Top-Tier Skills

[Onyx1]

For those that have been playing the game, I wanted to ask what you think the best skills are. In other words, which skills, when available to a unit, would you always choose to equip?

Based solely off the info on serenes forest and my experience with other FE games, these skills stand out to me the most (in no particular order):

Great Lord/Grandmaster skills (obviously)

Luna (Great Knight)

Astra (Swordmaster)

Sol (Hero)

Lethality (Assassin)

Pass (Assassin)

Lightning Speed (Dark Pegasus) {Note: This seems astounding when viewed through the lens of other FE games in the series. Imaging two attacks in one turn....beautiful}

Crimson Curse (Dark Mage)

Life Absorb (Dark Knight)

Renewal (Battle Monk/Cleric)

Any other skills you guys love to use (and why)? Any of the above that don't work out as well as they sound (given game mechanics, practicality, etc.)? It might be too early to ask, but if anyone has played on harder modes, would you recommend a different set of skills?

[Paperblade]

Lethality is probably terrible for the same reason it's always been terrible: most other characters are already ORKOing or close to it and any other +damage skill (Such as Luna or Aether) will lead to a kill anyway, thus the horrible activation rate makes it just bad.

Astra has a similar problem in that it's huge overkill that wastes weapon uses with a poor activation.

[Othin]

Rainbow Cry is without a doubt the best skill I've used, with Carrier as probably the second-best. I imagine Lightning Speed would easily beat out both of them, but I haven't yet used any Dark Pegasus enough to try it. Speed Cry equates to pretty much half a Rainbow Cry: I haven't used it either, but it sounds like it would probably take fourth place.

On the highest difficulties, it seems to me that the Cry skills would become even more important. I haven't played far enough in Lunatic to actually get any of them, but I imagine there, Rainbow Cry surpasses even Lightning Speed for the title of best skill, with Speed Cry, Defense Cry, and Resistance Cry following not far behind. Carrier is probably limited in use in this mode because of how much less a unit or two can accomplish on their own, but I imagine it's still valuable.

The chance-activated skills aren't quite as easy to use effectively, but Astra and Aether are the two that seem to best balance activation rate with effectiveness. Lethality has way too low of an activation rate for what's really just overkill, while Sol and Luna just aren't very good. Vengeance can be good, especially with its sky-high activation rate, but if you're sending a Sorcerer to take a bunch of attacks to wind up with a lot of damage, they're probably equipping Nosferatu anyway, which heals the damage and reduces Vengeance's effectiveness to nothing. Magnificent Flame can be effective, though. What also works is stacking chance-activated skills: Killer weapons and Dual Attack possibilities can also contribute to this to get a high probability of getting something. And of course Royal Weapon is great for this, although Krom has poor options to use it with.

Lethality is probably terrible for the same reason it's always been terrible: most other characters are already ORKOing or close to it and any other +damage skill (Such as Luna or Aether) will lead to a kill anyway, thus the horrible activation rate makes it just bad.

Astra has a similar problem in that it's huge overkill that wastes weapon uses with a poor activation.

One-rounding actually isn't that easy: enemies are the strongest they've ever been, even relative to the increased player stats. And the high-activation skills tend to not be much help with that, while the increased stats also increase their activation rates. So while Lethality is overkill, Aether and Astra are not. Also, Aether and Astra now only use up one use each, so burning through durability with them no longer even happens.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Othin

[paladin21]

Astra should be combined with weapon saver to avoid weapon wasting

[Othin]

Astra should be combined with weapon saver to avoid weapon wasting

The multiple hits of Astra and Aether are only counted as one hit for the purpose of expending weapon durability. Weapon Saver has no greater importance there than anywhere else, although it seems like it could be quite useful. I've never found myself planning around it, though, or even thinking about it at all.

[Zyriex]

I think that the utility skills, Pass, Move+1, and Acrobatics, can't be overlooked in terms of having your characters get to places. Especially if you can get the last one on a mounted unit.

The Slayer skills as a whole would be useful at worse and nearly invaluable at best. See Bow Slayer on anything that can fly.(Viole, Tiamo, their kids)

[Bryan]

I think that Weapon saver is honestly an awesome skill. Forged Inverse's Darkness + 100% activation rate? Yes please. :) BRB, I'm going to go solo every chapter.

[Emperor Hardin]

Great Shield seems annoying useless, its rare for a General to need protection from physical attacks.

