Do you like the Pair up system?

[Thinks Their Own Way]

Their was no reason not to pair-up in Awakening, the stat bonuses are really high (I've had +10, +11 for some stats) and because both units can attack, experience isn't being wasted.

In Fates, it's way more fair. And their would be consequences if you use it to much (more noticeable in Conquest), like wasted experience for some units if you don't switch every now and then.

[Augestein]

@Augestein: Galeforce trivializes a game, Canto doesn't. You seem to ignore the importance of a turn, because in it you might get a Game Over, Galefore ensures you won't need to take the risk with another turn or phase, Canto doesn't allow this. Galeforce is in a realm of brokenness, but Canto is far below it. Being a powerful skill doesn't make a mechanic automatically broken: for instance, Shove is good not broken, Dancing is good not broken. Imagine Fates Pegs getting Galeforce, it will trivialize the game as Awakening, just in a lesser degree.

Veteran trivializes the game. Male Robin stomps over Awakening as well and he doesn't get galeforce. He still gets broken setups like VV to take advantage and go to town on the enemy phase-- where most of your killing is done. I ignore the importance of a turn in this case because you'd have to be playing really, REALLY poorly for 1 turn to make any difference outside of a BS ambush spawn you didn't know about. Shove is useful, "good" is relative to the unit. It's worthless on small units. In Fates, it's nice when you have

nothing better to do-- I'd personally rather hit someone with a rally though.Reminds me of one of the problems I harped on earlier. Rally Movement is just plain better than Shove in every possible way. You'll never use Shove is you have Rally Movement. Dancing is more broken than Galeforce could ever be. Again, Dancers give someone the same benefit as GF without having to even kill someone. Need to attack a boss twice in a turn? No problem, the dancer has you covered. I fail to see how GF is broken when canto or dancing is not. If Fates Pegs had GF, Subaki, Sakura, Sealed Azura, Hinoka would still be worse than Ryoma. By quite a large margin as well. If Ryoma got GF, it'd be nice, but he wouldn't become any more OP.

I don't really see the problem with having to reach level 15 to get the last skill in a promoted class. Sure, not everyone is going to reach that in a regular playthrough, but with limited amount of unit slots for each map, it's not like you're using everyone anyways. Unless you're making using everyone the point of your playthrough, at which point it's not really the skill system's fault anymore. Based on my experience (which really isn't much yet, I admit), a core group of units can easily reach level 15-20 on standard play in Conquest.

As far as "full skill set" or "getting all skills you can have", neither of those are really necessary if you ask me. But if you want to go for them, the first one is really easy via reclass. I agree the latter one takes some crazy reclass shenanigans though (but you can get pretty far without eternal seal).

Now, I do agree that the skill system could be better. But calling it "preposterous" feels like an overreaction to me.

(Also, while not all the skills are optimal and so on, most of the early skills you get are certainly fine enough for standard play)

It makes the skill system feel more like an afterthought rather than something that's clear to be used as a mechanic throughout the game. It's sort of like the coins in PoR. the entirety of their existence just feels like an afterthought. They really don't change much. No one really uses them, and selling them doesn't do enough to really matter. Even if you're not using everyone, I've never gotten more than maybe 2-3 to max level. Considering that you have a team of about 10, it'd be nice if even half of them could reach that.

I agree they aren't necessary. No arguments there.

I'd say "it lacks common sense" to have a system to fully use it, you must change class. Especially when it's not free. Most people that are playing aren't going to go out of their way to change classes because of the fact that you have to pay for it.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Augestein

[Quintessence]

I ignore the importance of a turn in this case because you'd have to be playing really, REALLY poorly for 1 turn to make any difference outside of a BS ambush spawn you didn't know about.

The example is not even a case of poor strategy; this comes up in ltc settings or cases when it is better to fast clear rather than wait x turns to get a higher risk of failing in the end. Imagine yourself in a map where you literally skip all of its content, Galeforce does this. You can pretty much ignore 90% of the map with it; not with Canto. Similar to FE11 Warpskipping.

Want an example? 1 turning 2-E with Elincia (her str and sp benchmarks met). With Canto you'd normally go straight down to Ludveck and wait in a position where Ludveck engages her at melee range. You enter enemy phase and Leanne dies (it doesn't matter since she'll come back on 3-11), but in the end you clear the chapter as soon as Elincia ORKOs Ludveck with Amiti.

