Niles Fire Emblem Guide

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One of the things that can be said about fire emblem fates is that all of its characters were, at the very least… colorful. And that is entirely true for Niles. Niles is one of the characters that belong to that section of fire emblem fates characters that we could call… the super specific fan art of the development team. And to a certain extent, he looks like the typical stereotype of brutal and dark characters in a medieval fantasy world. This makes sense when we remember that out of the three versions of Fates, Niles is mainly playable in Conquest and Revelations.

On a personal note, I didn’t like Conquest. Overall, Fates is not my favorite game in the series at all. However, I can recognize that certain things are reasonable within the game. I’m not a hater who hates everything; it’s just not my favorite game ever. Even though Niles falls into the category of things I don’t like about Conquest because of his design, I can recognize that he is a pretty competent character. Primarily due to his stats being one of the most mixed in the game.

And Niles fulfills one of the most critical needs in the game, and that is that of the characters that have more universal access. Niles is versatile in its purest form. He has the role that a thief would have within the team. This is quite good because it is a character from the beginning of the game. Therefore, it is an excellent alternative to accessing more mixed classes from the beginning. Leaving aside the mechanical part, I guess it could be considered decent at the story level. He’s not nearly the best character ever, but he’s interesting enough that you won’t die of boredom playing with him.

Important Information to Know about Niles

  • Level: 8
  • Class: Outlaw
  • Health: 22
  • Strength: 9
  • Magic: 5
  • Skill: 9
  • Speed: 15
  • Luck: 6
  • Defense: 7
  • Resistance: 12
  • Movement: 5
  • Special Ability: Kidnap and Locktouch
  • Weapon: Bow -D
  • Equipped items: Iron Bow

One of the first things that jumps out is that Niles has one of the highest speeds in the game (at least in the Conquest and Revelations versions). This means that Niles is designed to be just the typical character that attacks from a distance and bases most of his strategy on dodging the enemies’ blows. We can appreciate this because along with his speed, the stats he has the highest are his stamina and his Skill. This means that although he doesn’t have enough physical defense, he can resist magical damage and especially can evade and perform critical hits relatively quickly.

Still, what hurts Niles the most is that he has relatively low luck, and his hit points are equally mediocre. This goes hand in hand with the fact that he is not a character designed for direct and constant confrontation. He is a character created to perform finishers or eliminate enemies with a single blow using the critical options. This is interesting since his class is not a thief or assassin but an outlaw.

His great stats, added to his personal ability (Kidnap), makes him a unit designed for a kind of forced recruitment. The use of Kidnap allows you to make use of a larger army without the need to go through a more complicated process. This reinforces the idea that Niles is not a character made for heavy combat but instead to do as much damage as possible with minimal resources. His abilities could be better, but overall, considering the options the game makes you work with, Niles is a pretty good character.

He adapts to most play styles but favors the more chaotic play style, based on doing constant damage or using finishers. This means he is a character that can be difficult to master but is satisfying to play once you get the hang of it.

Nile’s Background

Nules

As I explained earlier… Niles’ story leaves a lot to be desired. Even though he is a secondary character, many secondary characters within Fire Emblem have a better backstory. Also, Niles justifies his actions mainly on a really bland basis.

According to the game’s story, Niles is basically an orphan. His father abandoned both his mother and him, and then his mother left him all alone as well. With no one to protect him in the world, he ended up joining a gang of thieves, whom he saw as the family he never had and an essential member of it.
From them, he learned most of his skills, including the use of the bow, the skills to steal, and the skills to assassinate. During his time in the gang, Niles stole from all the houses of the influential families of Nohr.

During one of the robberies, Niles met Peri because his initial goal was to kidnap her. After all, even as a child, Peri was known as “the killer doll.” However, the most crucial robbery that Niles’ gang had in mind was to rob the royal palace of Nohr.

However, the robbery went wrong, but the gang of thieves, seeing themselves in a predicament, abandoned Niles, using him as a scapegoat. Niles was found by Prince Leo, who, instead of killing him, noticing his skills with the bow, decided to make him one of his personal bodyguards.

One of the critical points of Niles’ background is the reason why he wears an eyepatch. That, and also why he has such a strange personality based on causing harm to other people. It is mentioned that Niles lost his eye when he was still a child, which made him highly unstable. In addition to that, his personality is due to a deep grudge against all the people who in the past had hurt him. That made him believe that life had no real meaning.

Why Should I Play with Niles?

Niles

The reality… you will use him mostly because you don’t have many options. Niles is the character that fills a gap within the conquest route. That is to say, Niles is the character that is made so that at the moment of playing, you have a character with a focus mainly on the realization of critical hits and dodges. He is, so to speak, the assassin or thief of the group. Now, although within the game, other characters also have the class of thief or assassin, the reality is that they do not have the statistics of Niles. Niles is simply a character that is made for the job.

