Worst personal skill?

[Mondoflow]

Sol lets me play Arthur/Zerks in general suuuper recklessly since they can just ohko everything mid-lategame and have the second best bulk in the game.

My most amusing rng string today on conquest!lunatic involved an unpaired Arthur getting low% critted 4 times in one round out of 10 enemy's and ending the EP with 10 dead enemies and Arthur at full hp lol.

So @DarkHoly... yeah he's kinda an unstoppable deathtank mid-lategame (at 1-1 range). It comes with the territory. Whoever thought sol+zerk on the same base class tree was a good idea needs to rethink their life choices.

Man, I sent my zerker Arthur equipped with a hammer to fight a single general equipped with a steel lance. He missed and then died in the counter attack due to a crit. He was being supported by Effie for a reasonable boost to his defense, too, and this isn't an isolated case of my Arthur liquefying. I could probably have given him a bit more support there, but with other characters I don't really have to.

The absolute last thing I'll say about Arthur is that, as a 20/20 Berserker, he has an average Luck of... drumroll please... 4. Not 14, just 4. That means that he only has 2 Dodge anyway. Even in the example given earlier where enemies only have 5 Dodge themselves, you have a ratio of 5x:2 where x=the number of enemies within 2 spaces. I'm not saying Misfortunate is good, I just feel like it's balanced enough that it shouldn't be being considered the worst PS in the entire game. I get the impression people are directing their anger at Misfortunate like some kind of mild temper tantrum. Anyway, I won't say any more on the subject.

Except that you don't need to be missing 50% hp before you get hit for Hinata's Triple Threat to activate. This means anytime someone uses a sword, lance, or axe to bring you below half health you get a free counter. In no way is that bad.

Also, I'm curious. Does anyone know whether Saizo's Pyrotechnics activates even if you kill the only enemy within range? Because that would be absolutely abysmal if it did and would make it dethrone Peacebringer imo.

Some people mentioned it before, but having an equal decrease to dodge on you and the surrounding opponents doesn't actually balance things out. Since you getting a crit is probably meaningless as they were probably going to die anyway (especially with Arthur, who has fantastic stats outside of his luck), whereas you getting crit is essentially a game over.

I mean if that bothers you so much the game gives you no less than 3 Icon at the first half of the game

If you keep Arthur as a Beserker, and luck provides dodge at a 1/2 rate, then you will need a minimum of 5 Icons to stop being negative. I realize you can't actually be negative, but you won't be gaining dodge for quite some time.

grab Veteran's Intuition, literally anyone can learn it with 0 effort.

pair him with a slave unit and just have Ryouma do all the work, free +10% crit all the time + good pair up bonuses.

While this does solve the problem, I always feel like playing with anything but the absolute base game is mildly cheating, so I don't really go for the extra path bonuses. Maybe I limit myself too much in that sense, though, I don't know.

[DoomLich]

I think most people have Izana's PS backwards, so they don't see exactly how abominable it actually is: He reduces damage DEALT by units within two tiles by 2, not damage TAKEN. Which means that he needs to be in the middle of your enemies to be affecting them more than he's affecting your units. He is almost always actively bad for you for this reason. Arthur has -5 dodge, well that'd be pretty slightly mediocre if his he ever had enough luck to have 5 dodge to lose, what with a small chance to be crit. Somehow that's worthy of argument for worst skill while Izana's will actually consistently gimp your units.

Izana is worse than any useless skill, and it's definitely worse than misfortune which affects you negatively less than 5% of the time. The only way to make Izana's not awful is to have him running off solo, which he absolutely doesn't have the stats for.

[eclipse]

Izana's is situational, but unlike Mitama/Nina, it's a lot easier to trigger that situation. . .which is to have Izana move first (and maybe attack), and position him such that the enemies are within two tiles of him. Then, your units can follow him, and as long as they're not standing near him, they'll reap the full benefits of Peacebringer.

I'm not sure if he stacks with Sakura/Elise/other supporting abilities, but if he does, it adds up.

[DoomLich]

Izana's is situational, but unlike Mitama/Nina, it's a lot easier to trigger that situation. . .which is to have Izana move first (and maybe attack), and position him such that the enemies are within two tiles of him. Then, your units can follow him, and as long as they're not standing near him, they'll reap the full benefits of Peacebringer.I'm not sure if he stacks with Sakura/Elise/other supporting abilities, but if he does, it adds up.

You have to actively move him into the middle of the enemies somehow on the opposite side from the rest of your team. Unless you get pass on him, it's very hard to get him in that position and he's still out of position when all is said and done. If I have to move a unit way further than is safe to have him not actively gimping the rest of my team then that skill is worse than useless.

Nina and Mitama you can just ignore their PS and you won't lose anything for it. Izana's requires you to to fufill it's positioning requirements or you gimp your entire team.

