one summon cost 30 diamonds and 1 diamonds is as rare than one orb in feh (so kinda generous but when you need 30 just for one summon it all of a sudden doesn't feel as generous) also if there's multiple characters on the banner you can't choose who you want when you get the pity It's random. Black clover mobile: abysmal droprate and they keep releassing broken characters weekly that you need to summon and full merge otherwise your account is dead because of how powercreep is out of hand. And there's skill ineritence or things like that so garbage characters are doomed to stay garbage forever. You also have to summon for the weapon of the character Pokemon master: most new/interesting banner require paid ressources to summon, you can't with the free one. And the free ressource is so rare that would have to save up an entire year just to be able to do 1 pity on a free banner

Been F2P since I started this game (~3 yrs), no money spent at all. I have been able to get by alright. It’s a little harder recently, but not to the point of quitting. I just focus on AR to be able to hover between tier 21 and tier 30 each season. Arena I stopped caring after receiving a crown, and SD I just go for max rewards on my Brave Edelgard and then dip. I don’t really pull for favorites but try to build up my favorite 4* with my limited resources. My biggest thing is having a rough idea when to spend orbs throughout the year and keeping an emergency fund for standout banner (I.e 3H winter). Also pulling for good supports instead of nukes helped me a lot.

I only summon the male characters that are hot or just anyone hot (Ephraim, Robin, Chrom, Byleth, Marth) well etc so im pretty F20

I’ve only payed money during the first year of FEH. Chalk it up to luck, but I’ve been able to somewhat cruise by as a F2P since then.

As f2p i only want to get as many characters as i can - i don't care about the merges, ivs, inheretance etc. and only summon on banners with good odds. I don't bother with new banners aside from mythics/legendaries and mostly get special heroes through event banners (like the current anniversary special focus). The biggest hurdle by far is patience - I have to restrain myself from the shiny new toy syndrome and save orbs wherever I can. I have been playing for about 1,5 year and so far got 661 characters so I'm not complaining. I would if i wanted to be competetive but i don't.

The problem is the continuous vommiting of 3-5 new skills literally each and every brand new banner. Doesn't help that a brand new banner literally comes out like once every 1-2 weeks. Allows no time for the average player to keep up the pace.

If you get a really good pull you can manage. One broken unit can carry f2p for a long time.

Biggest issue for me is the collection because even if I wanted to invest in a unit its even more expensive because Iwould need 2 copies of a character one for skills and one to keep. While also pretty p2w for competative modes Dx2 has a skill transfer system that destroys the sourced unit but you have the option of a transfer file to extract the skill from the unit so they just lose the skill but you can now transfer the skill to a yome else of you want

I think it comes down to time. The longer you have played the game the more units you'll inevitably have and the more practice you have at competitive game modes. I know someone who has always been f2p and for 7 years now and they are in vault of heaven and great summoner. Best part is they do it with their favourite characters!

Hi y'all f2p here, its very much possible. Just takes a lot of grinding on the paralouge levels. The most important thing as starting out is by choosing the right free 5 star units, i.e. Chrom and Corrin. The divine vein stone and Chrom's reposition will carry you all the way. Currently I have a +3 merged Emblem Chrom that is also hard carrying me through.

The place that the whales get me is Arena. Since I have been playing since February of 2017, I have the right units in my barracks to stay in tier 21. But it is painful since my old Legendaries and score-bots get walloped by most of the modern, meta units. Of course, new Legendaries like Camilla make the mode easy and fun, no matter how dated the rest of my team might be. So this nets out that I made the decision to hoard orbs to maximize my chance of getting the new Legendary heroes. Also, I've never really played Summoner Duels, partly because it just seemed so whale friendly. Of the three meta modes, Aether Raids is the most F2P friendly. I look forward to it every single day.

There are more tools than ever to make your favorite units work. Yeah, it takes orbs to get the fodder they need. The only mode that’s impossible to stay at the top level of while using your favorite units without ALSO abusing flavor-of-the-month meta units is Summoner Duels.

I had to break my FTP streak since launch because the Lumera + Emblem Marth banner pity broke me when I was forced to pick on colors I didn’t want *3* times.

