So how and which support skills work exactly?

[Andronicus]

I've always been confused as to which skills work.

Like with the -faire skills, does it apply for the lead unit if the support unit has it?

Do -breakers work and give the hit/avo +50 to the main unit if it's on a support?

When you dual strike can you activate luna/aether/ignis/lethality?

Does dual guard+ work if either unit has it?

Thanks,

Andronicus

[Jiac]

Well you can only activate crits in Dual Strike,Faire skills work if the unit has the weapon of choice equipped during Dual strike,and to my knowledge,Breaker skills only apply for the unit that has it equipped. This answered at least most of your questions,hopefully.

[LordFrigid]

As I understand it...

1) -faire skills on support units will apply to the support unit (if they meet the equipment requirement), so you'll only get functionality out of it if the support unit procs a dual strike (which has a relatively high chance, depending on supports).

2) I really don't know the answer to this one, haven't read a whole lot about it, and what I have read is sorta contradictory. I've seen people say it does nothing and people say it affects the support unit's hit. Whether it affects avo is a non-issue. But it won't do anything to the lead.

3) You won't get offensive skill procs on dual strikes.

4) Dual Guard+ will work whether the lead or support has it equipped.

Also: Helpful link for #s 3 and 4.

[Airship Canon]

Breakers apply to the unit that has it if the condition is met.

If a support has a breaker they get the 50 Hit for dual strikes, and 50 Avo is wasted.

[Andronicus]

Aww dang it, then again I guess it'd be super broken if I slapped 3 breakers, armsthrift, pavise/-faire on the support and it'd apply to the main unit lol

Edited November 21, 2013 by Andronicus

[shadowofchaos]

Aww dang it, then again I guess it'd be super broken if I slapped 3 breakers, armsthrift, pavise/-faire on the support and it'd apply to the main unit lol

Pair up does not mean "combine like your super mecha anime and share abilities". xD

[Sock]

Might as well ask...

Do skills such as charm and anathema do anything if they are on the support unit? Like...does the main unit get bonuses, do nearby allies get bonuses, do nearby enemies get affected, etc.

[Tables]

I've always been confused as to which skills work.

Like with the -faire skills, does it apply for the lead unit if the support unit has it?

Do -breakers work and give the hit/avo +50 to the main unit if it's on a support?

When you dual strike can you activate luna/aether/ignis/lethality?

Does dual guard+ work if either unit has it?

Thanks,

Andronicus

Might as well ask...

Do skills such as charm and anathema do anything if they are on the support unit? Like...does the main unit get bonuses, do nearby allies get bonuses, do nearby enemies get affected, etc.

For the most part, with a few exceptions, all skills except those that show an animation icon when they activate during or after the battle work and apply to the back unit. They don't transfer to the lead unit, they just do exactly what they say. So for breakers, if the back unit has swordbreaker and is up against a sword, he gets +50 hit and +50 avoid (of course, the avoid is wasted). If he has Anathema, then all units within 3 range lose avoid and dodge. etc.

Skills which show the skill icon when the activate, such as Galeforce, Despoil and all cutin animation skills (Sol, Luna etc.) can't activate.

For skills which care about adjacent units, the supported unit is considered adjacent. So yes, Solidarity is actually useful, shock!

Dual Guard, Strike and Support levels are essentially 'shared' between the pair (although the back unit doesn't get a support bonus), so either can have a skill that boosts it. Both having the skill doesn't boost the rate twice, mind.

The only skill I can think of which is a real exception is Veteran, which seems to simply not work when you're the support unit. I guess you could argue the condition implies the Veteran holder is the front unit, but... whatever.

[Sock]

So yes, Solidarity is actually useful, shock!

Whaaaaaaat. Super shock!

Thank you for the explanation. :3

[Andronicus]

Pair up does not mean "combine like your super mecha anime and share abilities". xD

I wish it was haha

[WrathN'Resolve]

Several skills Work, but the better skills for support units are

Aggressor

AnyFaire

Anathema

Dualguard

Dual support

Galeforce (double skirmish)

Have priority.

[Tables]

Several skills Work, but the better skills for support units are

Aggressor

AnyFaire

Anathema

Dualguard+

Dual support strike+

Galeforce (double skirmish)

Have priority.