Then there's some of the Bond Unit personals which are for the most part pretty good or just a different character's Personal, but then you can wind up with personals that offer little to no combat value such as Nobility or Elbow Room.

Wat. Elbow Room has no combat value? It's an absurdly good skill. Edited April 13, 2016 by DoomLich

[Shadow Mir]

I think most people have Izana's PS backwards, so they don't see exactly how abominable it actually is: He reduces damage DEALT by units within two tiles by 2, not damage TAKEN. Which means that he needs to be in the middle of your enemies to be affecting them more than he's affecting your units. He is almost always actively bad for you for this reason. Arthur has -5 dodge, well that'd be pretty slightly mediocre if his he ever had enough luck to have 5 dodge to lose, what with a small chance to be crit. Somehow that's worthy of argument for worst skill while Izana's will actually consistently gimp your units.

Izana is worse than any useless skill, and it's definitely worse than misfortune which affects you negatively less than 5% of the time. The only way to make Izana's not awful is to have him running off solo, which he absolutely doesn't have the stats for.

Some people mentioned it before, but Misfortunate also cuts into outside sources of crit evade, like pair up. Also, getting crit is a big deal when you realize how much more meaningful crit is to the enemy than it is to you. To be fair, even if Misfortunate wasn't part of the equation, getting crit would still be a major issue because of his luck, but that doesn't change the fact that it makes it worse.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[DoomLich]

Some people mentioned it before, but Misfortunate also cuts into outside sources of crit evade, like pair up. Also, getting crit is a big deal when you realize how much more meaningful crit is to the enemy than it is to you. To be fair, even if Misfortunate wasn't part of the equation, getting crit would still be a major issue because of his luck, but that doesn't change the fact that it makes it worse.

Oh, I'm not saying Arthur's drawback is trivial, (though I'm not prepared to call it a net-negative) I'm simply saying it's not on the same scale as Izana's. Izana's PS warps the game against you and forces you to play around it with every unit, and it's always causing a problem. Misfortune bites you in the ass less than 5% of the time, by comparison.

[Butterstroke]

Asugi's.

you get a tiny amount of HP (like 5) for waiting. Cute, but why not just use a Vulnerary.

Or if he replicates, he can gain 10 hp if both wait! Which doesn't make it better at all.

[Shadow Mir]

Oh, I'm not saying Arthur's drawback is trivial, (though I'm not prepared to call it a net-negative) I'm simply saying it's not on the same scale as Izana's. Izana's PS warps the game against you and forces you to play around it with every unit, and it's always causing a problem. Misfortune bites you in the ass less than 5% of the time, by comparison.

Well, as far as Izana's PS is concerned, I'd agree it's annoying, but not as much as always having to worry about eating triple damage. Anyways, Arthur's PS is considered for worst because it fulfills the unholy trinity - being virtually useless, being too situational, and being actively detrimental.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[ChaosGallade]

Just saying everyone, Asugi's Sweet Tooth skill only restores 4 HP if he waits, not 5. A minor difference, but still...

Anyway, to be original here, I don't like Laslow's personal skill (Fancy Footwork) that much by itself. Yes, it's a rally skill, but it only increases Strength and Speed of nearby allies by only 1.

Edited April 13, 2016 by ChaosGallade

[joshcja]

Arthur's defence isn't particularly notable. Just taking Conquest PCs he has clearly less physical durability than Xander, Silas, Camilla, Beruka, Effie, Benny, and Keaton, and that's before any consideration for their superior dodge (and in many cases, res). Most of these characters either have natural or a fast A+ access to Sol too, not that I think Sol is worth a reclass to get myself (I think you and I obviously value reliability by verrrrry different amounts, and Sol is unreliable). If you're fighting enemies who make Berserker Arthur look like a tank then actually high-def characters must be completely unkillable.

As a quick example since I have the numbers handy, using Hard Mode here, the heroes in chapter 26 with silver have 42-44 attack, and 20/15 Arthur as a Zerker has 23 def and 54 HP, so he needs a def boost just to avoid a OHKO from a single crit. Even if you raise his defence (and obviously you can and should), one crit is going to cause major problems... even at +10 def from Rally Def, decent pairup, and tonic it will take over half his HP.

To be clear I don't think Arthur is a bad unit. He has monstrous power and his other stats are generally adequate to do his job. With his power, you can get him to one-round many things by boosting his speed. Unfortunately his PS means you also need to spend effort salvaging his dodge (at least playing on Classic); it takes his respectable durability and makes it subpar in practice. Yeah, it would be problematic even without Misfortunate because of that luck stat, but it makes the situation worse, and I don't think the benefit is anywhere near worth it, because of, again, how much more valuable crit is to enemies than it is to you.

