Dread Fighter

Dread Fighter Artwork of a Dread Fighter from Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. A unit with physical prowess and high magic resistance.

Unit type(s) Infantry Weapon(s) Sword (Gaiden, Echoes: Shadows of Valentia) Sword, Axe, Tome (Awakening) Katana, Club, Shuriken (Fates) Skill(s) Resistance +10, Aggressor (Awakening) Even Keel, Iron Will, Clarity (Fates) Resistance +5, Apotrope, Antihex (Echoes: Shadows of Valentia)

The Dread Fighter (Japanese: 魔戦士 Masensi) is an advanced sword-wielding class which was introduced in Fire Emblem Gaiden. They are characterised primarily by their very high speed and resistance, also boasting high levels of HP and Strength. They originated in Gaiden as a rare third-tier advanced class and the final class changed form of the Mercenary, promoting from Myrmidon; like these classes, it is locked to using only swords. The traits of the Gaiden version of the class carried over to its remake, Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.

In Awakening and Fates, the Dread Fighter acts as a reward for players for buying downloadable content, and is accessed through use of the Dread Scroll item; the Awakening version is male-exclusive, while the Fates incarnation of the class is not restricted by the gender of the unit. In the former game, the Dread Fighter is part of the Lost Bloodlines 2 DLC package, while in the latter, it is the Hoshido-aligned link-up reward for owning both of the game's campaigns, with its Nohr counterpart being the Dark Falcon. Although their stats are similar to their original Gaiden incarnation, Dread Fighters in these games gain weapons they couldn't previously use in addition to their original swords: axes and tomes in Awakening, and axes and daggers in Fates. Traditionally, this class is exclusive to male units (such as in its debut and Awakening), though it had briefly become a unisex class in Fates.

Stats

Base stats

Game	HP	Strength	Magic	Skill	Speed	Luck	Defense	Resistance	Movement	Constitution	Weight	Experience	CRP	Weapon level
Gaiden	36	15	--	16	18	0	11	15	7	--	--	180	2	Sword
Awakening	22	8	4	7	9	0	7	10	6	--	--	--	--	E E E
Fates	19	8	3	6	8	1	6	9	6	--	--	--	--	E E E
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia	36	15	--	16	18	0	11	6	7	--	--	180	2

Max stats

Game	HP	Strength	Magic	Skill	Speed	Luck	Defense	Resistance	Movement	Constitution	Weapon level
Gaiden	52	40	--	40	40	40	40	40	7	--	Sword
Awakening	80	42	38	40	41	45	39	43	8	--	A A A
Fates	55	32	28	29	31	26	29	34	8	--	A B B

Class growth rates

Game	HP	Strength	Magic	Skill	Speed	Luck	Defense	Resistance	Charm	Constitution*	Movement*	Weapon level
Gaiden	150%	50%	--	50%	50%	0%	50%	0%	--	--	--	--
Awakening	40/80%	20/40%	10/20%	20/40%	20/40%	0/40%	10/25%	10/25%	--	--	--	--
Fates	15%	15%	5%	5%	15%	0%	5%	20%	--	--	--	--
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (Player)	0%	-5%	--	5%	5%	0%	-5%	0%	--	--	--	--
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (Enemy)	80%	50%	--	50%	50%	0%	25%	0%	--	--	--	--

See class growth rate for more details on the mechanics of class growths in each game.

Class skills

Game	Skill	Learning conditions
Gaiden Echoes: Shadows of Valentia	Antihex	Innate; hidden in both games and unnamed in Gaiden.
Awakening	Resistance +10	Learned at Level 1.
Awakening Fates	Aggressor	• Awakening: Learned at Level 15. • Fates: Learned from Level 35 and up.
Fates	Even Keel	Learned from Level 1 and up.
Fates	Iron Will	Learned from Level 10 and up.
Fates	Clarity	Learned from Level 25 and up.
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia	Resistance +5	Innate.
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia	Apotrope	Innate.

Class change

Gaiden

Trainee class	Method	Base class	Method	Advanced class	Method	Advanced class	Method	Trainee class
Villager	After reaching Level 3, at any Mila Shrine.	Mercenary	After reaching Level 7, at any Mila Shrine.	Myrmidon	After reaching Level 10, at any Mila Shrine.	Dread Fighter	After reaching Level 10, any at Mila Shrine.	Villager

Awakening

Any class	Promotion method	Special class
? Any male class	Using a Dread Scroll after reaching Level 10 (base or special class)/at any level (advanced class).	Dread Fighter

Fates

Any class	Promotion method	Special class
? Any class	Using a Dread Scroll.	Dread Fighter

Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Trainee-like class	Method	Basic class	Method	Promoted class	Method	Promoted class	Method	Trainee-like class
Villager	After reaching Level 3, at Mila Shrine.	Mercenary	After reaching Level 7, at Mila Shrine.	Myrmidon	After reaching Level 10, at Mila Shrine.	Dread Fighter	After reaching Level 10, at Mila Shrine.	Villager
							After reaching Level 20, at the Altar of the Ogre.	Yasha

Playable Dread Fighters

Playable Characters
Name	Game
Alm	Awakening (DLC version only)
Playable Dread Fighter units in the Fire Emblem series.

