Choose Your Fliers: Ranged, Dragons and Dancers

Mage fliers on the whole are fairly rare, since the vast majority of them are seasonal/limited 5 star only heroes. Like swords, red mages in particular are rarer than their blue and green counterparts, however, they are excellent at patching up weaknesses in a team composition and face far less competition for their color slot.

Ranking: 4.5/5

With her native Grimoire, Nowi can be a highly mobile unit, darting in and out of combat whenever its advantageous for her. With a Blade tome, she’s an absolute monster, with 34 Attack and 33 Speed to help back her up. In addition, she comes with Hone Fliers, which would benefit any flier team.

Ranking: 5/5

As with most new heroes, Summer Tana manages to outstrip Halloween Nowi where it counts- she trades a few points of Resistance and Attack for a total of 33 Attack and 36 Speed. Her increased Speed will help her to double attack opponents more often, and with a Blade tome this means that she is all the more lethal for it.

While they are slightly less rare than red tomes, blue tome fliers are all still 5 star locked and the majority of them are seasonal. They all have relatively good killing power and would all make a great addition to any team.

Ranking: 4/5

While she’s stuck at an unfortunate 30 Speed, Female Morgan also has the highest Attack and Resistance stats of the blue tome fliers, with 34 Attack and 33 Resistance. This, coupled with her native Blárserpent, enables her to be a fearsome counter to mages. In addition, she can still run a Blade tome build, though the chances of her doubling are far less than the other blue tome heroes. Female Morgan’s best merit is that she is not a seasonal limited servant, so she can be pulled at any time, though she is a 5 star exclusive.

Ranking: 4.5/5

Releasing in the Summer of 2017, Summer Corrin splashes into flier emblem teams with an Attack and Speed of 31/34, making her a fairly decent choice for running a Blade tome build. Her native Sealife Tome is somewhat underwhelming, so it’s generally a good choice to replace it with a more powerful weapon.

Ranking: 5/5

Much like Tana improved Nowi’s stats, Summer Camilla makes a marked improvement over Summer Corrin, with an Atk/Spd spread of 33/36. In addition, she has a decent default weapon, which has built-in Desperation. This frees up her B slot to run her native Flier Formation- and to top it all off, she comes with Hone Fliers.

Unlike their blue and red brethren, green tome fliers vary greatly from unit to unit and while they can all run Blade tome builds, they can individually fill different niches as well.

Ranking: 5/5

Easily the most powerful of green fliers and perhaps all flier mages, Nino comes with an added benefit of not being a limited seasonal unit, though she is a 5 star exclusive. With Attack/Speed of 33/38 and a PRF tome that increases her damage with the Speed differential between her and her opponent, Nino is fearsome indeed, and likely the best option for a Blade tome among all tome fliers.

Ranking: 4/5

The first flier mage to ever be released is Spring Camilla. With unusually high Attack and Defense at 35 and 30 respectively, she trades a low Speed (25) and Resistance (19). This makes her less capable of handling engagements where she’ll need to double, but she is generally good at one-shotting and the best option if you want to run a Raven tome build in order to counter archers.

Ranking: 4/5

Sanaki has an extremely high Attack stat at 36, coupled with a fantastic Resistance of 33, which makes her excellent at countering green and blue magical units alike. Her Speed leaves a bit to be desired at 30, and she can be considered to be the green version of Female Morgan.

It’s difficult to go wrong with magic damage, adaptive damage at range, and high stat totals. Dragon fliers are some of the best units in all of flier emblem, and including any of them on your team would help immensely. This comes with the drawback that they are very difficult to get, as all of them are 5 star exclusive, one is limited, and one is a Legendary Hero.

Ranking: 5/5

Easily one of the best units that flier emblem has to offer, Myrrh comes with 33 Attack, 36 Defense, and- well, her Speed doesn’t matter, because her legendary breath weapon disables enemy follow-up attacks as long as her Defense stat is 5 points higher than theirs. This makes Myrrh the standout best Enemy Phase flier unit, as she does magic damage, is rarely doubled, and has extremely high Attack and Defense, with respectably high Resistance.

