Companions

Rosters tell you who exists. What Three Hopes actually asks is narrower and more urgent: who can I still get, what will it cost me in Strategy Points, and is there anything here I can lose permanently. Most recruits arrive through the Persuade Strategy after you beat them in battle, a few join for free if you picked the right house, and exactly one pair walks out of the story forever if you miss a two chapter window.

So this guide runs in cost order rather than alphabetical order. One thing to say up front about coverage: our fourteen character pages cover the Scarlet Blaze and Azure Gleam recruitable pool plus the Church of Seiros pair, and two of them state plainly that the Golden Wildfire method is not yet known, so those cells stay honest rather than guessed.

The recruitment ledger

Thirteen names, and the shape of the list is the point: the free recruits are all Black Eagles, the mid tier is where most of your points go, and the two most interesting entries are at the bottom because neither is bought with points at all.

Free, before you spend a single point

Four companions cost nothing, and all four hang on one decision: picking the Black Eagles. Edelgard joins in the prologue as a matter of course, and she brings the Armored Lord class with her, which nobody else can use.

Petra joins automatically in Chapter 3 if you side with Edelgard, which makes her the cheapest good Thief in the game. On Azure Gleam she is a Persuade instead, and she turns up fighting over by the map's northeastern corner, so know where to look. Caspar is the odd one out: he is not a Persuade at all but a branching path inside the Chapter 3 battle called Complete Reversal of Fortune, so if you fight The Enbarr Incident the ordinary way you simply do not get the option. He is worth the detour despite having the slowest base speed in the game, tied with Raphael, because his health pool is among the largest and his Speed growth is 45 percent. Ferdinand is the strictest of the four: beat him during The Enbarr Incident and take the recruit option, and there is no version of this outside the Black Eagle house.

The 10 point tier

Bernadetta is the most flexible recruit we cover, because our page confirms a method on every route: Chapter 3 on Scarlet Blaze and Chapter 6 on both Azure Gleam and Golden Wildfire. She is a bow unit of House Varley and slots straight into Archer, which is one of the four classes the roster keeps funnelling into.

Dorothea costs the same and turns up in Chapter 3 during The Enbarr Incident on Scarlet Blaze, or Chapter 5 during The Battle of Magdred on Azure Gleam. Our page does not know the Golden Wildfire method, and rather than guess, treat her as a two route recruit for now. Linhardt is the one whose price actually moves: our page quotes 10 Strategy Points on Golden Wildfire against 30 on Azure Gleam, which is the single largest price gap in the bucket, and he is fought in Chapter 3 on Scarlet Blaze, Chapter 4 on Golden Wildfire and Chapter 11 on Azure Gleam. He starts as a Monk and ends up a Priest, so if you are short of healers, take the cheap version while it is cheap.

The two you pay double for

Mercedes costs 20 Strategy Points, through The Maiden's Perils on Scarlet Blaze or Crisis in Fhirdiad on Azure Gleam. Our page makes the case for the higher price in one line: the Blue Lions have no other healer. On a route where your sustain has to come from somewhere, that is not really a price comparison at all.

Shamir is the other 20 point recruit and the only one who is purely an enemy first. She is a Church of Seiros mercenary, she has to be defeated before Persuade is even offered, and our page names an encounter chapter on all three routes, which makes her the most route agnostic recruit in the bucket. She goes into Archer.

The pair you can lose forever

Everything above can be picked up late. Byleth and Jeralt cannot. They sit inside a window between Chapters 10 and 12, and if the sequence goes wrong the pair is gone from that playthrough entirely. The entry point moves by route: Chapter 10 on Black Eagles and Golden Wildfire, Chapter 12 on Azure Gleam.

1. When the battle offers you a prompt about your actions in it, that is the sequence starting. Treat it as the decision point rather than flavour text.
2. Turn down Arval's invitation to go and fight Byleth. Taking it is what closes the door.
3. Unlock the Ambushers Strategy at Menja Territory.
4. Stay unseen by the Mercenaries while you move.
5. Take the objectives in order, Fleche first and Randolph second.

Get it right and there is a reward beyond the pair themselves, because success unlocks Arval on your next playthrough. Byleth arrives in The Enlightened One class and brings Divine Pulse. The full walkthrough is on our Byleth recruitment guide, and the character page has the three route specific versions with their named strategies and bosses.

Who your route locks out

Ingrid is the cleanest example of a hard lock. Our page puts it down to her loyalty to Dimitri, which is why she cannot be talked round on any route but his, and she is worth the constraint, because we call Pegasus Knight arguably the best class in the game and she is the unit built for it. Play her as a glass cannon and do not expect her to trade hits.

Jeritza is the opposite problem: available on two routes but at wildly different times, Chapter 04 at Breach Burgundy Territory if you went Black Eagles, or all the way out at Chapter 13 during Showdown at Ailell on Azure Gleam. He brings Quietus, which is an instant kill, so getting him early on Scarlet Blaze changes considerably more than getting him late does. Dimitri is Azure Gleam only, Chapter 03 at Unrest in Fhirdiad, and you have to beat him before Persuade is offered. He carries two exclusive classes, Great Lord and High Lord, and High Lord is the one to take.

One honest note under that table: none of our fourteen character pages is a Golden Wildfire native, so the third column reflects who can be recruited into that route rather than who starts on it.

After you have them

Every character page carries the same two things worth going back for: the class abilities and unique abilities that decide what a unit is good at, and a table of Expedition answers, which is the fastest way to raise support without guessing. Our classes guide covers what to put them in, and the mechanics guide covers the camp economy that pays for all of it, including where Strategy Points come from in the first place.