Best Skill System?

[S_Cero]

Which skill system do you guys think was the best?

I found Radiant Dawn to be the best. I didn't like how Awakening's was based on grinding and Path of Radiance losing the skill after removing required way too much foresight and didn't allow flexibility. I really love how you were able to change skills in between characters and I found the limits weren't too low as to restrict customization too much. My main problems with this system was Shove taking up 5 capacity (I found Canto having 10 was good though) and how mastery skills couldn't be removed (since this essentially made so you only had 25 capacity to screw around with). If the shove thing was fixed I wouldn't have a problem with the mastery skills being locked. I found this system the best balance between flexibility and limitation.

[Chocolate Kitty]

agreed with essentially the same reasons

i feel like shove should have been nulled and canto 5 so you could actually attach a skill other than miracle to mounted units, but I suppose it wasn't that big of a deal. Also never understood why i think 3 or 4 mastery skills were 25 while the rest were 30(also they were all basically lethality when you actually calculate the average damage outputs. black knight and kitties, i'm looking at you...).

FE13 was just stupid in the grinding requirement and the lack of capacity meant you could slap really good skills together with ease and didn't have to think about them.

FE4/5 iirc you couldn't even choose who got them(outside of weapons that had the skills inbued into them).

FE7/8 for the same reasons as fe4/5(except there weren't weapons with skills in them)

FE9 is pretty much just as good as fe10 other than skills being lost forever when you unequipped them and the skills you start off with still take up capacity

[Refa]

I liked FE4/FE5 because it helped differentiate the characters more, as opposed to the other skill systems which generally just served to make good characters better (while FE4/FE5 characters DID fall into this trap at times, that's more of a failing of the games over their individual skill systems).

Edited September 3, 2014 by Refa

[EricaofRenais]

I agree with you on Radiant Dawn's being the best, I hope they bring it back in the next game.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Radiant Dawn, because skills are removable.

Some units still have an advantage, because they have skill(s) for free. However they are not lost, if you want to remove them.

Though I like the idea to get a maximum of five skills like in Awakening.

A mix of a class skill and maybe three generic skills like provoke, paragon, blossom, pass, resolve, shade or adept would be interesting. The capacity could be larger than in FE10 was.

Edited September 3, 2014 by TalesOf Hysteria

[CT075]

I liked FE4/5's, honestly.

[General Horace]

im with the fe4/5 crowd for the reasons refa listed. Just taking a skill that made a unit unique and giving it to someone else just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

[Shin]

I'm with FE4/5, an otherwise unremarkable character could be pretty interesting if they had a skill to make up for it. My main gripe with the other systems is that it's all about slapping the best skills on the guys with the best stats.

[electricwolf]

(disclaimer: I have not played FE1-6, 9 or 12)

My main problem about the skill system in FE13 was the balance. You get some skills that are '11/10 would always use' and some that are either incredibly situational, useless or both. Skills like Deliverer show that they had good ideas for skills (if Pair Up wasn't ridiculously good) but then other skills just completely overshadow it. Galeforce in particular skews the usefulness of a slew of other skills, since it radically shifts the style of play from defensive to ultra-offensive or hit-and-run.

It also feels like at least one if not more should be related to the class you are to differentiate classes other than the standard stat caps and weapon choices.

Biggest problem with FE10 skills was the 3rd tier or Mastery skills all being 'a bit' overpowered. You could probably put the same effect on each one and nobody would really notice because if you multiply damage by a number above three or negate a defensive stat then:

It kind of just removes the point of some of your other stats while suddenly making another stat that affects the proc rate super important.

Being able to pick and choose what skills you get in general seems like a great idea but it's incredibly hard to balance. With points allocated to each skill you could in theory make better skills more expensive to have (in that it would lower the amount of other skills you can use) but in a sense, you're always going to have min-maxing people stripping bad units with great skills of their skills and giving it to the best characters, which kind of defeats the point of balancing the characters through skill distribution.

I'd like to see a system whereby you get skills (or a choice of skills) for the class you are and maybe even the route you take through classes (in that a two/three tier multi-choice system you could get to the same end class in a number of ways) and one or two personal skills on top of that which cannot be removed.

[riariadne]

I like FE13's way of skills that you get some on level up so there's a sense of progression, but I also liked how FE4/5 had personal sills that could set units apart. FE10s wasn't so great to me because reassigning skills can remove some uniqueness to how units feel. I voted Awakening because it's lonely.

[Anacybele]

I liked RD's the best, except for one thing. Why is SHOVE a f***king skill? It worked just fine as a menu option in PoR, I don't know why this was changed. Now it eats up valuable skill space and on EVERYONE save Mordecai (who has Smite instead, which I'm fine with).

[NinjaMonkey]

Since when does FE7 have skills?

[Icon of Sin]

Shove might as well have been an invisible skill in PoR. Notice how Canto costs 5 more in FE10. Then, notice how every mounted unit, which can't shove, have 5 less capacity.

Mist is excluded, but to be fair she was able to shove before promotion.

Anyway I'm on the fence between SNES and FE10. FE10 is better overall, but the free skill is a similar problem tosome of the skillsets found in 4/5 which heavily advantaged others. The Critical+ series of skills was also a bit annoying to work with since they took a slot. I just wished 5 had better skill customization since you only get a single manual of a few skills. Overall I also feel more enemies should be able to have skills.

Since when does FE7 have skills?

One may arguably count the Assassin's ability as a GBA skill prototype since it is a skill in 8.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Woodshooter

[Irysa]

+crit on Zerkers and Swordmasters is basically a class skill too.

