A weapon or item'sdurability oruses is a value which tracks the number of times it can be used to attack before it breaks and is no longer usable. Every time a weapon is used toattack an enemy, or every time an item is used, its durability value decreases by 1, often expressed as "using one use" of the weapon. The durability system is present in allFire Emblem series games exceptGaiden andShadows of Valentia;Fates andEngage also omit durability for weapons, giving every weapon in those games infinite durability, but durability still applies forstaves anditems.

Overview

In general, there is a pattern to a weapon's durability relative to itsmight,weapon level and other stats: typically, the weakest weapons in the game (e.g.Iron Sword orFire) will have significantly higher usage (typically around 45) than stronger weapons of higher rank (e.g.Silver Sword andBolganone, typically at 20 uses), and often rarestaves with unusual effects (e.g.Silence,Hammerne) will have even lower usage than that. The primary exception isGenealogy of the Holy War, in which all weapons (except theLands Sword) have 50 uses, though rare staves will still have just 1–5.

Typically, a weapon's durability is reduced by one for every time the wielder successfully strikes an opponent with it. However, some weapons do not follow this principle. Whentomes andstaves miss they suffer a durability decrease despite not hitting the target, aside from inShadow Dragon & the Blade of Light,Shadow Dragon, andGenealogy of the Holy War. InThracia 776, all attacks at 2-range or further will cost durability—even on a miss—including ranged lances or axes and ranged attacks on magic swords, but staves will only deplete on a hit. Additionally, inShadow Dragon andNew Mystery of the Emblem,dragonstones lose durability every time the user transforms, even if they are unable to attack; e.g. ifTiki is attacked by anArcher while equipped with herDivinestone, she will transform to take the blow but is unable to retaliate, reducing the durability of her dragonstone by 1.

InShadow Dragon and the Blade of Light throughThracia 776 (exceptGaiden), weapons do not break until the end of combat; even if a unit enters combat with a 1-durability weapon but lands 4 attacks, all 4 attacks will function properly and the weapon does not break until the end of combat. Furthermore, inGenealogy of the Holy War, weapon durability is checked at the end of each round of combat for the purposes ofAccost; if the user's weapon would otherwise have broken, the user's weapon breaks, combat ends and Accost is unable to activate; however, in theArena, weapons are unable to break until one party is defeated or the player yields, irrespective of how many rounds of combat occur.

Restoring durability

In most games, a weapon or item will disappear entirely when its durability reaches 0. A durability-restoring item must be used before the value hits 0. The exceptions areMystery of the Emblem,Genealogy of the Holy War,Thracia 776, andThree Houses, in which once a weapon breaks it becomes aBroken Sword,Broken Lance,Broken Axe,Broken Bow,Drained Tome,Broken Staff, orBroken Gauntlets depending on its original weapon type. These remnants allow the player an opportunity to repair the weapons even after reaching 0 durability, or can simply be discarded if unwanted. In these four games, non-weapon items do not leave any remnants behind and thus are not able to repaired.

InGenealogy of the Holy War'scastle towns, all units can readily access a weapon repair shop, which fully restores a weapon's durability for a fee equivalent to a fraction of the weapon's baseworth. If a unit does not have enough funds to fully repair a given weapon, the repair shop will restore as many uses as possible with the amount of funds available. A similar function is available at theBlacksmith inThree Houses, where repairing also requires someore in addition to an amount of gold proportional to the weapon's worth.

FromShadow Dragon toFates, two separate instances of the same item (including weapons and staves) can be merged together in thepreparations menu, combining the remaining uses of both items into a single item. However, inAwakening, this cannot be done toforged weapons. It is done automatically in the convoy inAwakening, rather than being done manually by the player; this has the side effect of possibly merging things which the player may not have wanted to be merged.

InThree Houses only, allblack magic,white magic, anddark magic spells have all of their uses replenished at the end of a battle, though this is offset by the spells having lower durability across the board. This means that, instead of being limited by how many times they can be used per playthrough, they are limited by how many times they can be used per battle.

