The New Power of Merge Allies with Inherit Skill

[Kaden]

The recent 1.2.0 update introduced a new feature for Merge Allies and it is that all skills can be passed down. This change has made Merge Allies a powerful and rewarding tool.

What do I mean exactly? Perhaps you already know or maybe you don't, so let's just write this down anyway. Before this update, when using Merge Allies, the only things you would gain are SP and increased stats if the host was a lower rarity. This meant all skills, learned or unlearned, default or inherited, would have to be relearned if they are default skills or regained in the case of inherited skills. Now, skills are passed down as well. This means two things:

1. You can bypass learning a unit's default skills.

2. You can use a duplicate unit to pass down inheritable skills you want.

Note this: Units that are 3* and above will have at a minimum at level 40: 540 SP to spend. This does not consider SP gained from KO'ing units. Starting from 3*, that's a total of 1620 SP, but that's 22k feathers. 2k feathers -- getting a 3* to a 4* -- will net you 1080 SP to spend which might be more worth it. Not promoting, however, might be enough for some. Also, 2* units will have 360 SP and 1* units will have 180 SP.

Also note: as confirmed by @Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi, skills are passed down regardless if they are learned or not. If they learned, then they are passed down as learned. If not, then they are passed down as unlearned. The unlearned part is more useful for inherited skills you considered, but are not sure if you want to learn yet. Ideally, you would want to pass down all skills as learned so your main unit will have complete access to them.

Basically, the main idea is to use Merge Allies with Inherit Skill to efficiently give skills to your unit. That said, however, more SP and more freedom to use SP does not mean waste SP. Consider the build you want and consider the skills you want.

Anyway, let's say you want to give a +Atk, -Res Frederick a Brave Axe, you would need 300 SP. For a 3* Frederick to gain all of his skills, you would need 510 SP or 310 without his Hammer since you're trying to get a Brave Axe. If Hammer was not learned, Frederick would only have 230 SP leaving him 70 SP short of getting a Brave Axe. For a 4*, you would need 730 SP which leaves him at a deficit of 190 SP. Both can gain their default skills through regular play.

Using a spare Frederick to learn Brave Axe, however, leaves spare Frederick with 240 SP to play with which he can pick up a support skill which all cost 225 SP as inherited skills or something like Glowing Ember, 200 SP as a inherited skill, to use Frederick's high natural defense. One of the Brave Axe candidates is Barst and he comes with Reposition which would fit perfectly under the 540 minimum. Meanwhile, "main" Frederick will need to spend nothing, instead, he will gain all the skills acquired by spare Frederick and whatever SP spare Frederick will give when he's used to merge with "main" Frederick. In a way, the SP your main unit has could be considered as "emergency" SP used for a skill or skills you really need.

Another idea is that training units with not ideal boon/bane is still helpful since you can use them in the future to pass down their default and inherited skills to one with a better or ideal boon/bane. For example, you have a -Atk, +Res Cherche. She's the only Cherche you have, but you really want to use her. Well... use her. Get all of her skills, inherit some skills, and when you get another Cherche, merge this Cherche with the hopefully better Cherche. That Cherche will now have all of her default skills, if they were learned, at whatever rarity the first was plus inherited skills both as learned if the were or unlearned if they were not. Neat, huh?

The only limitations, however, is that some units either cannot do or will have a harder time doing this. For the former, units like Anna or Ursula are either one of a kind or are limited, so this process would not work with them at all or as well. For the latter, rarer units such as a 5*-only units or even 4* to 5* units means it will be harder to get duplicates of them, but at least you can get them.

Another thing to consider are units with rare or exclusive access to skills. For example, Arthur is the currently the only summonable unit with Emerald Axe and Lancebreaker. Your choice on using him for Inherit Skill for another unit or improving him with Merge Allies and Inherit Skill is up to you. Fortunately, however, Arthur is one of the units with a low SP cost to get his skills; most units with specials tend to have higher SP cost -- will need to actually verify this, but I've noticed this to be the case.

I hope I was able to articulate this idea properly and in an easy to understand way. If not, then tell me and I'll try to fix this. Criticism and feedback in general is helpful. For those who played Dark Cloud 1 or 2 and know how to effectively upgrade weapons, you might be able to get what I'm saying if I wasn't clear.

