Skills Tier List

[Soren37]

A Skills Tier List for Fire Emblem 10. Please read the following guidelines.

-If a skill helps complete a chapter faster, or makes the characters complete the chapter faster, then it moves up. This skill does not have to be a combat skill. Many skills help decrease turn counts.

-This list focuses on Skill Utility, not Character + Skill Utility. Therefore, do not argue that Character X does not go well with Pass. All characters have the option for the Skills. I know some are better, and I may take that into account (I may change this to allow optimal skill deployment).

-Class and Mastery Skills are exempt to the above rule.

-Please give a reason for changes. Simply saying "Skill X up" will not cut it for me. Please give a reason and an argument as to why Skill X > Skill Y or vice versa.

Top Tier

Galdrar

Smite

Shove

Formshift

Beastfoe

Parity

White Pool

Blood Tide

Dragonfoe

High Tier

Adept

Canto

Saviour

Resolve

Celerity

Pass

Paragon

Nullify

Impale

Luna

Stun

Colossus

Tear

Savage

Roar

Upper Mid Tier

Rend

Critical +25

Vantage

Provoke

Imbue

Pavise

Vigilance

Aether

Night Tide

Astra

Deadeye

Sol

Flare

Corona

Daunt

Lethality

Middle Tier

Critical +20

Wrath

Sacrifice

Guard

Blessing

Stillness

Bane

Lower Mid Tier

Nihil

Critical +15

Cancel

Shade

Counter

Wildheart

Boon

Insight

Birdfoe

Disarm

Blossom

Ire

Renewal

Discipline

Low Tier

Critical +10

Corrosion

Miracle

Critical +5

Bottom Tier

Gamble

Mantle

Quickclaw

Howl

Maelstrom

Glare

Fortune

Flourish

Mercy

Shriek

Steal

Eclipse

I am now open to your criticisms.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Soren37

[WeaponsofMassConstruction]

Why are the criticals separated by tiers?

Also, I do not see why Vantage is above Cancel.

[Zkirsche]

White pool > blood tide. Doubling auras is > dealing a mere 5 extra damage to them.

Also, why is aether so low, a tier below lethality? When is is around for longer and can come much more in handy (like, Volke won't even use it until 4-E, and even then the main enemies you have to kill have Nihil, so its moot. 4-1 + 4-4 use of aether vs 4-E-1 use of lethality. Maybe not even that if Volke isn't assumed to go to 4-E. In which case, it takes a hell of a lot of negative utility.

Also, I do not see why Vantage is above Cancel

Well, vantage can give a durabiltiy bonus during the most active phase of the game: teh enemy phase, the ability to strike first and get adept or a crit or just to finish off a weakened enemy is a vital improvement. But when our healers can actually heal our units, not getting damaged thanks to cancel isn't such a great improvement.

Also, wildheart to below resolve. Resolve can do so much more, and you pretty much ditch wildheart as soon as you can anyway.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Zwiebel

[Junkhead]

Adept is too low.

And all the lategame-useful skills are too high.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Totally not Hika's alt

[Narga_Rocks]

-This list focuses on Skill Utility, not Character + Skill Utility. Therefore, do not argue that Character X does not go well with Pass. All characters have the option for the Skills. I know some are better, and I may take that into account (I may change this to allow optimal skill deployment).

High Tier

Canto

Wildheart

Adept

Celerity

Pass

Nulify

Resolve

Impale

Luna

Stun

Colossus

Tear

Savage

Roar

Lower Mid Tier

Critical +15

Cancel

Howl

Counter

Shriek

Boon

Insight

Maelstrom

Disarm

Rend

Ire

Renewal

Discipline

Rend is way way too low, unless you are including the character's situations. Obviously Lyre and Lethe will never get it, and Ranulf needs a ton of bexp that's only useful on him when your other characters lack growths. However, Rend is amazing. spd% activation, 5x strength. With 20 str and S strike, this kills everything. Even Red Dragons only have 77 hp and 36 def, or around that. 113 mt is all that is needed unless they are on cover. And even then, 22 str + S strike is enough to OHKO. This thing is better than everything except perhaps Luna, since that can OHKO pretty easily, too. 3x strength and ignore defence means that 20 strength and wishblade will OHKO anything with less than 82 hp. Which obviously includes Red Dragons and cover isn't even relevant. But Luna never reaches 40% activation since nobody with Luna can get 40 skill. Oh, and Luna > Impale. Impale is only 4x damage, so it's actually easily possible to fail at killing things with Impale. 24 str results in 72 damage straight up, so with just a steel weapon it's impossible to fail at killing anything that doesn't have mantle.