First day player here, and mainly f2p (i buy the pass 2-3 times yearly). I think that if you want to compete, you can't be f2p anymore. Of course, the game is still good if you only want to play casually and collect units, but the game can't be considered f2p anymore. In the past you can hoard during months for a really powerfull unit, and since prf aren't that stacked, inerited skills allow the unit to be meta around a year and even launch units can be used. But now, every month we have at least 2 new meta units that usually does the same thay other meta unit but better, in comparison in the past we usually recive a tier 1 but not super broken unit every 2-3 months. In the past a grial unit super invested with premium skills can compete with the meta, but now prf are so stacked and powercreep is so fast that you don't feel rewarded for build a grial unit, since is thrash in comparison with all the duo and legendary units that come every month. Not help that we actually are probably in the worst meta that we have since launch, a complete hyper ofensive meta full of ofensive units with pre combat dmg, brave weapons, and skills that allow the unit to ignore the defensive enemy skills. And every recent unit designed to be meta do a million of things with even xy and % maths. F2P simply can't compete anymore.

Honestly I've been hounding them personally about cleaner effect text. But one person sending them feedback through their feedback feature once a month isn't going to change that. They already have keywords and are using them for blurbs at the end of effects. Now they just need to use more keywords and conditions. Then tap that keyword to have the blurb appear. Yeah multiple drop downs would be alot, but at least it wouldn't be a 5 paragraph effect text that's confusing to read. That's not personally why i think the game is unfriendly to f2p players, but it is unfriendly just in general to all players

Duo Ephraim having the biggest weapon subscription :D Tbh most things are skill issue. There are guys like PM1 and you who show how you can stay F2P and still hold top spots. But like me, many people are not that smart and not an 20 year fan of FE. I started 4 years ago and still im learning sometimes something new. But the hardest thing is to either pay the pass or miss out a ton of good stuff if you are not extrem lucky. Last Arena unit i got was L! Hinoka because i got lucky on the free summon. The one before her was L! Shez... The main reason how i play now vs before is. I worked for 2 years on my B! Dimitri (most favorite unit) and be happy as he finally got +10 and with good skills from forma. Just to experience, he just got useless in some month cuz SOOO many nukes got released, he can´t withstand if i don´t have the new support skills and heroes who mostly avaible in Myhic/Leg banners.... was so close to throw this game... I feel nowadays kinda reliefed, cuz i stopped caring about getting and holding AR-O-Heaven, T20,5/T21, playing SD. I just do the PvE Stuff and average PvP stuff. (in and out of heaven + T19-20 in Arena, stopped SD complete) I don´t pull on Mythic/Legend banners anymore and just pull on spark banners with Heroes who i find fun to play like Attuned Ivy and Arcane Hortensia. And i stopped having to many projects. I focus now on CYL Units if i like them like Gullveig (cheapest banner unit to +10) and favorites or QoL Units like Attuned Peony, Triandra, Plumeria. As well i upgrade some favorite Grail/4 Star. Sure they don´t be as op as the new Lyon etc. For my targets, they are enough i think. I just update their kits with recent stuff and try to have fun. BUT the new type of heroes just in Mythic/Leg Banners is a fucking stupid ass move against F2P. They want to lure us to purchase their really shitty pass... pissed me off really hard.

i JUST got back into this game and i am enjoying myself however i can see how F2P is more of a struggle then i thought as some of the special maps (the dark dragon girl is destroying me) can be REALLY HARD for me but ive been able to beat/do most of the content besides like seers snare that i have never been able to play but i can definitely see how F2P is a bit difficult. my only main issue with F2P experience is the pity being locked behind FEH pass and i REALLY don't like it.

I've been F2P since launch and what I do in the game is basically collecting characters. I build only those whom I can (Grail, 3-4* and 4-5* in the past). I pull generally on the seasonal banners and rarely on the New Heroes banners (only if they have someone I really want rn, or if it's a Rearmed hero I want), so I usually have meta units in some quantity. I play every PVE mod, including Arena and AR, which I really love, but I don't play PVP Summoner Duels anymore (it's scary). But otherwise, I still enjoy the game. I wish those descriptions were shorter, though. It's really tiresome to read all of it so I often don't.

