Skills to change

[NekoKnight]

If it were up to me, I would change a lot of the skills, either buffing them, altering them (such as making Rally skills passive auras) or inventing all new ones but for the sake of this thread, I'd like to come up with a list of skills I find lacking and the replacements. I've written next to the skills why I think they should be changed as well as what I'd replace them with. These changes are mostly with Single Player in mind.

Substitute: Being unable to use in conjunction with other actions makes it far too situational.

Replacement: Pierce - +10 damage against armored targets

Fortune: Doesn't activate consistently enough to be useful and pointless when grinding is an option

Replacement: Charge - +5 damage on this unit's next attack after selecting [Wait].

Lethality: Too low of a chance to activate when most proc skills mean death for the enemy anyway.

Replacement: Stealth - Command. Renders the unit invisible and able to pass through enemy units until taking an action. +30 critical on next attack

Puppet Breaker: Only effective against a few types of rarely encountered enemies.

Replacement: Control Puppet - Take control of an allied or enemy unit in range for the rest of the turn.

Household cure: Unless you have access to the convoy, you probably won't be making much use of this.

Replacement: Bad Medicine - Expend one use of an expendable item to inflict the inverse effect on an enemy.

Confined Defense: Seems like you'd be fighting on neutral tiles more often than not.

Replacement: Phalanx - +1 Def and Res for each adjacent ally.

Defender: Kind of underwhelming for a promoted skill.

Replacement: Canto - Unit can use the remainder of it's movement after taking an action.

What skills would you change?

Edited July 27, 2015 by NekoKnight

[Psyruby]

I'd advise not having skills that increase crit chance so easily. The game is actually carefully balanced so that the only character who can consistently Crit is Arthur in a PvP setting. Also, most of the skills are balanced with PvP in mind, so Lethality isn't actually that bad, as you can boost it other ways, and OHKOing people require very specific builds. Also, Confined Defense is extremely good for Generals. They don't care much about moving, so they might as well sit on a defensive tile and have the enemy come to them. Also, Rally's would be broken if they were passive, I'd say the real problem is that it lasts only one turn. Just make the command last like 3~ turns.

Skills I don't like:
Any command skill involving pushing an ally/enemy. They need something more, like doing it whenever you attack, and also increasing your damage by like 2.
All +2 stat skills. Most need to be +3/4/5, except Speed.

[NekoKnight]

I'd advise not having skills that increase crit chance so easily. The game is actually carefully balanced so that the only character who can consistently Crit is Arthur in a PvP setting. Also, most of the skills are balanced with PvP in mind, so Lethality isn't actually that bad, as you can boost it other ways, and OHKOing people require very specific builds. Also, Confined Defense is extremely good for Generals. They don't care much about moving, so they might as well sit on a defensive tile and have the enemy come to them. Also, Rally's would be broken if they were passive, I'd say the real problem is that it lasts only one turn. Just make the command last like 3~ turns.

Skills I don't like:

Any command skill involving pushing an ally/enemy. They need something more, like doing it whenever you attack, and also increasing your damage by like 2.

All +2 stat skills. Most need to be +3/4/5, except Speed.

Oh, I didn't mean that rallies would have the same potency they do now, maybe something like +2 to all units in a 3 tile radius. I find activating rally skills (particularly ones that don't have an immediate calculable benefit like Rally Skill and Rally Luck) to be a waste of your turn and encourages silly things like making Rallybots. A lot of skills already have aura effects (Devilish Wind, Demoiselle, Battle Command etc) so these would be right at home.

I think Shove is pretty good. There are definitely times when that extra one movement to another unit can make all the difference for positioning. Strike Through doesn't seem very useful for the player because maintaining careful unit positioning is far more important for the player than the enemy (seriously, fuck those Strike Through ninja in the the Awakening DLC). Counter is another skill I don't think is very useful for the player, except for maybe PVP, but I don't think a primarily single player game should balance itself around that.