Edit: 4/12/17, correction by @Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi about the status of unlearned skills. Thank you for your correction.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Kaden

[Lyrai]

22 minutes ago, Kaden said:

1. You can bypass learning a unit's default skills.

2. You can use a duplicate unit to pass down inheritable skills you want.

These two points sums up most of it. Basically I would just use a duplicate unit to learn the inherited skills and pass it down to my main unit. There is one other thing I need to know. I need to confirm whether the unit would pass down their skills in a usable state, or that I have to grind SP again for the inherited skills.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Lyrai

[Thor Odinson]

Just now, Lyrai said:

These two points sums up most of it. Basically I would just use a duplicate unit to learn the inherited skills and pass it down to my main unit. There is one other thing I need to know. I need to confirm whether the unit would pass down their skills in a usable state, or that I have to grind SP again for the inherited skills.

It's usable. I merged my Olivia with Ruby Sword into my other Olivia with a better nature and I was immediately able to use the Ruby Sword. I also went and grabbed Moonbow for my dupe Minerva, merged her into my main Minerva, and now I have Moonbow.

[Roflolxp54]

I wonder if merging a unit with inherited skills to a +10 merged unit is possible with only the skills being transferred over and causing no additional stat gains besides SP.

[Lyrai]

Just now, Thor Odinson said:

It's usable. I merged my Olivia with Ruby Sword into my other Olivia with a better nature and I was immediately able to use the Ruby Sword. I also went and grabbed Moonbow for my dupe Minerva, merged her into my main Minerva, and now I have Moonbow.

Nice. Seems like a great feature to have, especially making use of that duplicate unit of a lower rarity than your main that you won't find use with. Thanks for the heads-up!

[Kaden]

8 minutes ago, Lyrai said:

These two points sums up most of it. Basically I would just use a duplicate unit to learn the inherited skills and pass it down to my main unit. There is one other thing I need to know. I need to confirm whether the unit would pass down their skills in a usable state, or that I have to grind SP again for the inherited skills.

I haven't used it, but looking at the screen, it looks like if the unit being used to merge has learned the skill, then it would be passed down as learned. If not, then you won't get the skill at all if it's inherited meaning you just wasted whoever gave that skill or you'll have to learn their default skill.

Aww, ninja'd! And I'm the OP! :p

Yeah, so this is why I was so excited to talk about this, but it's weird that it isn't talked about in the Skill Inheritance Discussion which I did post in: https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/70033-skill-inheritance-discussion/&page=56#comment-4790890, but it got ignored. Maybe in the general discussion? It just seems like such a powerful thing that people should be raving about the possibilities and potential. That or I'm easily excited about simple stuff.

5 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

I wonder if merging a unit with inherited skills to a +10 merged unit is possible with only the skills being transferred over and causing no additional stat gains besides SP.

Probably? I don't see why the developers would stop you from being able to merge just because you have a +10 unit. You should still be able to get SP and passed down skills.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Kaden

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

I wonder if merging a unit with inherited skills to a +10 merged unit is possible with only the skills being transferred over and causing no additional stat gains besides SP.

You can continue merging into a +10 unit as many times as you want. The only thing different is that you no longer gain merge levels.

[Lyrai]

8 minutes ago, Kaden said:

I haven't used it, but looking at the screen, it looks like if the unit being used to merge has learned the skill, then it would be passed down as learned. If not, then you won't get the skill at all if it's inherited meaning you just wasted whoever gave that skill or you'll have to learn their default skill.

Aww, ninja'd! And I'm the OP! :p

Noted. Basically only the learned inherited skills can be passed down, right? I have to put some effort into my duplicate unit before I can merge it. I hope no one misunderstood and lost their units in vain...

Ninja'd or not. I wouldn't have known this if not for the OP, so cheer up.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Lyrai

[Roflolxp54]

4 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

You can continue merging into a +10 unit as many times as you want. The only thing different is that you no longer gain merge levels.

Ah, cool. Would those merge levels transfer over if a +10 unit were to be merged to a +0 unit of the same rarity?

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

5 minutes ago, Lyrai said:

Noted. Basically only the learned inherited skills can be passed down, right? I have to put some effort into my duplicate unit before I can merge it. I hope no one misunderstood and lost their units in vain...

Ninja'd or not. I wouldn't have known this if not for the OP, so cheer up.