[Just call me AL]

I'm just wondering what the value of a skill like Secluded Lady would have on any of the higher difficulties, because it seems like such a nice skill on paper.

[Pitbuller26]

The multiple hits of Astra and Aether are only counted as one hit for the purpose of expending weapon durability.

Well that's nice to know about Astra and Aether. I always worried about weapon durability whenever a Swordmaster activated Astra.

[Zyriex]

Great Shield seems annoying useless, its rare for a General to need protection from physical attacks.

Yeah, but it's real value probably comes from what whoever gets that skill can reclass to. General with Great Shield? Eh. Assasin or squishy magic class with it? YES.

Same applies to most of the Slayer skills, like Bow Slayer; not that great on Bow Knights, invaluable on flying units.

Multi-hit skills only taking one weapon use is so very nice. Weapon Saver might break me out of the habit of hoarding silver/brave/special weapons while using iron and steel out of the fear of running out. _{Though playing FE12 on the harder difficulties has already caused me to be more liberal with silver lances}

Edited May 10, 2012 by Zyriex

[I don't play for turns]

Not hearing a lot about life drain, and it looks amazing on paper. (Othin, we look to you for guidance!)

[TheVinceKnight]

I may seem like a random person posting, but I've been listening:

- Life Saver

Life Saver gives you 50% of your MAX HP on a kill.

Note that killing an enemy during the Enemy Phase does not count.

I'm unsure if Life Saver can be used twice in a turn, since you could combo Lightning Action and Life Saver to regain 100% HP every of your turns.

- Tome Slayer

+50 hit and avoid to you if the enemy is equipped with a tome.

Oh my god. I love Tome Slayer.

Note that Tome Slayer is usually most useful on Dark Knights and Sorcerors, since their Defence stats are usually higher than their Resistance.

- Vengence (Skill*2% activation)

The formula for Vegence's damage is (Your MAX HP - Current HP / 2).

That skill activation rate. Big. I've activated this and Magnificent Flame so many times its not funny.

- Magnificent Flame (Skill% Activation)

Add 1/2 STR to your damage when attacking with a tome. Vice versa for weapons.

This extra damage is so cool. And free. I have a Sorceror with max STR just for it. That's +18 damage.

[LegendaryHero0]

Lethality is probably terrible for the same reason it's always been terrible: most other characters are already ORKOing or close to it and any other +damage skill (Such as Luna or Aether) will lead to a kill anyway, thus the horrible activation rate makes it just bad.

Astra has a similar problem in that it's huge overkill that wastes weapon uses with a poor activation.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but would Lethality essentially just boost your critical hit ratio by ~0.25xSkill?

Lethality OHKO's based on your skill level divided by 4, and crits, which are determined by your skill level, almost always kill anyway. It would be your normal crit ratio, plus your chance of lethality activating (which should be around 15-17% considering the higher stats in this game), so it'd essentially just be a boost to your critical hit ratio, or OHKO ratio, if you will.

It's certainly not as grand as it seems to be, but if i'm understanding it correctly, that's not terrible. Is there some factor i'm missing?

Edited May 10, 2012 by LegendaryHero0

[CrashGordon94]

It's certainly not as grand as it seems to be, but if i'm understanding it correctly, that's not terrible. Is there some factor i'm missing?

That Skill/4 is a puny, pathetic activation rate.

To left field slightly, Discipline sounds great!

[Othin]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but would Lethality essentially just boost your critical hit ratio by ~0.25xSkill?

Lethality OHKO's based on your skill level divided by 4, and crits, which are determined by your skill level, almost always kill anyway. It would be your normal crit ratio, plus your chance of lethality activating (which should be around 15-17% considering the higher stats in this game), so it'd essentially just be a boost to your critical hit ratio, or OHKO ratio, if you will.

It's certainly not as grand as it seems to be, but if i'm understanding it correctly, that's not terrible. Is there some factor i'm missing?

Meanwhile Aether and Astra pretty much boost your crit rate by Skl/2, which is precisely twice as good.

[LegendaryHero0]

That Skill/4 is a puny, pathetic activation rate.

Well, that's still approximately 12%, which on it's own isn't too fantastic, but as an additional 12% isn't bad.

Meanwhile Aether and Astra pretty much boost your crit rate by Skl/2, which is precisely twice as good.

Ah, this makes perfect sense. It's just simply outclassed by these two..

