Fire Emblem Heroes Update Revamps Voting Gauntlet

Fire Emblem Heroes’s metagame is as alive as it’s always been, and if there are any doubts about that, a selection of spellcasters is on its way to prove it once and for all. The mobile game’s next voting gauntlet, taking place from May 12 through May 18, features Merric, male Robin, Henry, and Leo for the guys, and Linde, Julia, Tharja, and Sanaki for the ladies. As always, participants will place all their bets on a single character to compete tournament-style against the others with a handful of hero feathers at stake. Unlike before, there are a few changes to the way ranks and rewards work this time around. To make things more fair, the weaker army will receive temporary score boosts when voting.

The 1.3.0 update to Fire Emblem Heroes adds a very welcome bonus to the gauntlet: Orbs. Precious, beautiful orbs. It also restructures the reward system itself, introducing tier levels from one to twenty. The good news is, even the lowest of the low competitors will win something now – a paltry 100 feathers. The greatest of the great will receive four orbs (just short of a full summoning session) and a new car! Just kidding, they get 3,000 feathers. The bad news: it’s still possible to be demoted to a lower tier, but now it’s based on your player rank rather than your score. Demotions come into play starting on the 8th tier.

Ranks in Fire Emblem Heroes are determined by your number of wins and losses. Those percentages show how many ranks a player will rise or drop. I.E., a tier 8 will jump up to 11 if they’re in the top 20% of players, but drop down to 7 if they’re below the top 80%.

The last changes to Fire Emblem Heroes come in the form of a double defense score from using bonus heroes in the Arena, as well as adding new arena maps with defensive terrain to compete in. Defensive terrain grants 30% defense or resistance to any unit occupying that space. Enemy levels in the eighth and ninth training tower strata have been adjusted as well.

Can’t get enough of Fire Emblem? Have a look at these speedruns of the latest in the series, Fire Emblem Fates.