I'm not saying Arthur is buffest tank in the game lol, just that he's pretty damn good at it mid-lategame and has a pretty unique bag of tricks.

The AI on conquest is notorious for flat out ignoring super high def unit's which leads to an inchwormy playstyle that is just boooring. Arthur on the other hand draws aggro like a fucking robe despite his very respectable bulk because...misfortune... so he can enable a lot more aggressive strategies while keeping a solid margin of safety and consistency.

I'm surprised you brought up ch26, it's where Arthur puts in a huge chunk of work for me. For the hero room example if you want to EP the first room on 26 lunatic... say a hero manages to crit axebreaker/swordbreaker Arthur for 30 damage (sub 20% hit and 10% crit), and Arthur triggers sol (50% buffed cos) and crit (80+% cos) he heals back 27 hp ez, with a hp pool of 64+ that's just incredibly safe. If you take the smart route and player phase the opening room on 26 Arthur can position for misfortune to hit 4-5 enemy's, will pull Iago's staff hit, and will pull any leftover hero's as long as you don't have a robe, azura, or a staffbot in their range. He's also pretty good at manhandling 26-south (the room full of beastkillers and hammers) misfortune lets you ai manipulate that room up to EP suicide on Arthur and any vantage robe at a near 100% CoS.

Those stats look low btw, I generally take Arthur through like Fighter to 20>hero to 5>draco zerker mix to 18 with a splash for trample or axebreaker if my build needs em>pure zerk for ch 24-28, He on average caps hp/def/str/skill/speed for me with that reclass mix and will cap skill as a zerk around 20/10 which makes Sol pretty reliable on him (40% unbuffed CoS self healing for 20-30 hp a shot is very respectable).

Beruka can take a similar path and is probably the third best zerk in the game after Arthur and Percy, her aggro isn't as strong and you miss out on misfortune shenanigans but she's still very very good so no hate there. She's suuuper underrated

TL:DR I'm weird and rate misfortune among the best skills in this game for the "drawback" as well as the aura.

Edited April 13, 2016 by joshcja

[cgRIPPER]

Izana's is situational, but unlike Mitama/Nina, it's a lot easier to trigger that situation. . .which is to have Izana move first (and maybe attack), and position him such that the enemies are within two tiles of him. Then, your units can follow him, and as long as they're not standing near him, they'll reap the full benefits of Peacebringer.

I'm not sure if he stacks with Sakura/Elise/other supporting abilities, but if he does, it adds up.

Except that you'd have to defeat all of the enemies during that turn, because if you don't then either Izana will still be standing on his own and get jumped during enemy phase or your other units will get in closer just to get crippled by Izana during enemy phase.

[joshcja]

Izama's personal is honestly prefect for a rallybot/staffbot.

[Delfino]

Well, as far as Izana's PS is concerned, I'd agree it's annoying, but not as much as always having to worry about eating triple damage. Anyways, Arthur's PS is considered for worst because it fulfills the unholy trinity - being virtually useless, being too situational, and being actively detrimental.

You really think his personal skill makes THAT big of a difference? It's only five percent at most. I don't understand why that five percent would cause you to "always worry about eating triple damage." If you're worried about Arthur taking crits, then you're just worried about Arthur, period. His personal skill has only a little to do with it. Izana, on the other hand (considering I had his ability's effects backwards), is prone to gimping your allies as they're more likely to be in his range than the enemy. Unless you feel like spacing him away from your allies which is dangerous and hard to work around, his PS is probably going to hinder you. I don't see how that's better than a five percent crit% difference, personally.

[Shadow Mir]

You really think his personal skill makes THAT big of a difference? It's only five percent at most. I don't understand why that five percent would cause you to "always worry about eating triple damage." If you're worried about Arthur taking crits, then you're just worried about Arthur, period. His personal skill has only a little to do with it. Izana, on the other hand (considering I had his ability's effects backwards), is prone to gimping your allies as they're more likely to be in his range than the enemy. Unless you feel like spacing him away from your allies which is dangerous and hard to work around, his PS is probably going to hinder you. I don't see how that's better than a five percent crit% difference, personally.

It means that he needs three Goddess Icons just to dig himself out of the initial hole he starts in. That's... pretty ridiculous. And yes, his personal skill may not have everything to do with it, but it just makes a problem that's already bad as is even worse.

[joshcja]

It means that he needs three Goddess Icons just to dig himself out of the initial hole he starts in. That's... pretty ridiculous. And yes, his personal skill may not have everything to do with it, but it just makes a problem that's already bad as is even worse.

^ Levant when he stacks lucky star and misfortune.

