Resistance (魔防 Mabō lit. Magic Defense) is a character statistic that determines a character's defense against magical attacks.

Overview

Resistance is the stat that notates a character's resilience against Magic based damage such as Tomes. The higher one's Resistance is, the less damage they take from magic attacks. Resistance is notorious in the Fire Emblem series as one of the lowest stats for most character's stat spreads, especially for physical oriented characters which generally make up a vast majority of the playable cast. While some characters may have more stat growths in Resistance than others, mostly Magic users themselves since they are more likely trained and used to Magic based combat.

In the first two Fire Emblem games, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and Gaiden, Resistance is considered a special stat, as it cannot increase via levelling up and can only be increased through Talismans. Additionally, in the first game, only Gotoh starts out with a Resistance stat above 0. In Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, every playable character has a 3% resistance growth rate. From Genealogy of the Holy War onward, Resistance is treated as a normal stat in most games, with growth rates not considered atypical compared to the other core stats. However, in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, a remake of Gaiden, playable characters have Resistance growth rates between 1-8%, with the exception of any potential Dread Fighters, who all have growth rates of 0%.

In most games, Resistance can be permanently boosted by two points with a Talisman. There are also common methods of giving units temporary boosts to their Resistance, such as through the use of Pure Water, a Barrier staff, or game-specific skills such as Ninis' Grace, which is exclusive to Ninian and Nils in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, and boosts a target's Resistance by 10 for one turn.

The Resistance stat does not appear in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 or TearRing Saga: Utna Heroes Saga, with the Magic stat (Magic/2 in the case of TearRing Saga) also functioning as Resistance.