Now assume the same example but with the condition that if Leanne dies she won't come back again, and Elincia has Galeforce. Elincia can move forward, kill a unit, Galeforce and move or w/e, get refreshed by Leanne, move down killing one of Ludveck's adjacent unit, Galeforce and kill Ludveck, end of chapter. You see? No risk, no deaths. This is the important of 1 turn (or even, 1 phase).

[Augestein]

The example is not even a case of poor strategy; this comes up in ltc settings or cases when it is better to fast clear rather than wait x turns to get a higher risk of failing in the end. Imagine yourself in a map where you literally skip all of its content, Galeforce does this. You can pretty much ignore 90% of the map with it; not with Canto. Similar to FE11 Warpskipping.

Which using your logic means that canto is broken. High move + Canto shaves off several turns in ltc environment. It's arguably the most useful skill for LTCing.

Want an example? 1 turning 2-E with Elincia (her str and sp benchmarks met). With Canto you'd normally go straight down to Ludveck and wait in a position where Ludveck engages her at melee range. You enter enemy phase and Leanne dies (it doesn't matter since she'll come back on 3-11), but in the end you clear the chapter as soon as Elincia ORKOs Ludveck with Amiti.

Which would realistically be based on poor placement if Leanne didn't come back. Just rescue her with Haar. IIRC there's nothing that would stop you from doing that. Haar should survive perfectly fine. Same story there. It's useful, but I'm not seeing gamebreaking.

Now assume the same example but with the condition that if Leanne dies she won't come back again, and Elincia has Galeforce. Elincia can move forward, kill a unit, Galeforce and move or w/e, get refreshed by Leanne, move down killing one of Ludveck's adjacent unit, Galeforce and kill Ludveck, end of chapter. You see? No risk, no deaths. This is the important of 1 turn (or even, 1 phase).

Not really. Because that

1) Is poor placement of Leanne. You can rescue her.

2) only works for non-rout chapters.

3) You still need a stun proc to realistically defeat him. So it's still luck based.

4) You still miss the dracoshield because you didn't get Heather over there, so it's not like everything was good about it.

A skill being good in one environment doesn't mean much. That wouldn't do anything in a Rout chapter for instance. Or how about chapters like Fates where the objective is "escape with all units?" How would that help? It wouldn't. There's enough variance in the map designs to say "no." It's like saying Shurikenbreaker is a broken skill because it makes any map with ninjas easier to handle.

[NekoKnight]

I don't really see the problem with having to reach level 15 to get the last skill in a promoted class. Sure, not everyone is going to reach that in a regular playthrough, but with limited amount of unit slots for each map, it's not like you're using everyone anyways. Unless you're making using everyone the point of your playthrough, at which point it's not really the skill system's fault anymore. Based on my experience (which really isn't much yet, I admit), a core group of units can easily reach level 15-20 on standard play in Conquest.

As far as "full skill set" or "getting all skills you can have", neither of those are really necessary if you ask me. But if you want to go for them, the first one is really easy via reclass. I agree the latter one takes some crazy reclass shenanigans though (but you can get pretty far without eternal seal).

Now, I do agree that the skill system could be better. But calling it "preposterous" feels like an overreaction to me.

(Also, while not all the skills are optimal and so on, most of the early skills you get are certainly fine enough for standard play)

I agree with most of your post except for the bolded. Even after doing all the paralogues, my core group was only hitting level 15 by the last few levels, with some getting to level 15 on the very last level.

I think the highest level skill should be 12, not 15. Level 15 skills basically translate to "endgame + PVP". I'm still salty about the Warp Scroll requiring you be at level 15

[Quintessence]

Which using your logic means that canto is broken. High move + Canto shaves off several turns in ltc environment. It's arguably the most useful skill for LTCing.

Which would realistically be based on poor placement if Leanne didn't come back. Just rescue her with Haar. IIRC there's nothing that would stop you from doing that. Haar should survive perfectly fine. Same story there. It's useful, but I'm not seeing gamebreaking.

Not really. Because that

1) Is poor placement of Leanne. You can rescue her.

