The recent installment for Fire Emblem, Three Houses has an entirely unique gameplay mechanic where Byleth can roam through Garreg Mach Monastery and interact with the students, faculty, and some non-playable characters like the adored Gatekeeper. Each week, Byleth will teach students from a specific house and when they are picked, they can train their weapon or movement ranks. In the process, their motivation bar will go down by one bar if they succeed in their lesson. If they fail, they will have to be consoled or critiqued to get their lost motivation back.
When a character’s motivation is drained completely, they cannot participate in activities like training their weapon ranks outside of class or take part in tea time. That is why there are many alternatives to replenish their motivation. With gift items, they will increase the motivation by a certain amount of points. Gift-giving might seem easy, but the students and faculty have their preferences, and if given the wrong gift, the students will take it, but no motivation will be given. Here are 5 gifts that are great to give, and 5 that aren’t just worth it in Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
10 Best To Get: Smoked Meat
Getting food as a gift is something to appreciate when attending a monastery far from home. To contrast those who prefer sweets, there is another option of food gifts in the form of smoked meat. Felix, Hapi, Ingrid, Caspar, Raphael, Cyril, and Petra prefer this greatly. The only downside is Marianne and Manuela disliking this gift, but with more people in favor, buying as much as you can at an inexpensive cost is amazing.
You can buy up to 50 of them for 5,000 gold and they will be worth the value for one single playthrough. On top of that, you will at least have two students from your house that will indulge themselves with the smoked meat.
9 Not Worth It: Watering Can
Some gifts can be very situational depending on the hobbies the characters have. For instance, Dedue loves taking care of plants, so giving him a watering can is great for him. Cyril and Bernadetta also enjoy the essential accessory for taking care of plants. But since only the three of them will appreciate this item, there are other better options.
Say you were to join the Black Eagles and side with Edelgard. That only leaves Bernadetta as the one to enjoy the gift as Cyril and Dedue will become your enemies in the time skip. The Blue Lions house is the only route that can somewhat benefit from getting watering cans if Bernadetta happens to be recruited. Instead, opt to just gift them other items they will be okay with.
8 Best To Get: Armored Bear Stuffy
Anyone could use some cute things in their life, and the armored bear stuffy is an endearing and amazing gift overall. Girls enjoyed them especially, with those including Mercedes, Edelgard, Marianne, Lysithea, Flayn, Bernadetta, and Hilda being the perfect candidates.
As they can give up to 75 points of motivation, it is an amazing picker-upper for the girls who are at the brink of having empty motivation bars. Manly boys like Felix, Dimitri, Lorenz, and tough girl Catherine will absolutely not enjoy such soft and adorable things. The girls mentioned above though will love you for the gift.
7 Not Worth It: Lily
There might be times where flowers can be great gifts, but they do take time to grow and become available. But for the classic flower lily, it’s not really worth investing time in the flower. As Lysithea is the only character in the playable roster to like the pure, white flower, getting other things for her like sweets and cute gifts will be more effective in the end.
The flower does have its great benefits by increasing the motivation by 75%. Although, the lily does lose its value if you have no plans of recruiting Lysithea. It is overall easier to convince her with sweets if you do plan to invite her to your house that isn’t Golden Deer.
6 Best To Get: Training Weight
It’s no question how many students are pumped to do some training after participating in classes for the week. At 500 gold, training weights are helpful for those that need a boost in motivation and support points. Felix, Catherine, Raphael, Leonie, Caspar, and Dimitri will appreciate this gift by increasing their motivation greatly so they can participate in weapon training or tea time.
Not everyone is excited about these kinds of gifts such as Lysithea, Bernadetta, Ignatz, Linhardt, and especially Hilda. With an equal amount of those who like and dislike training weights, be sure to take notes on who is physically active and those that are frail or not meant for close combat.
5 Not Worth It: Landscape Painting
There are even some students who can appreciate the finest of arts. After all, most of Ignatz’s lost items have to do with painting. Even though a landscape painting has its positives for increasing a full bar of motivation, the price of 1000 gold isn’t really the way to go unless you are super rich and can afford three of them for Anna, Ignatz, and Sylvain.
This type of gift won’t even be available until the time skip, so either having meals with them or gifting cheaper items are more beneficial. If you are looking to S-rank Sylvain or Ignatz (since Anna is somehow not able to be supported for whatever reason), then, by all means, treat your man with an exquisite gift.
4 Best To Get: Tasty Baked Treat
A tasty baked treat is one of the best gifts to give to your students. It may not give a lot of motivation, but it’s super cheap price at 100 gold is well worth it. When you give it to those that adore sweets, they will also gain a huge boost in obtaining a support conversation. Even students not recruited who enjoy tasty baked treats are a fast way to recruit them or unlock their supports for completion’s sake.
Those that will be ecstatic to have them are Yuri, Hapi, Lysithea, Mercedes, Linhardt, Raphael, Ashe, Flayn, and Jeritza. Just be sure not to give them to Felix or Gilbert if you are playing the Azure Moon route.
3 Not Worth It: Forget-Me-Nots
Some flowers are nice to give if they don’t have to take a lot of work. Forget-me-nots are very beautiful, and only three characters will enjoy them, that being Flayn, Anna, and Ignatz. They can be obtained by using blue/pale-blue flower seeds and Morfis seeds and wait a week for them to bloom.
Do you know what can be done in a shorter amount of time? Buying cheap gifts that can benefit anyone who adores them. Instead of waiting, you can buy a Tasty Baked Treat for Flayn and an ancient coin for Ignatz and Anna. Some players may not have access to Anna if they did not buy the DLC, but if she is playable, she will appreciate the cheaper gifts.
2 Best To Get: Owl Feather
Even though you can’t buy them, owl feathers can be found all around Garreg Mach and they are the best gifts you can offer to any student or fellow teachers. They cost no money and doubles motivation points so that your house’s students can get more experience points for their desired weapon ranks. If you are low on money and happen to come across some owl feathers, then it is the perfect substitute for gifts.
Exploring Garreg Mach Monastery can get repetitive and have you miss out on some auxiliary battles, but it does not hurt to do it either once or twice a month just to find the owl feathers and training with either the students or faculty.
1 Not Worth It: Blue Cheese
Blue cheese may seem like a fantastic delicacy while increasing a character’s motivation by a lot, but it is far from worth the price to increase someone’s motivation. Characters such as Balthus, Anna, Manuela, and Catherine enjoy it, but Shamir, Claude, Hanneman, Flayn, and Jeritza don’t, outnumbering the ones who like the gift.
Another thing to point out is that if the player does not have the DLC, then Anna or Balthus are both unobtainable, decreasing the need to get blue cheese. If you want to increase motivation without having to spend that kind of money, use owl flowers or have meals with the students. With more activity points, you can eventually max out their motivation without having to spend any currency.