[Psyruby]

Oh, I didn't mean that rallies would have the same potency they do now, maybe something like +2 to all units in a 3 tile radius. I find activating rally skills (particularly ones that don't have an immediate calculable benefit like Rally Skill and Rally Luck) to be a waste of your turn and encourages silly things like making Rallybots. A lot of skills already have aura effects (Devilish Wind, Demoiselle, Battle Command etc) so these would be right at home.

I think Shove is pretty good. There are definitely times when that extra one movement to another unit can make all the difference for positioning. Strike Through doesn't seem very useful for the player because maintaining careful unit positioning is far more important for the player than the enemy (seriously, fuck those Strike Through ninja in the the Awakening DLC). Counter is another skill I don't think is very useful for the player, except for maybe PVP, but I don't think a primarily single player game should balance itself around that.

Counter is pretty good when you account for Magical 1-2 Weapons. As you get to attack first, then on their phase, counter, then attack. Counter is a punishment skill, and that's fully abuse-able main game too.

[eharper256]

I'm not sure, alot of these sound OP. Pierce makes armour undesirable. Stealth is Pass++. Control Puppet could cause horrendous shenanigans. Charge would hugely encourage turtling. Having Canto on paladins would make them overwhelmingly superior to Great Knights since they already have higher MOV and are generally better.

I do agree that the skills you've pointed out are a little weak and/or niche, but not horribly so.

Shove is amazing; you'll know this if you've played the Tellius games. Cut Through has some nice synergy with AOE attacks too. Counter is indeed a bit dubious in this game though since it's low-HP emblem.

[NekoKnight]

I'm not sure, alot of these sound OP. Pierce makes armour undesirable. Stealth is Pass++. Control Puppet could cause horrendous shenanigans. Charge would hugely encourage turtling. Having Canto on paladins would make them overwhelmingly superior to Great Knights since they already have higher MOV and are generally better.

I do agree that the skills you've pointed out are a little weak and/or niche, but not horribly so.

Shove is amazing; you'll know this if you've played the Tellius games. Cut Through has some nice synergy with AOE attacks too. Counter is indeed a bit dubious in this game though since it's low-HP emblem.

Mind you, I'm thinking about mostly single player balance. If they want to make viable PVP and single player, these should be balanced separately (they won't be, but I'm just saying). Stealth is a bit different than Pass. Stealth is a command so it takes a turn to activate and the 'Pass' effect is only for the duration of the ability so it won't be active if you are visible. Only Great Knights, Knights and Generals have armor so I think Pierce is fair. Great Knights have axes and higher HP/Str/Def caps so they aren't without uses compared to Paladins.

[Othin]

Rallybots seem fine to me; it's a lot more interesting having complex non-combat tactics. Not everyone has to be a fighter.

[Ycine]

Mirror Strike.I find it awkward since it's a "battle trigger" defensive skill.

Replacement "Death from Above" Unless enemy is a flying unit, damage +4 (or less, or more... I don't know)

Diamond Strike. I feel the same as Mirror Strike but I have no idea for a replacement.

Shove, Substitute and Cut Through need something more appealing like Psyruby said.

Fortune. It is call "fortune" so where is the money? This should be Despoil.

Defender. I don't know if it needs to be buff/replace but it needs something.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Ycine

[NekoKnight]

Mirror Strike and Counter of examples of skills that don't work very well on the units that get them. Falcon Warriors have the highest resistance in the game and Shura have the 3rd highest defense meaning they won't do much counter damage.

[Othin]

Diamond Strike is pretty neat; a lot of enemies will use it and it makes them really hard to hurt on the enemy phase. But it's mostly interesting when it's on enemies that would otherwise be taking a fair bit of damage. I haven't had much experience with Mirror Strike yet; it also seems pretty cool but like Diamond Strike I could see it working better on a class that can make better use of it. Much like how the fact that bows seem to be getting more powerful but less accurate makes Raven Strike more significant.

[Psyruby]

Mirror Strike and Counter of examples of skills that don't work very well on the units that get them. Falcon Warriors have the highest resistance in the game and Shura have the 3rd highest defense meaning they won't do much counter damage.