I don't really care about the rest. Well, except dragonfoe. It doesn't do anything but self-improvement in 4-5 and in 4-E-3 I'm not sure how big a difference it makes. Certainly not bigger than Canto or Pass or Celerity or Saviour. Yes, saviour should be higher due to Haar dropping Ike to seize sometimes or other things like that.

Back to Rend, if you are placing it so low due to the pathetic cats, I'd recommend raising Tear and Savage due to how much time Tibarn and Naesala and the hawks and Nailah can use their skills.

[WeaponsofMassConstruction]

Well, vantage can give a durabiltiy bonus during the most active phase of the game: teh enemy phase, the ability to strike first and get adept or a crit or just to finish off a weakened enemy is a vital improvement. But when our healers can actually heal our units, not getting damaged thanks to cancel isn't such a great improvement..

How is not getting damaged due to Vantage and not getting damaged due to Cancel different?

Eclipse should be either high tier or bottom, depending on the rules.

[Anouleth]

ctrl + f 'shade'

not found

ctrl + f 'saviour'

not found

Also, Shove for top tier.

[Tables]

Nihil and Paragon down. Paragon makes little difference, especially for it's capacity cost, and I doubt saves more than 1 turn, if that. Nihil helps save a little luck abuse in 4-E-3 and a little damage in 4-E-5 - perhaps 2 turns saved at most. Asides from that probably no use in the game.

[Shadow Mir]

Howl, Shriek, Maelstrom and Quickclaw are all way too high. All of them require you to get hit from range, and getting attacked from range is not what you want to happen with a laguz. I say all four of them need to go way down.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Ein Lanford

[Krad]

Shove and Smite for High or Top.

What is Shriek doing two tiers above such great skills like Mercy and Flourish?

Why is Gamble above Crit +5/+10? At least they improve your chances of killing an enemy, instead of destroying your hit.

Corrosion in Middle. Why?

[whase]

resolve for top tier because:

makes low speed units double myrms and SM's,

awesome evade makes healers unneeded (unneeded anyways for the need of lower health),

increases crit.

and it's already available earlygame.

[Kinata]

I agree with most of the criticisms. Birdfoe is gotten in 4-5 and is useful in that chapter, so I wouldn't call it the worst skill in the game. And where's Mantle? It essentially gives Lehran invulnerability and can do anything Nihil can.

[Narga_Rocks]

How is not getting damaged due to Vantage and not getting damaged due to Cancel different?

Eclipse should be either high tier or bottom, depending on the rules.

But didn't people just show that Eclipse is (skill/2) %? That makes it already much worse than all the skills that guarantee a OHKO but use str/skl/spd % rather than /2 %. In other words, Luna, Rend.

Also, he really doesn't need it in 1-9 or 1-E since he ORKOs everything and never dies. OHKOing doesn't matter. I think even in 3-6 he still ORKOs everything and never dies so who cares? If the character matters, he hurts Eclipse rather than helps it. If the character doesn't matter, Rend > Luna > Impale, thanks. And Eclipse below a bunch of other things since it doesn't activate as much.

Oh, and Paragon probably saves more than a turn or two. At least, when you consider Paragon can be used to help units get more speed, allowing them to double. I mean, just look at Jill in 3-12 and compare a level 8 or 9 tier 2 Jill to a level 15+ tier 2 Jill. I find it hard to believe that Paragon isn't saving you a few turns that way. And then allowing more units to get 34 spd for lategame.

Oh, and Mercy does suck. Elincia is better than any character you could possible need her using Mercy to train, and thus using Mercy results in an inferior character. If Mercy at least acted like Flourish I'd love it. Kill on enemy phase + whenever I want on player phase and I have the option to leave things alive on player phase. It would be much better than Flourish since Flourish nukes attack so much you are often better off using bronze weapons. But since Mercy is automatic rather than on command, Mercy is terrible.