I am F2P now, how? Just collect 160 orbs and then pity at pitiable banners.

Honestly having weekly tickets for old seasonals could help it somewhat

for me with f2p, arena and summoner duels is insanely tough but i’ve consistently been getting a bronze or silver throne in aether raids each week so it’s not impossible to be in vault of heaven (but it can be very annoying LOL)

Considering I’m someone who has saved 2000+ orbs waiting until they release a new Selkie, I don’t see any lack of orbs haha The real reason that the game isn’t F2P is I don’t know how anyone gets 50,000 points in TT without Auto Replay

- Building your favourites - Scoring well in AR (Mythic merges) - Doing well in SD (Keeping up with meta) As a F2P you can probably only choose one. Arena is nigh impossible unless you give up your sanity.

I'm F2P and the only competitive game mode I play consistently is arena. I don't even touch the other pvp modes because I know I don't stand a chance with all the whales there.

It really depends. I swore to never spend money in this game until they brought back four of my favorites in the same month. I got FEH Pass the day Marth dropped since I love my boy, and if I didn't buy the pass, I would have never gotten him. I had to spark Marth, Teatime Sigurd, and Valentines Day Leo. If you ask me, I did it because I love those boys and Marth just happens to be meta right now. However, I may play all the modes, but I don't really care about half of them. I just enjoy clearing stuff with Marth Emblem.

I cant complain about 3/6/8% banners. In other gatchas the chances are like, 0.3% with no garanteed character picks and a lot of trash in the way.

The only reason I play is to get characters I like. I never do any of the competitive stuff. I just collect the orbs I can and then hope I summon the characters I want.

I used to spend money on feh pass and occasional orbs, but I realized it's really not worth it. I've got my fully invested Raven, and all I really need is him and whatever modern 5 star I can scrounge from f2p orbs.

Dude ive been playing since book 2 and only a handful of my units are usable anymore It's just so depressing man I have a barracks full of used to be fun units but now i would need 3 premium skills and a weapon for all of them??? And the ones id need arent even avilable most of the time????? This is just stupid

The game is dead. I had my reasons for staying in it for so long, and I was saving up for a long time. In the end I broke--and if it was just about that, if that was the problem, I wouldn't have really had a problem because that's a moment of weakness for me. That's fine. Obviously I would have wanted to have kept saving, but in the end it was still my choice. And that's not why I'm here. The problem is that I rolled and rolled a few new things for free during an event, and then I found a character that I wanted a few merges of, and I spent a lot of orbs. A lot of them. I spent a lot of orbs, rolling for something that many people would have even at the time called outdated. I got Jack, and I got shit out of it; I walked away with nothing. And even then, even after everything I've told you, that would have been tolerable. I wouldn't have been fine I would have hated it, but my account and me playing the game could have both survived that. The only real problem is that the end of the day I took a look at everything I had rolled for, everything I had gotten, and I realized that no matter how cutting edge, it was all over. None of that, even if I had been able to pull multiple copies of the character I wanted, none of that, would have made a dent on the metal. Fast forward to today and we have characters with half a dozen effects that go off before the combat starts, we have people doing 96 damage four times, and other people who prevent that from happening. We have wide range area damage, buffs and debuffs, enough shit to where you need to read half a book and then the crack open your reference guide encyclopedia to make sure you understand exactly what's going to happen on player phase--never mind enemy phase where you can miss a small ability interaction between a random character in the back row of the enemy team and one of your supports and lose your entire team. Never mind the new mode where people are literally able to lock down your team through the entire thing while they kill your guys one at a time. This game has always been very anti-player. It's never had a chance of making top grossing, it's never had a chance of cracking up with the likes of Dokkan Battle or FGO, because this game thirsts for your money more than both of them combined and gives you less for it. But even then all those years ago, I could have never predicted the ridiculous amount of power creep and insane branching off this game has taken. I've basically quit, but I still hang around, peeking in on discussions, keeping up with some of the news, waiting for an alt for one specific character to ever show up though I doubt it will ever happen. And whenever I ask a question or speak up, whenever I do it deep dive on a Reddit thread or Twitter comment chain, I noticed almost University that a majority of the people still sticking with the game are whales who get new characters to +10 quick, and then debate amongst each other which of the newest broken characters is the most broken, before the cycle repeats next time a new heavy hitting banner comes out. It's just not a game for the common man anymore, and while at one point I had a very, very competitive account, those days ended a long time ago. I do not think it is possible to play this game very well as F2P, and I do not think it's possible at all to start it as such brand new.

