When gazing at my Friends List I see a Tier for each person and an avatar (character). Probably dumb question - what determines which character is displayed (I have looked and failed to find how to set that). I assume Tier is a measure of progression in the game (maybe PvP which I have not yet done).
And now, just for the frisson … a link to a naysaying article …
The leftmost team in your rooster is used in PVP when you are attacked. I believe the leftmost hero in that team is the “leader” which can be seen on friendlist and pvp.
If my intel is correct I should be listed with “Robin” (male version) as my Character (White hair, blue mage).
You are listed as Anna while @Tanner is a blonde male axe-fighter, @kennfusion is Takumi, @halfvoid is Marth and @geigerm is Corrin (female)
The tier is the bracket you are currently in pvp I assume. Everyone was tier 1 in the first season. So I believe this is what other games refer to as bronce league.
Yeah, I set my Takumi on my leftmost team on the left so I could show him off. Glad to hear it works 
I can absolutely see all of those issues becoming significant, but I’m nowhere near the endgame, so I’ve only really dealt with the randomness of the PvP system. Can’t argue with that point at all.
Otherwise, I’m not going to complain … unless I fail to summon a 5* the next time around. Then it’s nothing but whining … 
Thank you … plus I see now that the leftmost character is shown at the top of the castle.
@geigerm Oh yes, I am playing on. That article tickled me most because it was from Forbes which was an unexpected (by me) source. The game has clearly had a lot of thought put in and, especially if successful, could well develop over time as per many of the best iOS titles.
@robthomasson Yeah, I wouldn’t have expected video game commentary from Forbes, either. It appears from that author’s bio that he’s their “video game guy.”
Hopefully this game turns out to be an example of “good F2P.” I think the monetization model is still ridiculous, but games like Gems of War and MtG: Puzzle Quest provide a lot of fun without having to pay a cent. In the few F2P apps I’ve played, I appreciate that they constantly add content because I’m not one of the whales they’re trying to hook.
Yeah, that article is pretty spot-on about the late-game grind and economy balance. I didn’t realize that training costs were half-off. They also touch on why I’m having some degree of difficulty in writing my review. Right now, in the “launch window”, is the most generous this game will probably ever be. And I’d rate that generosity as “okay” at best, with the general shittiness of the economy balance. Would I be able to recommend this game in the same way a few months from now? Probably not!
That said, I’ve enjoyed most of my time with the game so far. I’m only beginning to enter that late-game portion, and I’ve only spent $6 on the game (and probably won’t spend any more). I might have to reassess now that I know that training costs were reduced, but I think this is probably one of the most generous gacha games games I’ve played, at least in the early goings.
A quick info maybe relevant on your final verdict:
Todays upate was bittersweet.
I forgot that today the first 2 Summoning Focus Events ended. I had seriously bad luck the last few draws and have pushed the rate for 5* over 10% and was thinking about summoning again with my last 40ish orbs to try to at least get another 5* hero out of it after “leveling” the appearance rate…sigh none of that for me unfortunately.
But in more important news:
The “halved stamina” costs of training tower will stay forever so the rates right now will be the final rates and won’t be upscaled.
the stamina costs of learning skills/equipping skills will be 0 forever
the daily loginbonus (2 orbs/day) will be extended until mid-march
…and sometimes in march they will give lowbiekills exp back. Which I highly highly approve of.
I am a fan of autobattling in the training tower. Unfortunately it is a fine balance between full-team-wipe and and leveling one or two survivors or getting in a lower stratum and have 4 surviving heroes but no exp (wasted stamina basically)
So exp for low lvl kills is something I highly approve for the quick autobattle at lunchbreak…even if the rate exp will be generated is absymal…if they even give the 3 SP killbonus it would be even better!
You got the 5* rate up to 10%??? Holy cow … I think I was up to 3.5% before the update. 
And still no 5*. But I’ll keep plugging along.
Yeah, those changes make this game a fair bit easier to recommend. I didn’t even realize that skill stuff was eventually going to cost stamina, which would have been terrible. As far as the new summoning group goes, I guess I can’t complain because I got a 5* Seliph in my very first pull. Next goal is to get a 5* Takumi, haha.
er combined % so 5% Focus 5* and 5% for other 5* Heroes = 10%.
aaaand it gets even worse two 20er pulls with only 3* in it back to back!
And I am nearly out of Orbs to get from the quests, maps and other ingame-sources… 
Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I thought maybe you had gone completely mad and dropped the $75 on the 140 orb purchase …
I’m still 5*-less after a couple more pulls, but I’m pretty happy with the 4* characters I have. We’ll see what happens when I start really butting up against the end-game stamina wall.
I was thinking the game will loose me more or less when (if ever) I get the Lunatics Story beaten, since the special ultra hard Quest last weekend for the mad axe wielding jerk on a fliyng lizzard needs ubercharacters to get done (all 4 must survive -.-) and if thats the skill/investment level they strive for as High-end content it would be above my maximum acceptance level of grind or giving in to F2P just to get there.
