Affinity

Attribute redirects here. For the attributes applied to weapons in Fire Emblem Warriors, see List of weapon attributes of Fire Emblem Warriors.

The affinity as seen on Eirika's profile in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.

“	The seven affinities... Their effects only appear through bonds with others. When your heart is linked with someone else's... That is when the elements reveal their true power.	”	— Dayan

Affinities (Japanese: 属性 attribute), known as attributes in Path of Radiance, are a game mechanic which were introduced in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. It is an attribute innate to every playable unit which gives them one of several elemental affiliations which influence the effects of supports on a unit. Every affinity awards a different set of bonuses which improve a unit's performance when they have a support relationship with another unit, and when two units support each other their bonuses are added together, giving different combinations of units different support bonuses. In Radiant Dawn, affinity awards other bonuses in addition to this.

Affinities are present in only five games in the Fire Emblem series, and were removed in all games from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon onward.

Overview

In every game that features affinities, all playable units are given one affinity. Depending on the game, enemy and NPC forces may or may not have affinities as well. The primary use of affinities is to determine what stats characters gain boosts in when they support with other units. This, however, renders affinities on non-playable characters and bosses useless, with some exceptions; in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, for instance, the bosses Paul and Jasmine have an A support with each other, thus allowing for the two to increase their stats if they stand near each other.

In terms of supports, boosts in stats given by the affinity of two characters stack, and their initial effects are doubled and then tripled for B and A level supports; effects that have a decimal in their total sum, however, are rounded down.

For example: In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Nino and Canas achieve a C-rank support. Canas's anima affinity gives +0.5 attack, +0.5 defense, +2.5 avoid, and +2.5 dodge, while Nino's fire affinity gives +0.5 attack, +2.5 hit rate, +2.5 avoid, and +2.5 crit. These are added and rounded down to the nearest integer to give both of them +1 attack, +2 hit rate, +5 avoid, +2 crit, and +2 dodge when they are positioned within 3 spaces of each other.
When Nino and Canas reach their B-rank support, their C-rank bonuses (pre-rounding down) are doubled to give them +2 attack, +5 hit rate, +10 avoid, +5 crit, +5 dodge, and +1 defense.
When they reach their A-rank support, their C-rank bonuses (pre-rounding down) are tripled to give them +3 attack, +7 hit rate, +15 avoid, +7 crit, +7 dodge, and +1 defense.

In-universe role

In The Binding Blade, Dayan and Yoder discuss the role of affinities in the religious cultures of Elibe in their support conversations. Both the traditional mythology of Sacae and the teachings of Saint Elimine state that all people are connected with and protected by one elemental affinity which is bestowed upon them by a divine power (the sky and earth in Sacaen lore, and the creator gods in Eliminean lore); Dayan says that he is aware that his affinity is anima, suggesting that he learned this through the Sacaen culture. According to both mythologies, affinities are powerless on their own, but forming bonds and "linking hearts" with others reveals their true power, although neither Dayan nor Yoder is sure what this true power is.

Game Boy Advance games

In the three Game Boy Advance titles—Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, The Blazing Blade, and The Sacred Stones—there are seven affinities.

No enemies in The Binding Blade have affinities. In The Blazing Blade, only seven enemies have affinities, all of them bosses: Paul, Jasmine, Lloyd, Linus, Brendan, Kishuna, and the dragon. In The Sacred Stones, all bosses have affinities; additionally, all monster units have the dark affinity.

The seven affinities award bonuses as follows:

Affinity	Atk	Def	Hit	Avo	Crit	Ddg
Fire	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5	+2.5	+2.5	+0.0
Thunder	+0.0	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5	+2.5	+2.5
Wind	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5	+0.0	+2.5	+2.5
Ice	+0.0	+0.5	+2.5	+2.5	+0.0	+2.5
Dark	+0.0	+0.0	+2.5	+2.5	+2.5	+2.5
Light	+0.5	+0.5	+2.5	+0.0	+2.5	+0.0
Anima	+0.5	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5	+0.0	+2.5

Tactician's bonus in The Blazing Blade

Main article: Tactician (The Blazing Blade) § Tactician's bonus

Uniquely in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the game's customizable tactician character gives the player's units a "tactician's bonus" based on affinity. Units who share the same affinity which the player assigned to the tactician at the beginning of the game gain small statistical boosts to their hit rate and avoid, which grow stronger as the tactician's ranking increases throughout the game. Additionally, every unit also receives a boost to dodge regardless of affinity. For every star displayed in the tactician's Rank menu in preparations, units receive +1 to each calculation they qualify, for a maximum +10 boost per calculation.

The Japanese versions of the game also feature the ability to choose the tactician's blood type, which further altered their affinity. As blood types hold a considerably lesser significance in Western culture, this option was removed in localization.