I believe that is WHY Shura have counter. You can throw a Shura in the middle of 4 guys, and he can survive all 4 hits and counter all of them. Counter is more effective the more hits you can take. If you die in 2 hits, and only counter one, you only did about half your health in damage, but if you can survive 4 hits, then you did 4/5ths of your health in damage.

[astrophys]

The idea of Mirror Strike is to supplement the role of being nearly invulnerable to magic when mage-killing.

They have the highest resistance, but a similarly powerful magic stat (such as a Sorcerer) could punch through it when supplemented by their tome.

Mirror Strike + high resistance in many circumstances should result in outright immunity to the magic damage during the attack, allowing them to be a nearly unchallenged mage killer.

[Thane]

Well this looks fun! I agree that Defender is in desperate need of a buff; I always feel so underwhelmed when I get it.

Hm...I have given this zero thought, so this may either break the game or suck horribly, but what about this:

Berserkers at level 15 get Frenzy: both units attack twice regardless of speed.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Thane

[astrophys]

Well, with Pair-up not giving nearly as large of a boost as before:

Now it gives +8 stat points when promoted (or +6 stat points and +1 move), with an additional +5 from an S-rank.

So up to 13 stat points.

Defender adds +7 in stats (STR/MAG/SKL/SPD/LCK/DEF/RES), so that just made your S-rank pair-up go from 13 points in stat increases to 20 points.

[Othin]

Defender is a bit subtle, but it stands out a lot more now that the total stat boosts it offers are likely to be almost as large as the ones you were getting from Pair Up already rather than in Awakening where the Pair Up boosts were enormous and completely dwarfed the Defender boosts.

[NekoKnight]

Well, with Pair-up not giving nearly as large of a boost as before:

Now it gives +8 stat points when promoted (or +6 stat points and +1 move), with an additional +5 from an S-rank.

So up to 13 stat points.

Defender adds +7 in stats (STR/MAG/SKL/SPD/LCK/DEF/RES), so that just made your S-rank pair-up go from 13 points in stat increases to 20 points.

Looking at the total makes it sound nice but it doesn't mean much if you aren't really using that stat (magic users vs physical fighters). You deal one more damage, you take one less damage, you have very slightly higher hit, avoid and critical evade and you are a smidgeon faster. Kind of underwhelming by itself.

I believe that is WHY Shura have counter. You can throw a Shura in the middle of 4 guys, and he can survive all 4 hits and counter all of them. Counter is more effective the more hits you can take. If you die in 2 hits, and only counter one, you only did about half your health in damage, but if you can survive 4 hits, then you did 4/5ths of your health in damage.

I'd rather have Seal skills. You don't even need to hit or be hit for them to activate (and it doesn't need to be melee range) and you could be lowering crucial attributes like speed, defense (lancers skills) or resistance (shura).

Edited July 27, 2015 by NekoKnight

[Ycine]

Psyruby perfectly described the essence of Counter.

Othin, astrophys, thank you for those informations. I didn't know the Pair-Up stats boost system changed. "Defender" sounds more reliable to me now.

Thane, I think that your "Frenzy" is an interesting double edge skill.

[goodperson707]

I disagree with most of these, substitute is just as valid as shove imo just more defence positioning oriented,

confined defense is fine and blends great flavour wise with open assault,

lethality is not going anywhere, Any higher of a activation rate might be a problem , and most normal proc skills don't seem to mean instant death to me especially when using a low might weapon on a class with low str, like elite ninja for instance

, household cure is fine i don't see why you need the convoy to use it, sure concoctions have 2 uses instead of 3 now but that should still hold up pretty well, also if it is earlier game you probably have effective medicine as well which means it heals 30 intstead of 20. Not going into elixirs as you only get a limited amount of those anyway.

Defender is boring but it adds to guard stances stat bonuses, and it effectively has as much stat boosts as the faire skills, just spread out.

puppet break is situational but other effective skills can also have that problem, ie I think the Nohr route has a lack of enemy beast units besides pegasi which are already weak to bows anyway.

