Fire Emblem Three Houses is out now on Nintendo Switch, and it boasts some of the hardest and most satisfying battles in the entire Fire Emblem series. To get through these battles and best the game you’ll need to be a master in identifying the right equipment for the right battle, and more importantly: how every one of the game’s stats affecting your performance in the game. In particular, you may want to become an expert on the Fire Emblem Three Houses weight stat.
The weight stat for weapons, shield, armor, and other equipment can have a huge impact on how your characters fare in battle, so it’s important to know where to find it and what it does to your characters. In particular, does the weight stat affect Attack Speed, or some other variable? Is there a way to work out how it affects your stuff? Where do you find the weight of equipment? We’ve got the answers to all these questions below.
How does the Weight stat affect your equipment?
As you can probably tell right away, the weight stat works a little differently to how it does in previous Fire Emblem games, where it was a simple balancing stat. In fact it’s rather more complicated now, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses does a poor job of communicating what weight does and how it can affect your battle performance. There are many icons and stats in Three Houses that simply go unexplained, and Nintendo expects players to work out what they do by themselves. It’s more than a little frustrating.
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While weight can be spotted attached to any relevant piece of equipment (see below), it actually becomes a statistic that you have to know about, otherwise it can really mess up your Attack Speed. Essentially your Attack Speed is governed by three stats: Speed, Strength, and Weight. There’s a simple but important formula to help work it out, which, of course, the game doesn’t tell you.
Attack Speed = Speed – (Weight – Strength/5)
So basically, if your character has a Speed of 9 and a Strength of 10, but are carrying equipment into battle that weighs 6, their Attack Speed is 5. 10/5 = 2, 6-2 = 4, 9-4 = 5. While weight affects your Speed, it’s countered by Strength. If you’re careful and have high enough stats, you can remove any significant disadvantages from carrying heavy equipment. Every five Strength points can counteract one point of Weight.
How does the Fire Emblem Three Houses Weight stat affect combat?
Weapons generally all have some form of Weight cost, and so do Shields. The more powerful a weapon or shield, the higher a weight cost there will be, so in some ways its what stops players from immediately equipping the heavier, more damaging weapons. Axes are probably the heaviest weapons, although having both a sword and a shield equipped can seriously add to the weight. While a shield can offer you significant protection, it’ll have an impact on your Attack Speed. If you’re not careful with your weight management, this may result in enemies being able to attack way more than your characters do, and could cost you the battle.
Where to find the Fire Emblem Three Houses Weight stat
In order to know how the weight stat will affect your Attack Speed and battle prowess, you’ll first need to know exactly where to find it for each of your equipped items. Fortunately, this part is easy. Simply go to your equipment management screen, and find either the item you have equipped or thing you want to equip. Select “Details” of that item by pressing the “X” button, and you’ll see that item’s stats. Weight is represented by “Wt,” so the Leather Shield in the picture above has a weight value of one. Always check for this first, it can save your life.