This is false. I have a Cherche that I merged to another with a few skills I inherited for the hell of it since I hadn't used up my inherit limit getting the 1-2 skills I wanted. I didn't bother learning Spur Atk 1, Fortify Res 1 or Fortify Res 2 on my donating Cherche, but the recipient Cherche does have them—just in an unlearned state.

[Kaden]

12 minutes ago, Lyrai said:

Noted. Basically only the learned inherited skills can be passed down, right? I have to put some effort into my duplicate unit before I can merge it. I hope no one misunderstood and lost their units in vain...

Ninja'd or not. I wouldn't have known this if not for the OP, so cheer up.

Slight correction: all skills can be passed down. So, if you leveled up a 4* Chrom you got from way back and have all of his skills and gave him, say, Axebreaker 3, and you summon a 5* Chrom with a boon/bane you really like, if you merge old Chrom to new Chrom, you also get his default and inherited skills for the new Chrom. If learned, then they are passed down as learned. If not, then they're passed down as unlearned. Considering Aether costs 500 SP, this can be great way for Chrom, probably Ike, and Lucina to not have to spend 500 SP (again) to get it even if you don't use it regularly outside for style points.

Edit: Never mind. See the post above me or the quote below.

2 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

This is false. I have a Cherche that I merged to another with a few skills I inherited for the hell of it since I hadn't used up my inherit limit getting the 1-2 skills I wanted. I didn't bother learning Spur Atk 1, Fortify Res 1 or Fortify Res 2 on my donating Cherche, but the recipient Cherche does have them—just in an unlearned state.

They do? That's even better! Probably would have been better if you bought it with the donating Cherche so you wouldn't have to have to buy them with recipient Cherche.

Welp, time to edit the OP.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Kaden

[Ice Dragon]

12 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

Ah, cool. Would those merge levels transfer over if a +10 unit were to be merged to a +0 unit of the same rarity?

Sacrificing a merged unit counts each merge as a separate merge, effectively. A +5 sacrifice gives a total of 6 merge levels and 6 merges worth of SP to the recipient.

[Lyrai]

Just now, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

This is false. I have a Cherche that I merged to another with a few skills I inherited for the hell of it since I hadn't used up my inherit limit getting the 1-2 skills I wanted. I didn't bother learning Spur Atk 1, Fortify Res 1 or Fortify Res 2 on my donating Cherche, but the recipient Cherche does have them—just in an unlearned state.

 

Just now, Kaden said:

Slight correction: all learned skills can be passed down. So, if you leveled up a 4* Chrom you got from way back and have all of his skills and gave him, say, Axebreaker 3, and you summon a 5* Chrom with a boon/bane you really like, if you merge old Chrom to new Chrom, you also get his default and inherited skills as learned for the new Chrom. Considering Aether costs 500 SP, this can be great way for Chrom, probably Ike, and Lucina to not have to spend 500 SP (again) to get it even if you don't use it regularly outside for style points.

Ah. Good to hear then. Which means this rule applies to all skills (both default and inherited) when merged:

• If a skill is not learned, then when it's merged, it will be obtained but still unlearned.
• If a skill is learned, then when it's merged, it will be obtained and learned, ready to be used.

Thanks for the correction. :)

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

19 minutes ago, Kaden said:

Slight correction: all skills can be passed down. So, if you leveled up a 4* Chrom you got from way back and have all of his skills and gave him, say, Axebreaker 3, and you summon a 5* Chrom with a boon/bane you really like, if you merge old Chrom to new Chrom, you also get his default and inherited skills for the new Chrom. If learned, then they are passed down as learned. If not, then they're passed down as unlearned. Considering Aether costs 500 SP, this can be great way for Chrom, probably Ike, and Lucina to not have to spend 500 SP (again) to get it even if you don't use it regularly outside for style points.

Edit: Never mind. See the post above me or the quote below.

They do? That's even better! Probably would have been better if you bought it with the donating Cherche so you wouldn't have to have to buy them with recipient Cherche.

Welp, time to edit the OP.

Yeah, I probably should have, though I guess it also served as a bit of a test to know for certain. The recipient Cherche isn't exactly wanting for SP, though. I leveled her all the way up to 5* 37 from 3*, so she's got like 3000, even after learning a bunch of her default skills. The other Cherche totally saved her the cost of learning a bunch of her key skills, though, so while it's a bit of a loss, it's proportionally fairly small.