Though i will give you fortune, that skill is just... what? Anyone else feel that maybe the skill was going to be orichi's personal skill (though maybe a bit weaker) before they decided to give her the hoshidean capture, it seems to fit her, and seems more personal skilly in both name and effect (it effects exp which i never though they would do for a class skill that isn't semi exclusive)

But to me nearly every skill in this game has a clear intention of how it is meant to be used and wether or not a skill is useful to you depends on your playstyle, andif it doesn't fit your style thats fine but if it fits someone else's than the skill is doing its job and most of the skills achive that imo.

[NekoKnight]

Have you used Substitute? Lancers are supposed to be front line fighters in general so if you need to use the ability, you must have fugged something up. I think I used the ability twice in my Hoshido run. The least they could have done is let you attack after using Substitute. Shove on the other hand has a plethora of uses ranging from moving injured units out of harms way to giving a unit an extra push towards its intended target.

I don't like the Herb Merchant abilities in general because it's healing that is 1. reliant on money and 2 it takes valuable item slots. The money problem is somewhat alleviated by the Easy Life skill Great Merchants get but that money could be used for other things. This is compared to a skill like Sol that doesn't cost money and doesn't take items slots. If your units are getting enough damage that they need healing items, then your healers aren't doing their job. I mentioned the convoy because you will need it if you don't want to waste more than one slot on vulnaries and concoctions.

[Psyruby]

Have you used Substitute? Lancers are supposed to be front line fighters in general so if you need to use the ability, you must have fugged something up. I think I used the ability twice in my Hoshido run. The least they could have done is let you attack after using Substitute. Shove on the other hand has a plethora of uses ranging from moving injured units out of harms way to giving a unit an extra push towards its intended target.

I don't like the Herb Merchant abilities in general because it's healing that is 1. reliant on money and 2 it takes valuable item slots. The money problem is somewhat alleviated by the Easy Life skill Great Merchants get but that money could be used for other things. This is compared to a skill like Sol that doesn't cost money and doesn't take items slots. If your units are getting enough damage that they need healing items, then your healers aren't doing their job. I mentioned the convoy because you will need it if you don't want to waste more than one slot on vulnaries and concoctions.

It's very hard to compare Sol to Item Healing. Sol is unreliable, heals half of what you do(so like 10-15), and requires attacking the unit. The Herb Merchant skill heals 30-60 HP, doesn't require attacking, and always works. Even healers can't heal 60 HP in one turn. Yes it is expensive, requires a skill slot, and an inventory slot, but there is still an advantage. Tho I have never had units without one item slot left and I don't really use healers myself. That being said, I don't buy elixirs/concoctions either, but I'd be more than happy to get 50% more healing from an item the game gave to me.

[zoned out]

For defender, I would change it from giving +1 to every stat to giving +3 Def/Res

[Djing]

Bow Knights and Wyvern Lords need more interesting skills.

[Thane]

Bow Knights and Wyvern Lords need more interesting skills.

Oh my goodness yes. Bow Knights in particular are a snoozefest.

"Congratulations, you reached level 15, now Garon's army of maids will have a harder time attacking you!"

[Djing]

Bow Knight - Level 15 skill

Deadeye - Damage +5, Crit +15 if the user has 100% accuracy.

Wyvern Lord - Level 5 skill

Lightning Offense - During battles, both the user and the enemy will double attack. Defensive Formation and Hyper Offense will cancel each other out.

[Jedi]

I'd advise not having skills that increase crit chance so easily. The game is actually carefully balanced so that the only character who can consistently Crit is Arthur in a PvP setting. Also, most of the skills are balanced with PvP in mind, so Lethality isn't actually that bad, as you can boost it other ways, and OHKOing people require very specific builds. Also, Confined Defense is extremely good for Generals. They don't care much about moving, so they might as well sit on a defensive tile and have the enemy come to them. Also, Rally's would be broken if they were passive, I'd say the real problem is that it lasts only one turn. Just make the command last like 3~ turns.

No they aren't, a single player game isn't going to balance its features for a tacked on multiplayer, sorry. FE and Balance are 2 words that never have gone together.