Items and skills affecting durability

Skills that affect durability
	Item	Effect	Games
	Corrosion	Reduces the durability of the bearer's enemy's equipped weapon by a significant amount.	Path of Radiance,Radiant Dawn
	Armsthrift	Grants bearer a chance of the durability of their weapon not decreasing, at a rate of (Luck x 2)%. With this skill, it is possible to never have durability decrease at all by equipping it to a unit who has 50 or greaterLuck, a feat all units can easily achieve through use of theLimit Breaker skill.	Awakening
	Black Magic Uses x	Increases the maximum number of uses forblack magic.	Three Houses
	Dark Magic Uses x	Increases the maximum number of uses fordark magic.	Three Houses
	White Magic Uses x	Increases the maximum number of uses forwhite magic.	Three Houses
	Infinite Magic	Removes the limit on how many timesblack magic,dark magic, andwhite magic can be casted, allowing them to be used infinitely.	Three Houses
	Crest of Blaiddyd	May double the user'sattack when usingcombat arts, but expends twice as much durability if it activates on the first (or only) hit of a combat art.	Three Houses
	Crest of Dominic	May conserve a use of attack magic.	Three Houses
	Crest of Noa	May conserve a use of attack magic.	Three Houses
	Crest of Timotheos	May conserve a use of recovery magic.	Three Houses
	Crest of Lamine	May conserve a use of recovery magic.	Three Houses

Items that affect durability
	Item	Effect	Games
--	Helarn	Unused. Sets target weapon's durability to infinite, making it unbreakable.	Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light
	Hammerne	Completely replenishes target weapon to maximum durability. Cannot be used on items or weapons likeDragonstones, or another copy of itself.	Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light,Mystery of the Emblem,The Binding Blade,The Blazing Blade,The Sacred Stones,Path of Radiance,Radiant Dawn,Shadow Dragon,New Mystery of the Emblem,Awakening
	Starsphere	Passively prevents the durability of aunit's weapons from decreasing during combat when held in their inventory.	Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light,Mystery of the Emblem,Shadow Dragon
	Repair	Completely replenishes target weapon to maximum durability. Cannot be used on items.	Thracia 776

Additionally, inRadiant Dawn, beforeRebirth part 3,Yune blesses the equipped weapon of every unit in the party; This grants them infinite durability and the ability to ignore theMantle skill.

Unbreakable weapons

The following weapons have infinite durability and are thus unbreakable:

Other appearances

Super Smash Bros. series

This article or section is a short summary of Durability. SmashWiki featuresa more in-depth article.

InSuper Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS andWii U andSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate,Robin is exclusively affected by an emulation of theFire Emblem durability system. Their four special moves -Thunder,Elwind,Arcfire andNosferatu - each have a durability value assigned to them, as does theLevin Sword used in Robin'ssmash andaerial attacks. Each use of the respective attack consumes that attack's durability points, and once the weapon's durability is depleted it breaks and must be left to recharge for a set period of time before it can be used again. If Robin attempts to use a special move during its recharge phase, it will fail; if they attempt to use a smash or aerial attack, they instead use a weakerBronze Sword to perform the attack, which won't break but deals far less damage than the Levin Sword does.

As a weapon's durability is depleted, it will start flashing black as it comes close to breaking. Once its last use is used, Robin will automatically throw away the broken weapon, which will vanish once it hits the ground. If they are fast enough, any fighter participating in a match, including Robin themself, can catch the broken weapon in mid-air as an item; its only use in this state is to be thrown at enemies to deal a small amount of damage.

The durability values of Robin's weapons are as follows:

• Thunder: 20 durability points, 10-second recharge after breaking. Each charged variant consumes a different amount of durability: Thunder consumes 1,Elthunder 3,Arcthunder 5, andThoron 8. Durability values are altered by the Thunder+alternate special move.
• Elwind: 9 durability points, 6-second recharge after breaking. Each use of Elwind, both as a special move and as a jab finisher, consumes 1 durability point.
• Arcfire: 6 durability points, 10-second recharge after breaking. Each use of Arcfire, both as a special move and as a jab finisher, consumes 1 durability point.
• Nosferatu: 4 durability points, 40-second recharge after breaking. Each use of Nosferatu consumes 1 durability point.
• Levin Sword: 8 durability points, 6-second recharge after breaking. Each use of the Levin Sword consumes 1 durability point.

Etymology and other languages

References