And resolve is fine where it is, though maybe could move up or down a bit depending on how the rules work. Due to the 50% thing, it's not very good for dealing with myrms and sms anyway, the evade isn't completely reliable unless you are placing it on earth support Mia(Ike)/Zihark/Nolan/Volug. And if you are earth supporting they are fairly durable even without Resolve. The crit increase is really small and mostly pointless. Titania goes from like 11 crit to 16 crit or something and still fails to beat enemy luck, for example.

[Kaoz]

How is not getting damaged due to Vantage and not getting damaged due to Cancel different?

You have to hit with Cancel in order to prevent an attack, right? If the enemy attacks first, you'll take damage either way, with Vantage that's not necessarily the case as you could kill the enemy before he can attack. This is only true for EP of course, as Vanatge is useless on PP.

[Anouleth]

Nihil and Paragon down. Paragon makes little difference, especially for it's capacity cost, and I doubt saves more than 1 turn, if that. Nihil helps save a little luck abuse in 4-E-3 and a little damage in 4-E-5 - perhaps 2 turns saved at most. Asides from that probably no use in the game.

Paragon doesn't give a noticeable effect, but it's useful to do stuff like get Super Jill for 3-12 and 3-13, and it helps in Part 4 where you want lots of high-levelled units to help Rout.

[Kinata]

Mastery skills in general should go up. Instant kill and often high activation rates, they're broken.

Daunt down. -5 crit is useless to most enemies -5 hit is also pretty insignificant.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Kinata

[Shadow Mir]

What is Shriek doing two tiers above such great skills like Mercy and Flourish?

I fail to see how Flourish can be called "great" at all. Half attack before enemy defense is pathetic, even if you're aiming to weaken; you'd be better off using bronze weapons in that case.

[Tables]

Conceded about Jill then, but even so I still think it seems too high. Down to High tier at least.

And parity can go down with Nihil.

[Kinata]

Yes, and Parity should be above Nihil for the extra damage.

[Tables]

Hm. But it negates the effects of dragons and supports, both of which can be very valuable and by the time you'd use it or Nihil, other skills don't matter much. I'd put Nihil above it considering that, unless you can find reasonable use for Parity outside 4-E-3

[riariadne]

Glare to bottom of bottom. IIRC there isn't a single instance where it's actually useful.

Shove and Smite need top tier nao. Saves so many turn counts it's silly. Aether above Lethality.

Parity below Red Pool, because it kills all support bonuses as well. White Tide > Red Pool because +5 Spd>>> +5 Str.

[Kinata]

Really? I didn't think Parity negated tide bonuses.

[Shadow Mir]

As for Howl, Shriek, Maelstrom and Quickclaw dropping, as I said before, you have to get hit for them to activate. Dropping enemy luck to zero is pretty lame, Howl only really works on Canto dudes, keeping them from running (most of everything else is either archers who you could just pwn on player phase, or mages, which most beast laguz don't want to see attacking them (especially fire mages), and Maelstrom and Quickclaw don't even give that much damage in retaliation (is the damage they do affected by enemy defense?). In fact, I dare say Shriek needs to go to bottom of bottom.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Ein Lanford

[Zkirsche]

Shriek is useless, but not a net negative like flourish/mercy.

How is not getting damaged due to Vantage and not getting damaged due to Cancel different?

One occurs on the PP, so they can be healed afterwards. The otehr occurs on the EP, when allies cannot be healed.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Zwiebel

[Anouleth]

Hm. But it negates the effects of dragons and supports, both of which can be very valuable and by the time you'd use it or Nihil, other skills don't matter much. I'd put Nihil above it considering that, unless you can find reasonable use for Parity outside 4-E-3

Being able to ignore terrain and skills is more powerful than just being able to ignore skills.

Parity is important for 4-E-2, against the Black Knight. It's good for the insane Cover Generals in 4-E-1. It's good for Cover Spirits and Cover Auras, and it even improves hit because it cancels authority stars (making it useful in 3-13 as well).