One of Niles’ most vital points is that his resistance makes it much easier for him to withstand attacks from tome users, as in the secondary weapon triangle of this game, bows can be weak against his weapon of choice. Despite this, the reality is that you don’t have much choice when it comes to bow users within the Conquest route, as Niles is the only bow user available in the route. Therefore, he is the only option to be able to play with physical attacks and break the second weapon triangle

His personal ability is also quite good, as it allows you to have a constant flow of characters for the army. This is handy when remembering that you don’t have many options to gain experience points in this route. He is practically an integral unit. Niles is the primary bow user, the only one who can perform captures, and also one of the first ones who can break locks. In addition, his evolution within his primary class is quite good. Overall, Niles is really a character with an outstanding growth rate. In a path like Conquest, he is basically necessary for your game.

In regards to his affinity options, Niles have access to:

  • Corrin (Both Genders)
  • Camilla
  • Elise
  • Effie
  • Charlotte
  • Peri
  • Selena
  • Beruka
  • Nyx
  • Felicia
  • Azura
  • Mozu
  • Setsuna (Revelation only)
  • Oboro (Revelation only)
  • Leo
  • Odin
  • Arthur
  • Subaki (Revelation only)
  • Nina
  • Kana (Male) – If Niles is his father
  • Shigure – If Niles is his father

The most important in terms of the story are corrin, Camilla, Elise, Peri, Leo and Odin.

How to Transform Niles Into the Best Adventurer?

Niles and the gang

It is better to make Niles an Adventurer and not a bow knight because of the way the game is set up. Niles works better as an Adventurer simply because he is a character meant to be multipurpose. While bow knight allows him to finish defining himself as an archer, Niles will rarely really make use of his swordsmanship. Besides that, it’s not like he has any real utility on a general level either. His defense will still be below average, and most of the abilities he can gain as an Adventurer will be waisted.

Niles is an adventurer because he is the character that gives him the most access to different skills. Considering from the beginning that Niles is a character mainly intended to perform multiple activities, being a sort of multipurpose Swiss army knife, not making him an adventurer would end up hurting him. This is due to the fact that adventurer skills improve him to a much higher level than bow knight skills. Still, if you really want to make him a bow knight or even change his class to Dark Mage or one of his buddy classes, you can try to do so. However, remember that you have limited experience.

Still, the main thing is to get enough experience with the bow so that your physical attack is high enough. In addition, it is about complementing the skills in such a way that the rest of the characters benefit from using them. That is, turning Niles into a mix of Archer and support characters. This is easy to achieve because, as an adventurer, Niles can start using staff since he is the trickster version of this game. Therefore, Niles could be considered a support character since he attacks well, attacks fast, and allows your characters to defend themselves.

The Abilities of Niles Adventurer Promotion

He will start with:

  • Locktouch: Unlock chests and doors without the need of keys
  • Kidnap: The user can capture certain units.

At level 10 he gains:

  • Movement +1: Movement +1

Then when he becomes an adventurer he gains at level 5:

  • Lucky Seven: Hit rate and Avoid +20 for the first 7 Turns of a map.

And at level 15 he gains:

  • Pass: User can pass through tiles occupied by enemy units

How to Play Niles Adventurer Promotion

Niles Fire emblem

His final build will look something like this:

  • Class: Adventurer
  • Health: 40
  • Strength: 35
  • Magic: 20
  • Skill: 40
  • Speed: 50
  • Luck: 30
  • Defense: 30
  • Resistance: 40
  • Movement: 8
  • Special Ability: 
    • Locktouch: Unlock chests and doors without the need of keys
    • Kidnap: The user can capture certain units.
    • Lucky Seven: Hit rate and Avoid +20 for the first 7 Turns of a map.
    • Pass: User can pass through tiles occupied by enemy units
  • Weapon: Bow -A and Staff B
  • Equipped items: Crecent Bow, Killer Bow, Fortify

With this Build, Niles becomes a supporting character designed to go around the map healing his allies, allowing them to gain enough health points without much trouble. Niles is a character designed for just that, to be a supporting character. Besides that, with the use of his crescent bow or his killer bow, he can not only defend himself but also the rest of the characters in his army. This is significantly complemented by the lucky seven and pass abilities. On the one hand, the former turns him into an elimination machine during the first few turns. On the other hand, the second allows him to pass ahead and perform a pair-up in case his teammates are surrounded and need support.

Niles could be considered the ideal character for a game with limited resources such as gold and experience. Unlike other characters in the game, Niles can attack and be used as support, not resigning himself to do only one thing or the other. Niles is clearly a sort of superior option by serving as a middle point of connection between both styles of play.