I assume this is what you actually meant - Dual Support is the one which gives basically +5 avoid and +5 crit to the front unit (pretty minor worth), Dual Strike+ is 10% DS rate (one of the better skills in the game). Also I'd add Charm, which is a strong support skill. +5 avoid is less of a bonus than than DSup+, but affects everyone in 3 range, which is great in tight quarters. And the hit boost actually matters since it boosts other back units who have imperfect hit reasonably often).

[WrathN'Resolve]

I assume this is what you actually meant - Dual Support is the one which gives basically +5 avoid and +5 crit to the front unit (pretty minor worth), Dual Strike+ is 10% DS rate (one of the better skills in the game). Also I'd add Charm, which is a strong support skill. +5 avoid is less of a bonus than than DSup+, but affects everyone in 3 range, which is great in tight quarters. And the hit boost actually matters since it boosts other back units who have imperfect hit reasonably often).

Nono, I meant Dualsupport, dualstrikes already get to 90% easy enough.

While dualsupport simply furthers your chances of critting and dodging.

it's bottom of the priority, but bigger priority than dualstrike imo

[Tables]

Nono, I meant Dualsupport, dualstrikes already get to 90% easy enough.

While dualsupport simply furthers your chances of critting and dodging.

it's bottom of the priority, but bigger priority than dualstrike imo

Okay. I think you're seriously misvaluing the two skills.

Firstly you mention DSt being easy to get to 90%. But I say, why do I want to stop there? There's a big difference between 90% and 100%. Bigger than the difference between 80% and 90%. Heck I'd say going from 95% to 100% is a bigger difference than going from 85% to 95%. Why? Perfect reliability is a massive boon. Considering you're talking about 90% being easy, I assume you're talking Apotheosis and other postgame chapters - at that point, being able to land 6 attacks before the opponent gets their swing, guaranteed, is a huge edge, especially if your hit rates are 100% - which your front units will certainly reach, and your back units will probably come close if they don't reach them themselves. Dual Strikes also break a ton of enemy barriers - Pavise+ and Aegis+ crumble before Dual Strikes and the like.

Now you probably already know these things - but the point to drive home is, being guaranteed those things is a massive boon. Rather than 'probably' killing the enemy before they attack but occasionally having to take a Luna+ 100 might attack to the face, you can just guarantee the enemy dies, no question asked. Combine that with Galeforce, and well you can see the allure. No room for failure, just making enemies die, guaranteed.

Since you're implying postgame, let's look at Dual Support in comparison. On the back unit, it can't give a support bonus to adjacent allies - only your partner - so it just gives the partner +5 hit/avoid/crit/dodge. We can immediately ignore the dodge bonus -how often does the dodge matter? I see about 5-6 killer weapons on the secret route. Yawn, we can just DSt them down on player phase. Insignificant. Hit is also pretty irrelevant too. Between forging and massive skill, and possibly other skills it's almost unthinkable that we'd not reach 100% hit on an enemy. Hit rate is great for the support unit though, since they don't get a lot of the bonuses... except, they don't benefit from DSp+. Oops. Crit is also largely insignificant for a similar reason as dodge - those enemies have a lot of luck. Now it's low enough that you can sneak in a crit rate, especially with +crit forging and/or +crit weapons, but... it's still pretty small rates. A minor benefit. Finally avoid. That could matter, but a lot of enemies have Hawkeye and even the ones who don't are accurate. You can try and avoid, but it's not a good strategy.

Now you might make the argument that I'm overly focusing on Apotheosis, but I don't think it changes much. The hit rate stays irrelevant, as does dodge. That leaves +5 avoid and +5 crit. Those are nice, but they simply pale in comparison to having guaranteed Dual Strikes instead of usually having Dual Strikes. Heck, the extra damage from a DSt is usually more than you'd deal from a critical! The avoid is actually something you can argue, but I contend that it's of a considerably smaller magnitude of benefit. So much smaller in fact that I wouldn't even consider it unless I had literally nothing else vaguely useful to go in that final slot. While DSt+ earns it's place in droves, through a massive reliability bonus, letting us do things such as attacking perfectly safely at low HP, and guaranteeing those Galeforce activations.