Affinities are assigned to the tactician based on birth month as follows:

NTSC/PAL JPN

Month	Affinity
January	Light
February	Ice
March	Wind
April	Thunder
May	Wind
June	Anima
July	Fire
August	Dark
September	Fire
October	Anima
November	Ice
December	Thunder

Month	Blood type A	Blood type B	Blood type O	Blood type AB
January	Ice	Wind	Fire	Ice
February	Wind	Fire	Thunder	Anima
March	Ice	Wind	Anima	Thunder
April	Anima	Fire	Thunder	Ice
May	Light	Thunder	Fire	Wind
June	Thunder	Anima	Wind	Fire
July	Anima	Wind	Ice	Thunder
August	Wind	Dark	Fire	Anima
September	Fire	Ice	Anima	Thunder
October	Ice	Anima	Wind	Fire
November	Anima	Thunder	Ice	Ice
December	Thunder	Fire	Wind	Light

{{{content3}}}

{{{content4}}}

{{{content5}}}

{{{content6}}}

{{{content7}}}

{{{content8}}}

{{{content9}}}

{{{content10}}}

{{{content11}}}

{{{content12}}}

{{{content13}}}

{{{content14}}}

{{{content15}}}

Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn feature eight affinities. Unlike in the Game Boy Advance games, affinities no longer award bonuses to crit or dodge. Additionally, in Radiant Dawn, affinity only influences the effects of buddy supports, while all bond supports provide the same crit bonus regardless of affinity

In Path of Radiance, all bosses except Tomenami have an affinity, while generic enemies and NPCs still do not. In Radiant Dawn, all units of all affiliations are assigned affinities.

Radiant Dawn also assigns an affinity to each chapter, which is displayed in the corner of the terrain window. If a unit of any affiliation has an affinity matching the map's affinity, they are awarded a bonus of +5 hit rate and +5 avoid to units with an affinity matching the map. Most bosses share their affinity with the chapter in which they are fought. Affinity bonuses are nullified entirely in Hard Mode.

The bonuses awarded by the affinities differ slightly between the two games. They are as follows:

Path of Radiance Radiant Dawn

Affinity	Atk	Def	Hit	Avo
Fire	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5	+0.0
Thunder	+0.0	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5
Wind	+0.0	+0.0	+2.5	+2.5
Water	+0.5	+0.5	+0.0	+0.0
Dark	+0.5	+0.0	+0.0	+2.5
Light	+0.0	+0.5	+2.5	+0.0
Heaven	+0.0	+0.0	+5.0	+0.0
Earth	+0.0	+0.0	+0.0	+5.0

Affinity	Atk	Def	Hit	Avo
Fire	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5	+0.0
Thunder	+0.0	+0.5	+0.0	+2.5
Wind	+0.0	+0.0	+2.5	+2.5
Water	+0.5	+0.5	+0.0	+0.0
Dark	+0.5	+0.0	+0.0	+2.5
Light	+0.0	+0.5	+2.5	+0.0
Heaven	+0.0	+0.0	+9.0	+0.0
Earth	+0.0	+0.0	+0.0	+7.5

{{{content3}}}

{{{content4}}}

{{{content5}}}

{{{content6}}}

{{{content7}}}

{{{content8}}}

{{{content9}}}

{{{content10}}}

{{{content11}}}

{{{content12}}}

{{{content13}}}

{{{content14}}}

{{{content15}}}

Flavor text

Game	Text (English)	Text (Japanese)
The Binding Blade	Elemental affinity. Determines compatibility with other units.*	加護を受けている属性です 他のユニットとの相性を決めます
The Blazing Blade	Elemental affinity. Determines compatibility with other units.	加護を受けている属性です 他のユニットとの相性を決めます
The Sacred Stones	Elemental affinity. Determines compatibility with other units.	加護を受けている属性です 他のユニットとの相性を決めます
Path of Radiance	The divine protection this unit receives. This affects its affinity with other units.	加護を受けている属性です 他のユニットとの相性を決めます
Radiant Dawn	The unit's elemental affinity. This affects support bonuses and grants advantages on maps with the same element.	ユニット自身の加護属性 同じ属性のマップで戦いやすくなる 支援の効果にかかわる

Trivia

Character affinities displayed under the section labeled "ATL".

• Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade's support viewer calls affinities by the abbreviation "ATL" (presumably intended to be short for "attribute") in the Japanese and North American versions of the game; this seems to have been a mix-up of R and L, which occurs occasionally in Japanese materials (for example, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem abbreviates critical rate as "CLT" in battle). The PAL versions of The Blazing Blade and all versions of The Sacred Stones use the abbreviation "AFFIN".
  • The same term, Affin (属性 attribute in the Japanese versions), is used to refer to the types of weapons in some menus of Genealogy of the Holy War through The Sacred Stones.
• The Sacred Stones was the first game to give all bosses an affinity. The Binding Blade and The Blazing Blade, the two previous games with affinities, did not give all bosses the attribute.
  • Additionally, all monsters in The Sacred Stones have the dark affinity.

Etymology and other languages

Names, etymology and in other regions
Language	Name	Definition, etymology, and notes
English	• Affinity • Attribute	An affinity is a feeling of kinship, attraction or aptitude for a person, place, or thing. This name is used in The Blazing Blade, The Sacred Stones, and Radiant Dawn. • This name is used only in Path of Radiance.
Japanese	属性	Attribute
Spanish	Afinidad	Affinity
French	Affinité	Affinity
German	Affinität	Affinity
Italian	Affinità	Affinity