Information about how to obtain better weapons in Fire Emblem Three Hopes, including details about the services provided by the Armorer and Blacksmith (Forging, Repairing and Reforging weapons). How to find and restore broken weapons.
When you start the game, your gear will be fairly basic, and for the first few Chapters the upgrades you get will have a marginal effect on gameplay, at best. This can obfuscate how powerful a fully upgraded, repaired weapon can be, but once you learn (perhaps by reading a guide online?) about how much more powerful certain weapons can get - and how early you can get them! - you’ll be plowing through enemies that once gave you trouble, spamming Combat Arts and Spells with abandon where once you were forced to be conservative with weapon Durability.
Broken weapons, once repaired and reforged, can become quite powerful, indeed.
Where to Find the Best Weapons in Fire Emblem Three Hopes¶
tl;dr: The best way to farm superior weapons in Fire Emblem Three Hopes is to find a battle where a [Monster] spawns, preferably a shorter, quicker battle. Play the battle over and over again, kill the monster and farm its weapon drop. It should yield a broken weapon, which you’ll then need to Repair at the Blacksmith. Once repaired, if the weapon is to your liking (and you can afford it), upgrade it to taste. You can easily get a +30 weapon with over 100 Might and 100 Durability very early in the game by doing this, which blows other weapons - even [Hero Relics] out of the water!
For more details about finding weapons, weapon stats and the services provided by the Blacksmith, read below.
How to Find New Weapons in Fire Emblem Three Hopes¶
You’ll undoubtedly obtain new weapons at a regular clip as you complete battles - they’re regular drops from enemy officers. Their quality and type will vary largely depending on how far into the main questline you are and what difficulty you’re playing on. Harder missions with higher level enemies will naturally yield better weapons, meaning rarer types of weapons, with higher innate and potential stats, with more, higher level modifiers (see What Weapon Stats Mean in Fire Emblem Three Hopes, below).
You can also buy weapons from the Armorer, but at least early on this is mostly a waste of money, as these weapons are pitifully bare-bones specimens, having no enhancement bonuses, no modifiers, and low upgrade potential.
Defeated monsters will regularly drop broken weapons, which while initially useless have great potential.
The best weapons, however, are either plundered from chests or, more farmably, are dropped by [Monsters]. Monsters are unfortunately fairly rare in the early bits of the game, but if you find a battle where one spawns reliably, they may well be worth farming for their drops. The weapons dropped by monsters are often broken, and must be Repaired before they can be used. Most broken weapons, once repaired, will have much higher base stats and upgrade potential than other weapons you gain at that point in the game, making them valuable tools, indeed.
What Weapon Stats Mean in Fire Emblem Three Hopes¶
Each weapon in Fire Emblem Three Hopes has two primary stats - Might and Durability. In addition, you’ll find an “Increase Might” and “Increase Durability” stat to the side of each.
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Might: Determines the weapons’ damage output.
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Durability: Functionally serves as Magic Points - Combat Arts and Spells both consume Durability when used. The more Durability a weapon has, the more Combat Arts/Spells you can use in battle.
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Increase Might: The number of times a weapon’s Might can be increased by Forging at the Blacksmith.
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Increase Durability: The number of times a weapon’s Durability can be increased by Forging at the Blacksmith.
What Are Weapon Modifiers in Fire Emblem Three Hopes?¶
Weapons can also have two weapon modifiers, which are listed beneath the “Durability” and “Increase Durability” statlines. Weapons are not guaranteed to have random modifiers - some weapons possess none, one or two. The exact modifier a weapon has is random, as is the level of the modifier’s effect.
