Fire Emblem Fates Skills Thread

[Aidil]

Dark Falcon and Dread Fighter. Their skills cannot be bought.

Likely Witch, Ballistician, Lodestar, Great Lord, Grandmaster and Vanguard will follow the same rules.

[CocoaGalaxy]

That doesn't sound right at all; the Exp formula in Fates is actually really harsh, although it might not be as bad on Normal mode. With enough of a level advantage, I've had characters score kills and not get even a single point of Exp, and that was with regular ingame play. Unless Eternal Seals keep Exp from going down as much as it should at those levels, that's going to cause problems that even Paragon won't fix.

I'm pretty sure that the game treats characters over 20/20 as 20/20 for exp calculations

The only question is...if you reclass a 20/99 character into Dread Fighter, do they stay 99 or 119?

Hoho. Granted, the number of the Level itself might be another thing..

Edited July 24, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[someone]

^

They stay 99.

[CocoaGalaxy]

Yeah I saw someone else commenting on that, but sorry for the derailing.

That being said, I think the skills are generally still balanced, although some skills are clearly, er, less desirable than others.

Even the DLC skills, I think you can make a good argument for not using them. Er...I think..

PVP aside, I was actually a bit disappoint (somewhat...) for the enemy skills in PVE. Nohr side has some ok skills I guess, and the awakening DLC does seem to say that the DLC will be a bit tougher....then again I honestly don't know. Having pre set characters for the dlc seems to bode both good and bad expectations, I guess?

That being said, I haven't seen Nohr Lunatic, maybe they have it even tougher there

Edited July 24, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[Psyruby]

Yeah I saw someone else commenting on that, but sorry for the derailing.

That being said, I think the skills are generally still balanced, although some skills are clearly, er, less desirable than others.

Even the DLC skills, I think you can make a good argument for not using them. Er...I think..

Some of them. I think Aggressor shouldn't have been a strictly better Prescient Victory. Also, Witch's Poison... I don't think this was a good idea. Finally, Awakening... is.... a little too good.

[CocoaGalaxy]

Some of them. I think Aggressor shouldn't have been a strictly better Prescient Victory. Also, Witch's Poison... I don't think this was a good idea. Finally, Awakening... is.... a little too good.

Awakening does feel like it's too good though.

Like er, Vantage has the same condition and it's not "that" preposterously broken (but Vantage + Astra + Lethality + Hoshido, etc stacking can potentially be ridiculous)

I actually felt that Prescient Victory was a nerfed Aggressor, though it's both ways. I'm not sure what to say...

And yes, lots of the skills feel a bit silly.

E.G, Eastern Heart is a inferior Renewal, etc

The "effect" skills with like +2/-2 damage do still feel rather...lulzy

I suppose in the end the skills aren't that bad

Edited July 24, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[Bovinian]

Witch's Poison does indeed sound pretty stupid, but I'm also curious about Warp. Specifically if "performing another action" after warping includes being able to move. Put that on a female General with Defensive Formation and it's basically "lul what is speed" "LUL what is movement"

I'd assume you don't get to move afterward, but it's still pretty crazy, not to mention it automatically sets you up for an Attack Stance.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Bovinian

[CocoaGalaxy]

Witch's Poison does indeed sound pretty stupid, but I'm also curious about Warp. Specifically if "performing another action" after warping includes being able to move. Put that on a female General with Defensive Formation and it's basically "lul what is speed" "LUL what is movement"

I'd assume you don't get to move afterward, but it's still pretty crazy, not to mention it automatically sets you up for an Attack Stance.

Well, as I said, from my own perspective, every skill has it's own opportunity cost to the point that I feel that there can still be arguments to "not use" certain skills.

Who knows though, the game might turn into a RPS kind of thing or just straight up one strategy

[Othin]

There are definitely some "strictly worse" things like Snake Venom, although the thing is that if you have a strategy built around using one skill you could also benefit from related ones as seen with enemies that will stack Snake Venom with related but better % damage skills.

And yeah the other routes don't seem to match up to the really well-placed skills even on Nohr Hard. The DLC has some, and maybe the other Lunatic modes will have something to show too but I haven't heard anything about them having cool enemy skills.

[CocoaGalaxy]

Nohr has the stats and skills to back things up, Hoshido throws difficult but still "barely manageable" things at you. Invisible Kingdom though, seems to layer on the crap right from the get go, the brutal Chap 9, and 11, I suppose, but otherwise the skills are pretty barren.

To be honest, the fact that the DLC apart from Awakening (which is still interesting if you ask me, the skills on Lunatic are honestly real) is either Pre-Set, or "grinding" DLC, makes me feel that there isn't really an Apotheosis style map....yet....anyway.

[astrophys]

Well, Aggressor is a "strictly better" skill than Prescient Victory, yes, but Prescient Victory is a level 10 skill and Aggressor is a level 35 skill.

As such, Prescient Victory is going to be better for the bulk of the main-game simply by the virtue of existing.

Furthermore, although there are exceptions, of course, a level 35 skill should be on the average better than a level 1 or level 10 skill.