Notable enemy Dread Fighters

Enemy Units
Name	Game
Grieth	Gaiden, Shadows of Valentia
Xaizor	Gaiden, Shadows of Valentia
Alm	Awakening (Lost Bloodlines 2 only)
Cerberus	Shadows of Valentia
Naberius	Shadows of Valentia
Enemy Dread Fighter units in the Fire Emblem series.

Flavor text

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Game	Text (English)	Text (Japanese)
Awakening	An enigma with superior resistance. Wields swords, axes, and tomes.	??
Fates	An elite Hoshidan warrior trained in katana, clubs, and shuriken.	白夜の兵種。特殊な戦闘技術を学んだ者。 刀・金棒・手裏剣を、変幻自在に繰り出す。
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (class roll)	Mystic warriors with an exotic air. Augmenting their physical prowess is a remarkably high resistance to magic.	どこか異国の雰囲気を 帯びた神秘的な剣士。 高い身体能力を 持つばかりでなく、 魔法に対しても 非常に高い耐性を持つ。
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (help)	A unit with physical prowess and high magic resistance.	高い身体能力と 魔法への高い耐性をもつ

Trivia

• In Awakening, all Dread Fighters are constantly surrounded by a red miasma, with the exception of legacy bonus units (like Alm himself); these units instead have the blue miasma standard to all bonus units. All Dread Fighters in Fates are also surrounded by a blue miasma.
• In Gaiden, the Dread Fighter is the only class in the game that allows its user to revert back to a lower-tier class, in this case the Villager. When this happens, the unit retains its stats, can gain stats from growth as usual and can promote all the way to Dread Fighter again and repeat the process with no cost whatsoever. This is commonly referred to as the "Dread Fighter Loop", and it can max out any compatible character's stats, though it is typically not worth the effort on a normal playthrough. In Echoes, the "Dread Fighter Loop" works in the same way, however if the user instead promotes to Yasha, they will not be able to promote back to Villager without the use of a Villager's Fork.

Etymology and other languages

Names, etymology and in other regions
Language	Name	Definition, etymology and notes
English	Dread Fighter	As of Fire Emblem Awakening.
English (unofficial)	• Demon Fighter • Slayer	• Popularized by Serenes Forest. • Used in the Gaiden fan translation, owing to the limited space available for class names.
Japanese	魔戦士	Officially romanized as Masensi in the Fates class roll, this being a literal romanization with no attempt to translate meaning into English. The term can be translated many ways, including "demon warrior", "mage warrior", and "evil warrior". In Gaiden itself, the name is the same but is spelled in hiragana as ませんし, rather than in kanji as in later games.
Spanish	• Mago guerrero • Ajusticiador	• Mage warrior. This name is used in Awakening. • Executor. This name is used in Fates and Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.
French	• Héros mage • Terreur	• Mage hero. This name is used in Awakening. • Terror. This name is used in Fates and Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.
German	Dunkelkrieger	Dark warrior
Italian	Cuortempesta	Possibly a compound of the Italian cuore, "heart", and tempesta, "storm".
Dutch	Schaduwjager	Shadowhunter
Korean	마전사	Magic warrior
Simplified Chinese	魔战士	Demon/magic warrior
Traditional Chinese	魔戰士	Demon/magic warrior

Gallery

• 

  Concept artwork of a Dread Fighter from The Art of Fire Emblem Awakening.

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  Concept artwork of a Dread Fighter's helmet from The Art of Fire Emblem Awakening.

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  Artwork of a Dread Fighter from Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.

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  Tobin as a Dread Fighter, fighting a generic enemy Dread Fighter, in Gaiden.

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  Henry as a Dread Fighter in Awakening.

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  Elise as a Dread Fighter in Fates.

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  The generic Dread Fighter portrait in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.

• 

  The generic Specter/Death Mask Dread Fighter portrait in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.

See also

• Cerberus
• Mortal Savant
• Naberius

This article is part of Project Classes, a project focused in writing articles for every class present in the Fire Emblem series.