[dondon151]

FE6 had the best skill system

[secondworld]

I liked FE13's skill system because of the sense of progression, though I would've liked some more, personal(lets go with that) skills. Like characters may have one or two skills that couldn't be obtained through their normal class set.

My favorite skill system overall would probably be FE10's, but

I voted Awakening because it's lonely.

[Ϲharlie]

My first impulse was to vote for FE4/5, but I'm not so sure after thinking it over. They may make characters more unique, but I also feel that the skills were oftentimes assigned with little to no thought put into their distribution. I can't be the only one who thinks something isn't quite right when you compare Othin, a character who has wrath, a 30 crit hand axe, and a respectable 3 pcc, to Marty whose skill and speed are literally nothing to start with and no skills whatsoever. Or if you compare Arden to Lex, who not only shares Arden's skill, but also has paragon, a horse, and a hero axe.

[Ownagepuffs]

^vhiovahwigoarw OMG Golbez!

Err... back on topic now. I'm going to roll with the FE4/5 crowd. It was painful for some characters *cough*Arden vs Lex*cough* but it really did add a layer of individualization to the units. Holyn and Ayra were basically the same thing, but it was Astra vs Luna for them. Jamke is like the best foot archer ever because he rapes so hard with his skillset (Pursuit + Adept + Charge + 3 Wt Bow = never stop attacking!). I liked the way the inheritance worked too, but that's an FE4 vs FE13 topic.

[Shadow Mir]

My first impulse was to vote for FE4/5, but I'm not so sure after thinking it over. They may make characters more unique, but I also feel that the skills were oftentimes assigned with little to no thought put into their distribution. I can't be the only one who thinks something isn't quite right when you compare Othin, a character who has wrath, a 30 crit hand axe, and a respectable 3 pcc, to Marty whose skill and speed are literally nothing to start with and no skills whatsoever. Or if you compare Arden to Lex, who not only shares Arden's skill, but also has paragon, a horse, and a hero axe.

When you put it that way, I d say that FE4/5 are every bit as guilty as, if not even more so than, other FEs in terms of making good units better wrt skills.

[ViewtifulBo]

While I do like FE10 and 13's skill systems I gotta go with FE4 and 5 on this one. Yeah sure they were locked but I mean look at Lex for example. If he didn't have Elite/Paragon would any of you use him or have him be a father? Probably not. But because he is the only unit (with the exception of the Elite/Paragon ring) in the 1st generation that has said skill so you have more incentive to use said unit. I personally don't have him as a father because of weapon inheritance issues but I digress, skills in FE4/5 gave you an incentive to use a character you normally wouldn't even use if their skills were removable.

[Narga_Rocks]

When you put it that way, I d say that FE4/5 are every bit as guilty as, if not even more so than, other FEs in terms of making good units better wrt skills.

Not quite the same. Instead of YOU putting the best skills on the best stat-chars to make them even better, most of the skills and pcc and other things were just there. There's a few skill scrolls in fe5, granted, and fe4 love is kinda like picking where skills go, but as far as "every bit as guilty as" it's not quite the same. Even if sometimes they dumped good skills on good stat characters, it wasn't US doing it. Which is different. We aren't simply stealing Soren's Adept making him worse than he already is while making another char better.

Also, I choose fe4 and fe5 simply because astra/shooting star does full damage (stupid fe9) and can crit (stupid fe10) and proc's with skill instead of skill/2 (stupid fe9 and fe10).

[Ownagepuffs]

Aw man FE4 Astra is like the most ROFL skill ever. Brb doing enough damage to kill the enemy like 3 freaking times.

[Shadow Mir]

Not quite the same. Instead of YOU putting the best skills on the best stat-chars to make them even better, most of the skills and pcc and other things were just there. There's a few skill scrolls in fe5, granted, and fe4 love is kinda like picking where skills go, but as far as "every bit as guilty as" it's not quite the same. Even if sometimes they dumped good skills on good stat characters, it wasn't US doing it. Which is different. We aren't simply stealing Soren's Adept making him worse than he already is while making another char better.

Also, I choose fe4 and fe5 simply because astra/shooting star does full damage (stupid fe9) and can crit (stupid fe10) and proc's with skill instead of skill/2 (stupid fe9 and fe10).

Maybe. But still, Marty generally isn't a unit who people would use after a glance at his stats. Zero Skill and Speed bases are pretty damn bad. Othin having stuff Marty would kill for is just kicking him (Marty) while he's down. And then adding a Boom Headshot. Point is, being outclassed because of stats alone is one thing. Being outclassed because of stats AND skills pretty much means your fate as a benchwarmer is set in stone. (I WOULD mention Arden, but to be fair, he has it bad enough just being in FE4 with its wtfmassive maps, but it ain't as though Lex being there helps his case)

Edited September 5, 2014 by Levant Caprice

[Moliblazer]

I'll have to say FE4/5 because the skills are a part of what makes each character unique. Sure, it's completelly unbalanced, but it's that very same lack of balance that makes FE4 as fun as it is.

[Knight]

I must say Radiant Dawn, with Awakening as a second. Radiant Dawn's system of swap in and swap out works really well, managing skills and giving characters cool combinations is really fun. I wouldn't really mind Awakening's as much if it were easier to level up without Paragon after completing the game, grabbing all the skills you want is a rather big grind.

FE4/5, can't really say its bad, it works well with the game's mechanics and the skills themselves are pretty useful, though Awakening does the same thing as this, only more fun with customization, not saying that FE4 and 5 are necessarily worse than Awakening though, just skills.