2) only works for non-rout chapters.

3) You still need a stun proc to realistically defeat him. So it's still luck based.

4) You still miss the dracoshield because you didn't get Heather over there, so it's not like everything was good about it.

A skill being good in one environment doesn't mean much. That wouldn't do anything in a Rout chapter for instance. Or how about chapters like Fates where the objective is "escape with all units?" How would that help? It wouldn't. There's enough variance in the map designs to say "no." It's like saying Shurikenbreaker is a broken skill because it makes any map with ninjas easier to handle.

No because these strategies can be replicated in other games but that doesn't make the unit, mechanic, etc., inherently broken; we're just taking full advantage of the benefits of it.

The positioning of Leanne is strictly that one because otherwise you won't achieve the 1 turn. Also, assume that no other unit is used for the sake of the two comparisons.

Elincia doesn't even need a Stun proc, I never mentioned skill proc here. For some reason I stated that she needs to meet a Str benchmark to effectively ORKO Ludveck, which is dealing 12x4 dmg on him.

Do you even need any stealable item? Dracoshield? Energy Drop? Nullify? With the BEXP system and the general character growths, these stat boosters come of as redundant, and your units, specially the GMs won't need them at all. The difference is pretty irrelevant and negligible.

Galeforce in rout chapters is equally good as in other objectives with pacifist and stationary enemies. With it you avoid an extra phase and minimize risks. In escape all units it is much better, someone like in the beginning of the map can traverse it all and reach the escape point with it.

[Augestein]

No because these strategies can be replicated in other games but that doesn't make the unit, mechanic, etc., inherently broken; we're just taking full advantage of the benefits of it.

The positioning of Leanne is strictly that one because otherwise you won't achieve the 1 turn. Also, assume that no other unit is used for the sake of the two comparisons.

Elincia doesn't even need a Stun proc, I never mentioned skill proc here. For some reason I stated that she needs to meet a Str benchmark to effectively ORKO Ludveck, which is dealing 12x4 dmg on him.

Do you even need any stealable item? Dracoshield? Energy Drop? Nullify? With the BEXP system and the general character growths, these stat boosters come of as redundant, and your units, specially the GMs won't need them at all. The difference is pretty irrelevant and negligible.

Galeforce in rout chapters is equally good as in other objectives with pacifist and stationary enemies. With it you avoid an extra phase and minimize risks. In escape all units it is much better, someone like in the beginning of the map can traverse it all and reach the escape point with it.

I don't see how it somehow doesn't.

She does. There literally isn't enough BEXP to go around .Elincia is 3rd tier. Amiti is 15 might, and the boss has 26 defense. In Hard Mode, there's no WTA, so she just straight up has to fight him. If she doesn't kill him immediately upon going over there, she dies because there's a crossbowman next to the boss. So in order to have her strength reach the amount to kill him, she needs to have + 12 damage to him each attack to kill him (as 11x 4 = 44 and 12 x 4 = 48 which is dead without stun). At base, she's doing 8. Elincia literally needs 4 points of strength minimum to kill this guy. 5550 is the most amount of BEXP you can get in Part 2 up to that point. That's not enough to get a third tier to level up 4 levels, and that's being really generous with assuming there are strengths in that level up every time. Level 1 requires 2100, level 2 requires 2150 so you'll get two levels, have to RNG abuse to ensure that both get strength. And believe me when I say that I used the BEXP forumula for NM, if it was hard, I want to say that all of them are doubled in expense in HM, so Elincia would get exactly 1 level. Normal you might be able to get away with this garbage, but I'd consider 3 stat ups per level STILL relying off of the RNG to proc the BEXP for her. Her growth of 65% is impressive, but means very little with a forced 3 stats anyways. Even worse, the one item you'd want to rig things so you're less likely to need to rely on RNG procs for strength, the energy drop-- is dropped in 2-F. She needs the stun proc unless you're playing on normal.

Except in any mode above normal the enemies bull rush you. There's not a single stationary enemy except the boss. And sometimes even they run at you too. And no, you can't DO that with galeforce in an escape map because the escape is never close enough to be made with Galeforce and two moves. And it doesn't work because everyone has to escape on the chapters like this now.