While the core stats are quite important for a weapon, the weapon’s modifiers can also prove beneficial or detrimental. For example, the “Reckless Power” modifier boosts Might significantly at the cost of reducing Durability - fine for characters who spam their normal attacks while neglecting Combat Arts and Spells, but less useful for those who rely heavily on the latter abilities. Invert Physical/Magic can also prove useful for high-Strength characters who find themselves deployed in spellcasting classes, or, more commonly, for high-Magic characters who want their normal attacks to have more impact as a Mortal Savant, Holy Knight or Dark Knight, but are actively detrimental to characters who have a more traditional class/stat synergy.
Most modifiers are at least benign, however, if not beneficial, but finding a high-stat weapon with good modifiers for a specific character is a rare treat, indeed, and these modifiers should be considered alongside the weapon’s Might and Durability.
The Blacksmith is unlocked in Chapter 5, and his services are essential to getting the most out of your weaponry.
The Blacksmith¶
At the beginning of Chapter 5 you’ll finally be freed from the purgatorial mediocrity of your weaponry. Talk to your faction leader and you’ll be tasked with exploring the new facilities around the Base Camp, one of which naturally include the Blacksmith. Talk to the Blacksmith and you’ll be treated with a few services: “Forge Weapon” and “Repair Weapon”. Fittingly, the Blacksmith’s services make up in quality what they lack in quantity, which is what using those services will do for your weaponry.
You can Reforge weapons to upgrade their Might and Durability.
Forge Weapon¶
Forging weapons allows you to upgrade weapons, just pick the “Forge Weapon” option at the Blacksmith and select the weapon you’d like to upgrade. Once done you can increase the Might and Durability stats of the weapon a number of times equal to the weapon’s Increase Might and Increase Durability potential. Every time you increase a weapon’s Might and/or Durability a level, it’ll gain an enhancement bonus behind the name.
For example, a standard Steel Sword has Might 40 and Durability 70, with Increase Might 0/5 and Increase Durability 0/5. This means you can upgrade Might and Durability five times each, ultimately ending up with a Steel Sword +10. Note that the actual amount of Might and Durability gained when you upgrade a weapon isn’t equal to its enhancement bonus, a Steel Sword +10 doesn’t have 50 Might and 80 Durability. Rather, the enhancement bonus is just a way to eyeball the weapon’s relative potency without having to fuss over the actual stat lines.
The amount of Might and Durability gained every time a weapon is upgraded varies depending on how upgraded your Blacksmith facility is, with “Forge Hammer” upgrades increasing the Might gained by forging, and the “Forge Anvil” upgrades increasing the Durability gained.
Reforge Weapons¶
Since the Might and Durability gained by a weapon vary depending on - at least in part - how much the Blacksmith facility has been expanded, weapons upgraded early in the game will naturally be weaker than ones upgraded later… assuming you keep upgrading your Blacksmith, that is. In the case of most weapons this won’t matter much - you won’t get a great deal of rare ores required to upgrade [Hero Relics] until later in the game, and powerful Iron and Steel weapons lose their luster compared to higher-end Silver weapons.
Still, if you’re worried about upgrading weapons and start fussing over whether you should upgrade or keep a weapon pristine, don’t. You can Reforge weapons at the Blacksmith, resetting their level and allowing you to Forge them again. This is fairly expensive, naturally, but if that doesn’t deter you, merely go to Forge a weapon and when you’re in the forging screen just press the 
Broken weapons must be repaired before they can be used.
Repair Weapon¶
The best weapons in the game - not including [Hero Relics] - start out as unusable junk, and are often dropped by [Monsters] or found in chests. Take these rusty, tattered weapons to the Blacksmith and select the “Repair Weapon” option and he’ll restore that weapon to its former glory. This will cost gold and ore to do, but broken weapons are almost alway far superior to weapons obtained by other means, having a higher starting and potential enhancement level.
To Repair higher-tier weapons, you’ll need to keep the Blacksmith upgraded. The “Learn Blacksmithing” tree of upgrades will allow you to Repair level D, C, B and A weapons… and there’s nothing worse than having a potential uber weapon sitting uselessly in your inventory because you can’t repair it.
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