Finally let's briefly consider non-postgame, when Dual Strike isn't easy to get to 90%. In game, you're looking at more like ~65-75% once you have an S support set up, depending on progress through the game. Here the aspects of Dual Support could actually matter - enemy dodge is low, but their crit is occasionally dangerous (rarely mind), and you might occasionally need a hit boost. Sadly the big problem still remains - it boosts four things, but two of them are niche (hit/dodge) and two of them are just not significant enough (5% avoid/5% crit) when it only affects one person. Now here DSt is far less reliable, and the effect of DSt is less major (as you don't have everyone running around with brave weapons against enemies with shield skills) - but going from say 70% to 80% is still noticable. That means that you go from activating at least one DSt 91% of the time to 96% of the time - more than halving the failure rate - and go from activating two DSt from 49% of the time to 64% of the time - around 4/3rds as often. When you're not quite 2HKOing the opponent... which is rather often... those are quite big jumps.

To conclude I really don't think there's any room to argue DSup > DSt, and further, I think I've even shown that DSt is often just not worth considering at all. Most of the time, I'd rather just have a skill to boost my back unit's stats a little, or make them more useful when they're the front unit (if Galeforcing), or similar. There's enough good options that you rarely need to resort to DSt - and when you do, you barely notice the difference.

[Airship Canon]

Dual Support+ his like one good use [Gerome needs it for making the Lancekiller work perfectly] and it's quite niche.

Dual Strike+ can raise two units to having 100% dual strike [which is nice, but if you're not going balls deep with a solo, unnecessary], or cover the damn hole left by using a G1 marriage [which is the more important usage if you're not keen enough to marry second gen].

That's a LOT more than what DSu+ does.

You can try and avoid, but it's not a good strategy.

Lancekiller Severa says hi.

[Lances though, are the only weapons worth going Dodge happy on, since the key foes with Lances don't have Hawkeye.]

[shadowofchaos]

Dual Strike+ can raise two units to having 100% dual strike [which is nice, but if you're not going balls deep with a solo, unnecessary], or cover the damn hole left by using a G1 marriage [which is the more important usage if you're not keen enough to marry second gen].

I was thoroughly enjoying Tables's post about a total analysis of the two skills.

Hell, I was even enjoying reading your post until... ha ha.

My gosh, I know it's subtle, but mother of crap that air of "not marrying second gen makes you second class player" just makes me laugh.

Edited November 22, 2013 by shadowofchaos

[WrathN'Resolve]