Edited April 13, 2016 by joshcja

[Jakkun]

I'm personally a fan of Siegbert's personal, its like the Child variant of the "Partner" PS's

Because of that, I'm not sure if its best to give him to Midori for lolLuck or Caeldori for Prodigy abuse

In Extremis is also a really good PS, too bad its on a character with virtually no usability outside of Birthright, a Corrinsexual no less, and with a very small skill pool (barring the extremely rare castle that has her).

If a kid had that PS you could make some really stupid Miraclwakening shenanigans

[Shadow Mir]

I'm personally a fan of Siegbert's personal, its like the Child variant of the "Partner" PS's

Because of that, I'm not sure if its best to give him to Midori for lolLuck or Caeldori for Prodigy abuse

In Extremis is also a really good PS, too bad its on a character with virtually no usability outside of Birthright, a Corrinsexual no less, and with a very small skill pool (barring the extremely rare castle that has her).

If a kid had that PS you could make some really stupid Miraclwakening shenanigans

You do realize this thread is about bad PS, right?

[Tooru]

Unmask gives a whopping +20 hitrate boost as well as crit, it's not really "consistent" but it's a useful skill.

No. It only gives +20 crit and +4 damage.

If you were saying "higher crit leads to higher hit", I can show you that a unit with 100% crit can miss in Fates.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Tooru

[joshcja]

No. It only gives +20 crit and +4 damage.

If you were saying "high higher crit leads to higher hit", I can show you that a unit with 100% crit can miss in Fates.

Nah I just misread the skill x.x

[Xenomata]

Can I mention Competitive,Takumi's personal?

It isn't likely you are going to get all the maxed out stats you want on a 20/20 Takumi, so you are probably going to be needing some Eternal Seals.

What then? Do you just Eternal Seal everyone who supports Takumi until they are all higher leveled than him?

Though thats post game, it's probably more likely to be of use in the main story...

[Jakkun]

You do realize this thread is about bad PS, right?

the same thread where Misfortune is being constantly talked about, yes. Figured good Personals were fair game.

Can I mention Competitive,Takumi's personal?

It isn't likely you are going to get all the maxed out stats you want on a 20/20 Takumi, so you are probably going to be needing some Eternal Seals.

What then? Do you just Eternal Seal everyone who supports Takumi until they are all higher leveled than him?

Though thats post game, it's probably more likely to be of use in the main story...

Ryouma/Takumi's Personals also work on same leveled partners. So if theyre both 20/20 you'll still get the boost.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Jakkun

[Shadow Mir]

^ Levant when he stacks lucky star and misfortune.

I actually lol'd, more so at what I saw before the edit. Unfortunately, I'm not easy to convince... And what is more, I still think Percy's personal doesn't save Misfortunate from being bottom tier garbage, PS wise.

the same thread where Misfortune is being constantly talked about, yes. Figured good Personals were fair game.

Ehhh, well, I kinda disagree with you on In Extremis, since it'd be rather hard to get low enough to trigger it without getting killed instead.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Jakkun]

Ehhh, well, I kinda disagree with you on In Extremis, since it'd be rather hard to get low enough to trigger it without getting killed instead.

its the same principle that Luckstacker Midori uses (Nohrian Trust into Miracle with a high Luck stat to proc Awakening, then Vantage + Crit/Aether everything in sight), except not on Midori...or on a unit anywhere nearly as good as Midori.

That's why I said it would be better on a kid since they could get more milage out of it with the right build. Extremis + Awakening = free +60% Crit for being in the red. On something like Midori who can skirt that threshold with relative ease and safety, Id say this would be a great skill.

Actually there's a niche Awakening build I once read that involves using Ganglari (or a Sacrificial Knife) to lower your own HP to <50%, then go crazy with high Speed from Master Ninja + Breakers to gain nigh-invulnerability.

[Flareblade]

Hey guys, I'm-

woah the thread is hot.

Anyways, thanks for all the replies to this thread. I'm pretty new here and I really appreciate all the responses.

and even shadowofchaos commented wow

Edited April 13, 2016 by thedeltarune

[Shadow Mir]

its the same principle that Luckstacker Midori uses (Nohrian Trust into Miracle with a high Luck stat to proc Awakening, then Vantage + Crit/Aether everything in sight), except not on Midori...or on a unit anywhere nearly as good as Midori.

That's why I said it would be better on a kid since they could get more milage out of it with the right build. Extremis + Awakening = free +60% Crit for being in the red. On something like Midori who can skirt that threshold with relative ease and safety, Id say this would be a great skill.

Actually there's a niche Awakening build I once read that involves using Ganglari (or a Sacrificial Knife) to lower your own HP to <50%, then go crazy with high Speed from Master Ninja + Breakers to gain nigh-invulnerability.

The big issue I have with that build is Spy's Yumi, Spy's Shurikens, and Stoneborn. Also, trying to attack someone who is themselves in the Vantage zone.