I agree with most of your post except for the bolded. Even after doing all the paralogues, my core group was only hitting level 15 by the last few levels, with some getting to level 15 on the very last level.

I think the highest level skill should be 12, not 15. Level 15 skills basically translate to "endgame + PVP". I'm still salty about the Warp Scroll requiring you be at level 15

Yeah, I think 12 would be a bit more fair. I still don't like them tied to levels like that, but I think it's better at a lower level. Heck, even 10 would be nice to keep in touch with the unpromoted levels. It's weird that it's 10, 5, 15.

[Sylphid]

It makes the skill system feel more like an afterthought rather than something that's clear to be used as a mechanic throughout the game. It's sort of like the coins in PoR. the entirety of their existence just feels like an afterthought. They really don't change much. No one really uses them, and selling them doesn't do enough to really matter. Even if you're not using everyone, I've never gotten more than maybe 2-3 to max level. Considering that you have a team of about 10, it'd be nice if even half of them could reach that.

I'd say "it lacks common sense" to have a system to fully use it, you must change class. Especially when it's not free. Most people that are playing aren't going to go out of their way to change classes because of the fact that you have to pay for it.

I think comparing Fates skill system to PoR coins is bit of an overreaction, but I think I see what you mean. I would just call it questionable design choice at most rather than an afterthought though. It just doesn't seem that bad of a thing to me I guess.

As far as reclassing goes, I'm of the opinion that since it's there, why not use it if there's no clear downside. Which basically means that for most units, I reclass to their branched promotions but not other options. (As far as the gold investment goes, infinite weapon uses leaves you with quite a bit of money to use on reclassing, even after accounting for buying weapons, staves and such)

I agree with most of your post except for the bolded. Even after doing all the paralogues, my core group was only hitting level 15 by the last few levels, with some getting to level 15 on the very last level.

I think the highest level skill should be 12, not 15. Level 15 skills basically translate to "endgame + PVP". I'm still salty about the Warp Scroll requiring you be at level 15

That's weird, I had over half of my core group at level 15 or above by Hard!Conquest chapter 25, just by doing main story and a run of the free Awakening dlc early on (said dlc didn't amount to much experience due to Frederick basically killing everything for me). Earlier actually, but that's when I took a break from main story to do paralogues so I remember that most clearly.

I probably could have had more / almost all of them at level 15 but I distributed exp kind of unevenly, I had Camilla, Marx and Effie close to hitting level caps by then.

I did promote most of my units at level 10 though so if you didn't, that's a key difference. Also, my core group wasn't as big as it could have been since I did use couple units each map as pure pair up bots for support building.

EDIT: I do agree level 10-12 would be better for promoted classes though

Edited July 9, 2016 by Sylphid

[Quintessence]

I was referrimg to NM, but if you want HM then I can bring you more numbers.

First off, 5550bexp is not what is expected to get in 2-P, 2-1, 2-2 and 2-3, specially when one knows 2-3 is a bank of BEXP.

Assuming you meet all the turn criteria and get full bexp, left the volunteers alive in 2-1 and left 25 enemies alive in 2-3, one would get approximately 8550 or 9050 bexp if 25 or 30 enemies survived 2-3, which is reasonable.

Another given is that Elincia spams Mend on 2-P allowing her to use up to, say, 14 uses of Mend (not 16 because for obvious reasons she won't heal at first turn because Leanne needs to be removed from the middle of the field), that would be like 168 exp asides from combat she might engage. So she can get up to 2.6 or more by 2-P. With the BEXP hard formula she will need around 8700bexp to get 2 level ups (an estimate from going from 2.5 to 4.5); there's still some exp missing there and she can Physic one or two turns to meet safely the benchmarks on HM. On NM it's much more easier and it's still doable. Rng reliant? Pretty much every action in FE is rng relaint.

Also there are quite a number or stationary enemies, even in RD, even in Fates and not only the bosses are stationary.

At this point we're just discussing dumb minor points that are irrelevant to the topic and just derailing it more. So I think we should move on.

[Dark Sage]

Tear Ring Saga has a better skill system/skill acquisition better than either the Tellius or the 3DS games anyway, they should go with something like that next time but maybe adapt it to branching promotions.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Dark Sage