But hey, at least Lethality LOOKS cool. :P

Edited May 10, 2012 by LegendaryHero0

[Onyx1]

In other posts I've seen on the forums, people seem to be very excited about the Slayer skills (Tome, Bow, etc.), with some people even going so far as to say they'd try to put them all on one unit, and then call it "broken". Now, I see the inherent value in Bow Slayer on a flying unit, but beyond that, are they truly that useful? Take for instance Tome Slayer; in many cases, the types of units who would equip it would traditionally have high res, making the evasion to magic seem rather unnecessary. The + accuracy also seems unnecessary, given that in the past, hit rates have never been too much of an issue, at least past the early chapters of FE games.

But, of course, I haven't played the new game yet, so perhaps the slayer skills are more useful than I'm realizing?

[LegendaryHero0]

In other posts I've seen on the forums, people seem to be very excited about the Slayer skills (Tome, Bow, etc.), with some people even going so far as to say they'd try to put them all on one unit, and then call it "broken". Now, I see the inherent value in Bow Slayer on a flying unit, but beyond that, are they truly that useful? Take for instance Tome Slayer; in many cases, the types of units who would equip it would traditionally have high res, making the evasion to magic seem rather unnecessary. The + accuracy also seems unnecessary, given that in the past, hit rates have never been too much of an issue, at least past the early chapters of FE games.

But, of course, I haven't played the new game yet, so perhaps the slayer skills are more useful than I'm realizing?

Well, from what I understand, if you have the ability to pass them all onto one class, then it could be just a check to pretty much everything..

For instance, let's take a Hero class who has all the slayer skills slapped onto it.. A Hero isn't particularly weak to anything (except for maybe magic, but it's not a crippling weakness), so you have a generally powerful unit that goes around completely annihilating all of the classes that are hard counters to other units. It makes being a Dragon lord a lot easier if there aren't any bows around, so to speak. They're okay skills on their respective classes, but great skills to pass on.

Edited May 10, 2012 by LegendaryHero0

[Silith]

Let's see how far we can get outside of MU and Mark.

Dragonmaster, Griffon Knight, Sorcerer, Hero, Bow Knight. Thos classes give the slayer classes.

A combination of Dragonrider, Mercenairy and Dark Mage gives those all.

Selena with Frederick or Viole as daddy has easy access to all of them.

Pitty most of the Dark mages/ Dracoknights seem to be females in GEN 1 so it's hard to get them both on someone.

[Emperor Hardin]

Yeah, but it's real value probably comes from what whoever gets that skill can reclass to. General with Great Shield? Eh. Assasin or squishy magic class with it? YES.

Thats true, I'm sure its useful for characters like Spotpass Alvis.

Generals, however not so much.

[Othin]

In other posts I've seen on the forums, people seem to be very excited about the Slayer skills (Tome, Bow, etc.), with some people even going so far as to say they'd try to put them all on one unit, and then call it "broken". Now, I see the inherent value in Bow Slayer on a flying unit, but beyond that, are they truly that useful? Take for instance Tome Slayer; in many cases, the types of units who would equip it would traditionally have high res, making the evasion to magic seem rather unnecessary. The + accuracy also seems unnecessary, given that in the past, hit rates have never been too much of an issue, at least past the early chapters of FE games.

But, of course, I haven't played the new game yet, so perhaps the slayer skills are more useful than I'm realizing?

Sorcerers are primarily Def-oriented, and magic attacks can hit very hard, as well as being common. Whatever is the case, +50 Avo against a given weapon type is pretty much immunity to it, and with how tough enemies are, that's quite valuable.

[arvilino]

Well, that's still approximately 12%, which on it's own isn't too fantastic, but as an additional 12% isn't bad.

Ah, this makes perfect sense. It's just simply outclassed by these two..

But hey, at least Lethality LOOKS cool. :P

I think the best case scenario is Lucina and Kroms Other child inheriting Royal Weapon and Lethality, they are looking at up to (skill/4)+10% OHKO per hit, or 22% at max.

[Othin]

Well, you could get a Skl stat higher than 50, hypothetically. But unless you're grinding, even making it to 40 is quite a feat.

[TheVinceKnight]

I'm a little confused about the change seal, since using it on children lets you reclass them to any class.

I have female Mark Sorceror with:

- Renewal

- Lightning Action

- Magnificent Flame

- Vengence

- Tome Slayer

Or am I wrong?