Okay. I think you're seriously misvaluing the two skills.Firstly you mention DSt being easy to get to 90%. But I say, why do I want to stop there? There's a big difference between 90% and 100%. Bigger than the difference between 80% and 90%. Heck Ithat'd say going from 95% to 100% is a bigger difference than going from 85% to 95%. Why? Perfect reliability is a massive boon. Considering you're talking about 90% being easy, I assume you're talking Apotheosis and other postgame chapters - at that point, being able to land 6 attacks before the opponent gets their swing, guaranteed, is a huge edge, especially if your hit rates are 100% - which your front units will certainly reach, and your back units will probably come close if they don't reach them themselves. Dual Strikes also break a ton of enemy barriers - Pavise+ and Aegis+ crumble before Dual Strikes and the like.Now you probably already know these things - but the point to drive home is, being guaranteed those things is a massive boon. Rather than 'probably' killing the enemy before they attack but occasionally having to take a Luna+ 100 might attack to the face, you can just guarantee the enemy dies, no question asked. Combine that with Galeforce, and well you can see the allure. No room for failure, just making enemies die, guaranteed.Since you're implying postgame, let's look at Dual Support in comparison. On the back unit, it can't give a support bonus to adjacent allies - only your partner - so it just gives the partner +5 hit/avoid/crit/dodge. We can immediately ignore the dodge bonus -how often does the dodge matter? I see about 5-6 killer weapons on the secret route. Yawn, we can just DSt them down on player phase. Insignificant. Hit is also pretty irrelevant too. Between forging and massive skill, and possibly other skills it's almost unthinkable that we'd not reach 100% hit on an enemy. Hit rate is great for the support unit though, since they don't get a lot of the bonuses... except, they don't benefit from DSp+. Oops. Crit is also largely insignificant for a similar reason as dodge - those enemies have a lot of luck. Now it's low enough that you can sneak in a crit rate, especially with +crit forging and/or +crit weapons, but... it's still pretty small rates. A minor benefit. Finally avoid. That could matter, but a lot of enemies have Hawkeye and even the ones who don't are accurate. You can try and avoid, but it's not a good strategy.Now you might make the argument that I'm overly focusing on Apotheosis, but I don't think it changes much. The hit rate stays irrelevant, as does dodge. That leaves +5 avoid and +5 crit. Those are nice, but they simply pale in comparison to having guaranteed Dual Strikes instead of usually having Dual Strikes. Heck, the extra damage from a DSt is usually more than you'd deal from a critical! The avoid is actually something you can argue, but I contend that it's of a considerably smaller magnitude of benefit. So much smaller in fact that I wouldn't even consider it unless I had literally nothing else vaguely useful to go in that final slot. While DSt+ earns it's place in droves, through a massive reliability bonus, letting us do things such as attacking perfectly safely at low HP, and guaranteeing those Galeforce activations.Finally let's briefly consider non-postgame, when Dual Strike isn't easy to get to 90%. In game, you're looking at more like ~65-75% once you have an S support set up, depending on progress through the game. Here the aspects of Dual Support could actually matter - enemy dodge is low, but their crit is occasionally dangerous (rarely mind), and you might occasionally need a hit boost. Sadly the big problem still remains - it boosts four things, but two of them are niche (hit/dodge) and two of them are just not significant enough (5% avoid/5% crit) when it only affects one person. Now here DSt is far less reliable, and the effect of DSt is less major (as you don't have everyone running around with brave weapons against enemies with shield skills) - but going from say 70% to 80% is still noticable. That means that you go from activating at least one DSt 91% of the time to 96% of the time - more than halving the failure rate - and go from activating two DSt from 49% of the time to 64% of the time - around 4/3rds as often. When you're not quite 2HKOing the opponent... which is rather often... those are quite big jumps.To conclude I really don't think there's any room to argue DSup > DSt, and further, I think I've even shown that DSt is often just not worth considering at all. Most of the time, I'd rather just have a skill to boost my back unit's stats a little, or make them more useful when they're the front unit (if Galeforcing), or similar. There's enough good options that you rarely need to resort to DSt - and when you do, you barely notice the difference.

Sorry, was too lazy to omit. You've obviously been 1% critted one too many times, and I understand your need for the numbers to be tidy, but you're really not gonna need those 10%... owait, chrom and Lucy can't get dualsupport... yeah go for dualstrike, I'd consider hit+20 to be superior, but If you need that closure, go for it, lineup's not stopping you.

[shadowofchaos]

Sorry, was too lazy to omit. You've obviously been 1% critted one too many times, and I understand your need for the numbers to be tidy, but you're really not gonna need those 10%... owait, chrom and Lucy can't get dualsupport... yeah go for dualstrike, I'd consider hit+20 to be superior, but If you need that closure, go for it, lineup's not stopping you.

Lucina can get Dual Support+. Mariabell.

I'm going with his analysis. If you have a support level already, you're getting a really small +5% boost in all of those areas.

Edited November 22, 2013 by shadowofchaos

[WrathN'Resolve]

I was thoroughly enjoying Tables's post about a total analysis of the two skills.Hell, I was even enjoying reading your post.M gosh, I know it's subtle, but mother of crap that air of "not marrying second gen makes you second class player" just makes me laugh.

Where was that?

[shadowofchaos]

Where was that?

if you're not keen enough to marry second gen.

Please refer to previous first generation vs. second generation discussion threads to see his adamant position on "children equal marriage rights".

I said his statements carry that aura are "subtle" for a reason. If you're seen all of his posts, a good part of them always have that kind of aura.

Edit: Argh. WrathN'Resolve... why'd you get rid of the line breaks in Tables's post?

Edited November 22, 2013 by shadowofchaos

[WrathN'Resolve]

Please refer to previous first generation vs. second generation discussion threads to see his adamant position on "children equal marriage rights".I said his statements carry that aura are "subtle" for a reason. If you're seen all of his posts, a good part of them always have that kind of aura.