And if that is the only way to get decent 3* and 4* outside of pulls it would loose much of its appeal. But seems i have underestimated their other ideas.
The recently introduced Sword, Axe and Spear Mastery Quests. This quests and some other rather hard ones keep me quite heavily invested. If there are Sword, Axe and Spear masteries I think there would soon be Red, Blue, Green Tome, Bows, etc Masteries as well…this helps to keep me occupied…so much that a game which only should have me playing it for 15 min while commuting keeps me busy the whole ride…now I don’t have time to read books, watch movies and play other games on my iPad anymore…since I commute 2,5 hours a day this means quite a lot of time occupied by FE:H.
Only thing I dont like about the Sword,Axe,Spear Event is that it is rather short - as in ends in a week.
But now I have something to do with my “useless” 3* Swords, Spears and etc. Characters as well, levelling them up, trying out their skills etc. to get them up to have 4 of every class.
So long story short…the longlevity of this game seems pretty much given as it is right now.
Also aside from the FE:H Wiki I also want to highlight > Serenes Forest, pretty much THE Site for all things Fire Emblem in the west. I was going there for ages for tipps, stats etc for every Fire Emblem game I played.
I only startet using the 2 Fire Emblem Wikis (not the same as above this one above is just for FE:H) with Fire Emblem Awakening due to all the nice lore info as well as support conversations for all characters was on the wikis and since I love em talking heads in FE…
I did appreciate the new quests, if only because they provided some (relatively) easy ways to get more orbs. Haven’t tried the harder weapon mastery ones yet, as I doubt my heroes are up to snuff. And I think it’ll be much harder to put together teams to “master” other weapons–can you imagine a staff mastery quest? Ugh.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the mastery events rotate–maybe they move on to ranged weapons for a week, then back to sword/axe/spear … that would be nice, at least.
As long as the stamina costs remain reasonable for these extra quests, that’ll help the longevity for sure. If Nintendo gets too greedy, then it’ll quickly become a “whales only” pool of players …
The good thing here is they didn’t go the dreadful bad BAD BAAAAD Platinum Trophy way.
I really hate that approach. It irks me to no end when I am playing Guild Wars 2 my all-time favourite MMO(ish) PC game.
Here have some event quests, oh and if you beat all this quests you get this ultra-rare superduper nice reward....but ONLY if you beat em all.
Argh! So enfuriating! Anyways I am glad they didn’t go that way in FE:H. I have beaten sword aside from the last “Lunatic” Quest and currently working trough Spear. I may not beat much on the Axe Side as I don’t have that many good Axe wielders.
Just so you know if you only have 3 Mastery-Quest Characters (say 3 Axe-men) you still can do the quests. You don’t need FOUR of them, only that everyone used has a Mastery Weapon to be eligible for the rewards.
If I have enough time and good runs I probably will finish all 3 Masteries aside the last Lunatic Quest for each. Which is totally fine, as the Orbs are pretty much a given and the rest is only the icing on the top.
Unlocked Potential for my first ever Character, which was a 2 Star Olivia (Dancer). Which is good, as a 3 Star she now can learn Dance which gives an adjacent Unit another turn which is more than awesome, it can be downright broken.
Training her is a hazzle tough…weak stats and yet another Sword/Red Character.
And they announced the next Great Hero Battle - Female Robin.
…which I totally need to master this time! Glad she didn’t pop up last time as I was way behind the leveling. My first character is to hit lvl 40 today or tomorrow so hopefully this works out somehow.
Finally pulled my first 5*, Julia … and was asked to rate the game as soon as I finished summoning. Had to laugh at the shamelessness of it all.
Also: is there anything easier than leveling a healer? I pulled Lissa a few days ago and have her up to level 19 without putting her in harm’s way more than once or twice over several battles.
Good question, I saw a screenshot somewhere where someone was doing a highlevel Stratum with 4 Lissas…
I am now leveling my Sakura…dont like her from the games she originally was from (Fates / Birthright) but she has Physic as her heal ability…which is nice.
A question - which I have not answered by using the wikis.
Sometimes, when I highlight a hero in battle, a green tick in a circle will appear over an enemy character. That enemy could be far away, out of range, not apparently able to interact with my hero on the current turn. The green tick might not appear when I select others of my heroes. In a similar fashion, exclamation marks can sometimes appear over enemy characters.
What does it all mean? Eh?
Bonus question - is there a wiki section that answers all this?
That is FE:H way to say:
Yep! You will own that guy hard!
Ok, this one will help you to leave this world behind really fast
In other words a Bow user will see an over an pegasus- or wyvern-rider while the flyer itself will see an .
If you have an unit with an Armorslayer as a weapon they can kill Knight/Tanks pretty hard, so you would see an over an enemy Knight
Edit:
I couldn’t find a specific site on this mechanic on any site I usually go to, but in general it shows the Strength/Weakness System aside from the basic Weapon/Color Triangle effects.