[Kaden]

@Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi, yeah I did mention in the bit about Arthur and rare skills that usually, units with specials, have lower skill costs. I gave my Cherche Emerald Axe and Lancebreaker 2 to beat Lunatic Navarre as a was suggested to do -- well, the Lancebreaker 2 part -- since I didn't have Narcian. She had almost enough to get all 3 skills as a lv. 40 3*. Just got her Emerald Axe today when I saw what you could do with Merge Allies yesterday knowing that a future Cherche will gain full access to all of old Cherche's skills.

[AuraGuardianR]

I'm not entirely sure if this has been covered, but if I merge my 5* Robin into my 3*, he'll still have all his skills learned, even the 5* only ones? I don't want to waste all the SP I used on my -Atk 5* one...

[Thor Odinson]

29 minutes ago, AuraGuardianR said:

I'm not entirely sure if this has been covered, but if I merge my 5* Robin into my 3*, he'll still have all his skills learned, even the 5* only ones? I don't want to waste all the SP I used on my -Atk 5* one...

I mean in that case I'd promote your 3* to 5* first before you merge regardless anyway, because if you merge a 5* into a 3* immediately you won't have a 5*+1 in the end and all you get is like, 150 feathers saved on promotion. Not worth. 

But theoretically I don't see why not--4*s have been able to inherit 5* weapons from other units just fine. 

Edited April 13, 2017 by Thor Odinson

[Kaden]

1 hour ago, AuraGuardianR said:

I'm not entirely sure if this has been covered, but if I merge my 5* Robin into my 3*, he'll still have all his skills learned, even the 5* only ones? I don't want to waste all the SP I used on my -Atk 5* one...

Yeah, you'll get all the skills 5* Robin learned. If you didn't have him learn all of his default skills, then you'd have to learn them normally which also means you'd have to promote him to get the other skills you haven't learned that he can only learn as 4* and 5*. For inherited skills, they will come as learned if you did learn them or unlearned if you don't.

Just checked with my 5* +Res, -Def lv. 40 Raven who has all of his skills with a 4* +Atk, -Res Raven who is lv. 1. 4* Raven would get all of 5* Raven's learned skills which means he'd have access to Brave Axe+ and Threaten Def 3 as a 4* when he would normally need to be a 5* to learn them.

I'd say it's a very effective way to gain access to all of a unit's default skills at the cost of stats because of the rarity difference, but you can always promote them later. In my case, I summoned the 5* Raven right after the 4* in the same session a while back.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Kaden

[AuraGuardianR]

Thank you both! I kinda thought it would be easier to train my 3* if he had the skills I had already learned, but I guess it would be better to get the merge level instead.

[Jonnas]

So, I have a Lv.40, 4-star Cecilia (+Spd/-HP) with Gronnblade, and I just drew another with a better nature (+Atk/-Res). Am I correct in assuming that, if I join the Lv.40 Cecilia into the Lv.1 Cecilia, the latter will learn all of the skills the former had, Gronnblade included?

[Kaden]

13 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

So, I have a Lv.40, 4-star Cecilia (+Spd/-HP) with Gronnblade, and I just drew another with a better nature (+Atk/-Res). Am I correct in assuming that, if I join the Lv.40 Cecilia into the Lv.1 Cecilia, the latter will learn all of the skills the former had, Gronnblade included?

Yep, and if she has other inherited, but unlearned skills, she'll have access to them as well, but as unlearned skills. Ideally, you'd want all possible skills to be learned to maximize how many skills you can pass down.

You can check with Merge Allies by not actually merging, but tapping and holding the portrait of post-merge Cecilia and checking her skill list. It should show all learned, default and inherited, skills as in blue and unlearned, default and inherited, as grey with SP costs and rarity if there's a difference in rarity e.g. if new Cecilia is a 3* and you haven't learned one of old, 4* Cecilia's default skills.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Kaden

[Jonnas]

1 minute ago, Kaden said:

You can check with Merge Allies by not actually merging, but tapping and holding the portrait of post-merge Cecilia and checking her skill list. It should show all learned, default and inherited, skills as in blue and unlearned, default and inherited, as grey with SP costs and rarity if there's a difference in rarity e.g. if new Cecilia is a 3* and you haven't learned one of old, 4* Cecilia's default skills.

Just tried it, and yeah, everything showed up like it was supposed to :) Thank you for the tip!