Ranking: 5/5

Young Summer Tiki can do something that no other flier can do: increase her Special cooldowns via a Steady Breath-esque effect, thanks to her default breath weapon. Summer’s Breath not only grants her Steady Breath, but also effectiveness against other dragons, Defense +3, and adaptive damage when hit by ranged attacks. With all of these effects together, Young Summer Tiki operates best during the Enemy Phase, though with her Speed of 37, she can do some damage in Player Phase as well, making her a fantastic red generalist.

Ranking: 4.5/5

Robin has a somewhat uninspired stat spread of 32 Attack, 35 Speed, and 32 Defense. While this may be excellent on another unit, due to her colorless typing she is not able to use color effectiveness in battle. This does come with a defensive benefit, as Robin can be used to counter whatever your team may be weak to. With her native Distant Counter breath weapon and her Dragonskin, which negates bow effectiveness to fliers, Legendary Female Robin is definitely a great generalist to add to your team, and is an excellent option to patch up any weak spots you may have.

Both of the currently-released bow units in Fire Emblem Heroes are very similar, and while both are 5 star only, one is locked to seasonal limited. Utilizing a bow in a flier team can be very powerful, as it enables you to run a Firesweep Bow or Brave Bow set while being buffed by your fellow fliers. Dagger units are equally sparse and seasonal-limited, and offers a nice flexibility to your team.

Ranking: 4.5/5

As the first bow flier released, Hinoka did not disappoint.Her personal bow, Warrior Princess, grants her effectiveness against armored units and also +3 Speed, giving her an Atk/Spd of 32/38. With her natural skillset, she’s able to oneshot many armored units, as well as duel a few mages.

Ranking: 4.5/5

While Hinoka’s PRF weapon makes her amazing, Takumi is perhaps the better choice to run bows like Firesweep and Brave, due to his offensive stats of 35/35 and his somewhat higher defensive bulk.

Ranking: 4/5

Spring Kagero has a fantastic offensive spread, but very little defensive bulk, which tends to be a problem when she initiates on opponents with Distant Counter. Her fragility and the lack of good options for dagger weapons makes her slightly less appealing than either of the bow users, but she’s a great ranged unit all the same.

It’s hard to go wrong with including a dancer on your team, as they dramatically increase the effectiveness of Player Phase units and help significantly with positioning. Fliers are also the only non-infantry movement type to include dancers, and there are several to choose from. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are seasonal limited and they are all 5 star exclusives.

Ranking: 5/5

With respectable Attack and Speed of 30/35, New Year Azura can fill the role of both dancer and offensive axe user, though she is not as good in combat as a unit like Summer Innes. Still, with Hagoita, Hone Fliers, and Earth Dance all in her native kit, she excels at not only dancing her fellow fliers, but also buffing them significantly.

Ranking: 5/5

Olivia does not have much competition as a sword flier, and she’s pretty respectable at it, with stats of 30/34/26 Atk/Spd/Def. This allows her to be used in combat when necessary, though her best utility comes from her dancing with Skuld, her legendary weapon which grants +3 to all stats for the target of her Dance. This makes her a very good partner for a bladetome mage, as she can singlehandedly increase their damage by 15 per attack after a Dance.

Ranking: 4.5/5

Ninian comes back as a June Bride with a blue tome to her name and- not a whole lot else. Sporting the obscenely low base stat total of a magic-using dancer, Bridal Ninian performs rather poorly in combat, but has the unique ability to equip a Blade tome which drastically increases her capabilities. Still, it’s generally for the best to run her with a more supportive skill set, which can allow her to buff her allies significantly, while also decreasing her opponent’s Attack with her native Chill Attack B slot.