I have been doing f2p since the start and Aether raids for me was more of a side thing so I can't say much. But when I encounter these meta units with my off radar guys and win somehow, that is a good feeling. I have more fun in doing #oops all healers in rival dominions or throwing LVL 1's at 35's

the temptation to spend is way too high, I had to quit for my wallets sake

The only "pvp" mode I bother with is resonant battles (it's not even really pvp but it's in the coliseum so eh) and I like the having to build a variety of units (fun long term goal) and finding answers to the puzzles offered

trying to compete for the top as f2p in a gacha game is a wild goose chase. dont compete for the top, just try to complete missions, do your free summons, and build your units. running out of content is going to happen no matter what game you play if you play it for long enough.

I have been using Grail units for a while now while sacrificing the new powercreep unit skills I sometimes get since the last time i spent money on FEH was the old Black Knight pack 👍

Yeah I've been a day 1 player, I've only spent a bit of money on feh pass for resplendents and a couple of orbs recently. I play the game a lot more casually now and just pull for fodder to be funny... And then said fodder gets powercrept and I find myself questioning my life's decisions (I'm looking at you, Arcane Grima and both NY Kana weapons)

honestly needing legendaries for arena really ins't the full picture. i am 20.5 and that misses like how much stuff compared to always 21 with my grail unit army vs 1000 orb bait units +10 ps.: why is it that the japanese always do text right and then it goes to the west and we just make it block text. thats not just a feh thing but just a general thing. they made it first so why don't we just copy the thing that we are SUPPOSED to copy anyways.

I've been f2p since day one and enjoyed it but now it's no fun at all. I actually stopped playing a few month ago bc of this

FTP ranking high in arena with crowns and Vault of Heaven is now long gone. It’s definitely become much harder, but not impossible.

0:20 HOW THE FUCK DID I NOT SEE THIS VIDEO BEFORE Nevermind I just saw it, that shit is diabolical please don't xd

Im free to play and my last goal that remained is hoping that a legendary alcryst comes on the banner.

As f2p i used to compete in both areba and AR. Arena i can't keep bein tier 21 anymore and now on AR i cant keep being voh unless i have a good bonus unit. SD I never tried

Personally, I say yes. It is totally possible to be F2P while still competitive in the higher echelons of the competitive modes. Even things like Summoner Duels, plenty of F2Ps regularly are able to reach Rank 1 while still being able to focus on other things. I'm basically F2P and still can compete in the competitive mode, using literally the same team to reach Rank 1 in SDR for like 6 months. I definitely agree Arena is for sure the most P2W mode in the game right now, and unironically I think SDR/S is the least P2W mode when it comes to ranking. But honestly I think a lot of folks really overestimate the "P2W"-ness of the modes as honestly, I truly believe anyone can be able to compete. I don't think it's hard to keep up, and I think an important distinction is units that are meta or powerful and units you actually need. A lot of folks equate the two, but it is very different and being able to identify what you actually need vs what is powerful is important.

ehh ive been playing since 2019, always f2p, but idk if id call aether raids f2p friendly at this point. it's one of my favourite modes, but it's become harder and harder to keep up. since enemy phase is basically dead and the game is overloaded with long-ranged nukes, it happens fairly often that you run into some team where you can see from the get-go you simply don't have the units to counter them. sure, you get free mythics, but theyre not enough - if you want to get anywhere you're going to have to specifically pull for units that'll help you counter common ar def threats

A F2P account made from last year and current year trounces F2P accounts made in Book V and below, this'll continue to be true forever

I'm a pay to play but I'm starting to loose sight of wanting to keep up with new units and skills I'll keep playing just gonna save my orbs for Brave Alfonse and be done.

My favorite units are Lyon and Catria and I’ve pulled every alt of both. Needless to say I’m eating good