Just like Tomefaire is normally a superior option to Magic +2 (except when using non-tome magic weapons), Aggressor is superior to Presicient Victory…

Of course, there is the issue that they overlap more than normal, as even in the above example Magic+2 would be better than Tomefaire in the case of Levin Swords, for instance.

But still, its a level 10 skill vs. level 35. Aggressor should be better.

[Bovinian]

^Adding to this, for skills of that nature, instead of comparing one to the other why not just use both? Granted in this particular case there are other, much better options than Prescient Victory for stacking raw damage, but this is a general argument. Options that are strictly worse than others are still additional options.

Take the +Crit skills Gamble and Anathema in Awakening for example. Anathema effectively gives the user (as well as other allies around the user) +10 Hit and +10 Crit, which is clearly far superior to Gamble that gives the user +10 Crit at the expense of -5 Hit. And yet, Gamble is still indispensable for a crit-stacking build in Awakening because it is still one of the few options that the player has to boost their Crit, and is stacked on top of Anathema for maximum effectiveness. Same with Lucky 7 outclassing Quick Burn in any format where the map is expected to end within 7 turns, but if you wanted to go full dodgetank you could just use both.

[Psyruby]

^Adding to this, for skills of that nature, instead of comparing one to the other why not just use both? Granted in this particular case there are other, much better options than Prescient Victory for stacking raw damage, but this is a general argument. Options that are strictly worse than others are still additional options.

Take the +Crit skills Gamble and Anathema in Awakening for example. Anathema effectively gives the user (as well as other allies around the user) +10 Hit and +10 Crit, which is clearly far superior to Gamble that gives the user +10 Crit at the expense of -5 Hit. And yet, Gamble is still indispensable for a crit-stacking build in Awakening because it is still one of the few options that the player has to boost their Crit, and is stacked on top of Anathema for maximum effectiveness. Same with Lucky 7 outclassing Quick Burn in any format where the map is expected to end within 7 turns, but if you wanted to go full dodgetank you could just use both.

Okay, I need to say this in a different way to say why I am a bit uneasy about Aggressor. First of all, Aggressor is perfectly fine for story mode, but in PvP it is part of the unholy trio for myself.

In FE:F, if your Attack power reaches 60, you can OHKO everyone who isn't a tank with high health(and the magic units can kill those tanks and even some of the magic tanks), and if you reach 70 Attack power, you OHKO everyone except the General(and the magic units OHKO everyone). LoD + Extravagance + Aggressor makes everyone meet the second quota with only 3 skills. Leaving you 2 skills to buff your Hitrate to make sure even dodge tanks can't escape your grasp(Flamboyant+Raven Strike).

The easy way to ease my concerns is if you could ban LoD and Extravagance. Then Aggressor wouldn't be that much of an issue(tho the increase being that high still makes me worry.) I'm not going after Raven Strike and Flamboyant cause those aren't really what is causing the problem I am describing, simply the last enabler.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Psyruby

[Bovinian]

No I totally understand, and I agree with what you're saying. ORKOs of that sort were possible with Aggressor in Awakening too, even with the higher HP caps, since Brave weapons had higher Mt and were easily forgeable. Strategies like these aren't as stupid as Lethality though, because units can still protect themselves with the right defensive skills. So I wouldn't be so hasty to ban the high damage skills just yet.

[goodperson707]

^^ That skill combo is closer to a liability than an asset on the enemy phase though and you don't have enough skill slots for other skills so you could get out flanked by units with skill boosted mov or have to face more untis wthat can attack you but you can't attack them leaving you giving the enemy +10 dmg from Lod and + 30 hit and +15% skill activation.

Plus wouldn't a berserker or general with both counter skills mess this strategy up at least with a magic user.

And don't you have to double them for this to work? Or can you get hit 110 attack power (generals max def + max hp and that is not even counting personal skills/rallies temp stat boosts hp/def/res +5/2,ect) easily and if not then defensive formation will mess that up. basically what i am saying is that this strag seems to only be amazing for killing on player phase which seems pretty feasible to overcome with the right skills and strategy, ie luring the unit in with a general with def formation and other def skills or units with higher mov than the enemies or using staves to mess with enemies. (If pvp has a mechanic with no staves or if it has no movment or other things i apologize i don't have the game) their is a (really)minor drawback to extravagance i believe you need room for a golden coin in your inventory so ether the PP + 10 for atk and def is a one off, or for each extra you need to lose an ite, not that bad for single weapon users but I think it would somewhat hurt staff users and maybe units with more than one weapon type.

Edited July 24, 2015 by goodperson707

[Psyruby]

^ That skill combo is closer to a liability than an asset on the enemy phase though and you don't have enough skill slots for other skills so you could get out flanked by units with skill boosted mov or have to face more untis wthat can attack you but you can't attack them leaving you giving the enemy +10 dmg from Lod and + 30 hit and +15% skill activation.

Plus wouldn't a berserker or general with both counter skills mess this strategy up at least with a magic user.