What Happens if I Don’t Side with Niles? (Birthright Only)

The reality is quite simple: He becomes an enemy. Like most characters in Fire Emblem Fates, Niles immediately becomes an enemy if you don’t join his route. However, unlike other options in the game, he’s not that difficult an enemy, and he’s also not an enemy that often appears. You fight him only once (three times if you count his appearance in Xenologue 18 and 20. However, those fights are not necessary to finish the story, and they are not optional either since you need to buy the DLC to fight him, so at least I won’t count him).

To be exact, the fight against him happens in chapter 18 of the Birthright campaign, Leo. In that chapter, he appears carrying the Adventurer class, which makes him a pretty lethal enemy overall. Still, he’s not that hard to defeat. The strategy to defeat him isn’t that different from the other bow-wielding enemies you’ve encountered throughout the game. Other than that, in Xenologues, Niles is an evil unit. However, he’s not the Niles from the original game but a sort of evil version from a parallel dimension.

Niles as an enemy (Birthright Only)

The objective of the map in which Niles appears is to eliminate the boss; in this case, the boss in question is Leo. Therefore, the reality is that it is not even necessary to eliminate Niles. However, he has pretty good equipment that once you defeat him, you can loot, so facing him is not mandatory. Still, it is a good idea since it allows you to quickly get one of the most potent weapons for units with a bow at that point in the game. Besides, the amount of gold and experience they give you is also quite good.

The best way to defeat Niles is to use flying units, preferably using a guard stance to pair up with stronger units. Once that is done, use the thick Woods’ advantageous position to attack them from the sides. I prefer this strategy because, despite using a bow, Niles cannot target your units in those positions. The only recommendation I can give you is that when fighting Niles, don’t attack him from a distance (i.e., don’t use a Kimshi Knight against him). This is because even though he can’t attack you if you have him at your side, he can do it if you are two squares away due to his use of the bow.

The best option is to use Falcon Knights to eliminate Niles because Niles has no way to defend himself against the use of spears. Also, Falcon Knights have a higher resistance and defense in comparison. Therefore, the best thing to do is to take a Dual Naginata user. This is because Dual Naginata do more damage, which will eliminate Niles faster.

His build in this fight looks like this:

  • Level:8
  • Class: Adventurer
  • Health: 31
  • Strength: 8
  • Magic: 10
  • Skill: 16
  • Speed: 18
  • Luck: 7
  • Defense: 13
  • Resistance: 16
  • Movement: 6
  • Special Ability: 
    • Kidnap: The user can capture certain units.
    • Lucky Seven: Hit rate and Avoid +20 for the first 7 Turns of a map.
  • Weapon: Bow -A and Staff B
  • Equipped items: Killer Bow, Silver Yumi (drops it once you defeat him). 

The Best Way to Level Up Niles

Level Up Niles

It depends on the version. In Conquest, like the rest of the characters, the only way in which you can gain experience is through direct confrontations. Still, other than that, there are not many alternatives to level him up enough. Unless you have the option to buy DLC. In that case, you can use the boo camp to level him up. However, it is still not a good idea, as it requires an actual monetary investment to use the leveling up. So, the reality is that it is crucial to carry Niles with you at all times. Besides, Niles is a character you must have in your party almost as an obligation since he is the only unit that uses the bows.

In the case of Revelations, being able to participate in skirmishes, it is much easier to collect large amounts of experience. Even so, Niles is not an indispensable character in this version, as some characters use bows with a much better play style. Overall, Niles becomes a less viable option in general terms.

FAQs

Question: Should I reclass Niles to a DLC class?

Answer: It depends a lot on your style of play. The Vanguard class might suit him well. However, the reality is that Niles has a very delimited role in Conquest, so it can be detrimental if you don’t have someone to replace him later on.

Question: Who is the best partner for Niles?

Answer: Peri. Storywise it makes sense because they both know each other from their past. On top of that, Peri gives a good Class pool to Niles’ daughter to realize her inheritance. Likewise, their partnert set is mutually beneficial. Other good option is Camilla, however she is a better suit for other characters in the game.

Question: Is Niles a Bad person?

Answer: No, in reality, he is just very emotionally damaged, and that causes him to act chaotically.

Final Thoughts on Niles

Niles is… Well, he’s a pretty helpful character in a game that has limited options. Although I don’t like him much, I understand why he is the almost default option when choosing archers in fire emblem conquest. At the end of the day, there aren’t many other options in the game to fill his role. Niles can be adequate if you have a play style based on making direct attacks or finishing off enemies that someone else has already attacked.

My experience with Niles is not the best. In fact, quite the opposite. I don’t like him at all. It doesn’t suit my style of play, and I don’t find its design and backstory appealing. However, I understand why many people like him. It’s a character that can be interesting, and you get to connect with him. Even if I don’t like him, I can admit that he is a character that deserves to be part of the franchise and that he plays a vital role in its gameplay.

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