I usually marry tharja, canonish and takes morgan powahz through the roof. The super morgan idea is dumb, you can get two of almost as awesome morgans out of it

That being said, it's my opinion and I strive merely to suggest, such as my insight of ds+.

[shadowofchaos]

The super morgan idea is dumb, you can get two of almost as awesome morgans out of it

You are literally asking for it from him.

Moving on.

Dual Support+ only gives a solid 10% to everything on Dual Tag/Double Duel. On that mode at least, where support bonuses aren't applied, only default pair up bonuses, it's arguably useful there.

Ignore the 3-13 archer completely wrecking our team and the fact that the bonus at that time meant absolutely nothing.

But otherwise, the boosts from adjacent units with support levels are enough to make that skill negligible, if not useless altogether. Anything past the initial +10% boosts up to an A support (Support Level 4) make that skill negligible with the 5% boost.

Well, then there's the other time it can be very useful... almost exactly like Dual Tag/Double Duel. That's when you have incompatible units, as in they can't support. It's useful with guest FeMUs. But then again, I literally like to max out certain qualities and minimize certain other ones to get the desired result on my Japanese copy for videos. That's a very niche justification on my part.

Edited November 22, 2013 by shadowofchaos

[Tables]

Sorry, was too lazy to omit. You've obviously been 1% critted one too many times, and I understand your need for the numbers to be tidy, but you're really not gonna need those 10%... owait, chrom and Lucy can't get dualsupport... yeah go for dualstrike, I'd consider hit+20 to be superior, but If you need that closure, go for it, lineup's not stopping you.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing here. It seems like you're starting off arguing for DSup+'s dodge bonus being worthless (it is) but then suddenly switch gears into saying get DSup+? Eh? I think every female kid and at least a few of the males can get DSup+ (although you'd always prefer Galeforce). Hit+20 has it's uses on back units, but it's rare that their hit rate is low enough to really matter. I think my back units missed only a few times when I did a basic weapons only Apo run (i.e. unforged everything, mostly Thorons and Braves, which have meh hit rates). But they failed the DSt quite a few times. When you forge +15-25 hit on weapons, hit rate becomes a total non-issue.

The super morgan idea is dumb, you can get two of almost as awesome morgans out of it

That being said, it's my opinion and I strive merely to suggest, such as my insight of ds+.

You know what? I'll just get Airship to deal with this :D.

[Interceptor]

This discussion escalated into silly-town very quickly; I don't think that novel was necessary. Someday I will understand the hyper-focus on Apotheosis, but that day is not today.

Personally I like Dual Support+ for its use during the dozens of hours where you aren't playing Apo, AKA the rest of the game. It's deep in Valkyrie, but works well with Demoiselle, and gives you some unconventional pairing options. If I hadn't miscalculated the best reclass points, it would have turned Miriel into something of a super-Support partner on my L+ run (Demo, Support+, Hex, Anathema all work from the back).

[Tables]

This discussion escalated into silly-town very quickly; I don't think that novel was necessary. Someday I will understand the hyper-focus on Apotheosis, but that day is not today.

Personally I like Dual Support+ for its use during the dozens of hours where you aren't playing Apo, AKA the rest of the game. It's deep in Valkyrie, but works well with Demoiselle, and gives you some unconventional pairing options. If I hadn't miscalculated the best reclass points, it would have turned Miriel into something of a super-Support partner on my L+ run (Demo, Support+, Hex, Anathema all work from the back).

DSup+ isn't even good in the main game though. I mean, it's certainly okay, but being a level 15 promoted skill seriously limits availability, as well as most of the effects still being pretty minor. Firstly there's it's limitations on use - at the back it only affects the person at the front, at the front it only affects yourself and the person at the front in adjacent pairs. Secondly hit still rarely matters, dodge still rarely matters, 5 avoid and 5 crit is kind of alright but considering how often it's not affecting more than one person, is pretty meh.

If it were say, available earlygame like Charm is and/or available to multiple units easily, or was less strict about who it affects in adjacency scenarios, I'd agree that it could be pretty useful in the main game. But as is, it's little more than a cute but suboptimal skill. And of course, the limitation to Valkries hardly helps matters, since that means pretty much only Maribelle can get to obtain and use the skill for any reasonable amount of time.