And don't you have to double them for this to work? Or can you get hit 110 attack power (generals max def + max hp and that is not even counting personal skills/rallies temp stat boosts hp/def/res +5/2,ect) easily and if not then defensive formation will mess that up. basically what i am saying is that this strag seems to only be amazing for killing on player phase which seems pretty feasible to overcome with the right skills and strategy, ie luring the unit in with a general with def formation and other def skills or units with higher mov than the enemies or using staves to mess with enemies. (If pvp has a mechanic with no staves or if it has no movment or other things i apologize i don't have the game) their is a (really)minor drawback to extravagance i believe you need room for a golden coin in your inventory so ether the PP + 10 for atk and def is a one off, or for each extra you need to lose an ite, not that bad for single weapon users but I think it would somewhat hurt staff users and maybe units with more than one weapon type.

1) You don't have to double. You just have to use a Brave Weapon, defensive formation doesn't stop the Brave Weapon from hitting twice, it stops the second battle phase.

2) The Berserker/General with Counter wouldn't work, cause even tho they would do 30-40 to you, you would kill them in the second hit.(counter doesn't activate if you die.

3) It is not very feasible if the opponent has higher movement. Cause you can't get to them before they get to you.

Also Lethality is less of an issue than Awakening as the highest you can get it is about 25%.

For PvP

Edited July 25, 2015 by Psyruby

[Bovinian]

Also Lethality is less of an issue than Awakening as the highest you can get it is about 25%.

Hoshido+Flamboyant+Lethality. Three skill slots, same as your unholy trinity. Lethality's activation rate shoots up to the 55-57ish% range with both brave weapon swings taken into account.

Also I have no idea if an enemy's Flamboyant can stack with your own, but if it does, then lol

Edited July 25, 2015 by Bovinian

[Psyruby]

Hoshido+Flamboyant+Lethality. Three skill slots, same as your unholy trinity. Lethality's activation rate shoots up to the 55-57ish% range with both brave weapon swings taken into account.

Also I have no idea if an enemy's Flamboyant can stack with your own, but if it does, then lol

Until multiple units get Hoshido, Avatar only. And 50% for 3 Skills without hit rate boosts, or 100% chance with all skills on everyone.

[Othin]

Any child unit can access White Blood by having Corrin as their parent, and from what I understand that means any of them can buy Hoshido even if Corrin isn't their parent.

[Psyruby]

Any child unit can access White Blood by having Corrin as their parent, and from what I understand that means any of them can buy Hoshido even if Corrin isn't their parent.

Either way, you have to waste all your slots to make either happen reliably, and the damage method is always going to kill you if they start the battle, so anything with the movement advantage instantly wipes out one unit unless you specifically build to beat that strategy.

[Bovinian]

Until multiple units get Hoshido, Avatar only. And 50% for 3 Skills without hit rate boosts, or 100% chance with all skills on everyone.

Not counting Logbook/MyCastle shenanigans, up to three units can get Hoshido - Avatar and Avatar's two children.

And again, you're assuming that the opposing unit will have nothing to protect themselves. Pavise, for example, only needs to activate once on a unit with moderately high Def to survive a double Brave strike. Most units will have at least a 50% chance of Pavise activating at least once out of those two strikes. Combine that with Counter, and anyone using a sword/lance/axe will have a 50% chance of it backfiring on themselves. Magic Counter and Aegis are also a thing, among others. I'm not doubting your claim that it's an effective strategy, but it isn't utterly unstoppable.

Not to mention the units using up all of their skills for Line of Death and possibly hit skills themselves won't have any sort of defense, so if they don't go first then they can be easily killed just as well, even by units that aren't packing +27 worth of damage boosts.

Edit: I forgot about Extravagance decreasing damage received by 10, my bad. Does it allow you to spend the coin and attack on the same turn? If it does, then it is pretty unbalanced.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Bovinian

[shiningpikablu252]

I've noticed a few skills referencing affecting poison (specifically Dragonskin, Divine Shield, Status Resistance, and Status Immunity), yet when whipping up the rest of the needed skill, weapon, and item articles for the wiki (yes, the wiki now has articles for every single skill, weapon, and item newly introduced for Fates), I've seen pretty much no mention of poison anywhere. Does anyone have any idea what the mentions of poison mean? I'm not really sure it applies to a status condition like I interpreted it for the wiki articles:

http://www.fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Dragonskin

http://www.fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Divine_Shield

http://www.fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Status_Resistance

http://www.fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Status_Immunity

(Yes, I understand that an answer to this inquiry might take quite awhile, given the skills involved...)

[CocoaGalaxy]

Poison = Snake Venom, Deadly Breath, Four Fangs.

And whatever other there may be

[Othin]

For Extravagance, you spend the coin as part of the attack.

[Psyruby]

The problem with saying you can counter strategy is that you can't do that for all of your team, and if the other person has the movement advantage, they decide who to attack. If you just send in your guy who counters OHKO strategy, then the OHKO guy can just ignore him or the rest of the units can target and kill him safely.

EDIT: Yes it does allow you to spend the coin then attack. You can't do it on the opponent's turn, but that is pretty much negated by the fact that a movement advantage allows you to attack first and somewhat allows you to decide who you attack.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Psyruby