Are Personal Skills a good idea?

[Corrobin]

Do you like what Fates did with personal skills? Do you think that the series should keep them in?

[SpearOfLies]

I like it but I also like they be more balanced. Someone is too broken and someone is too useless.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

I really liked em, playing around them was pretty fun. I don't think they were too powerful either. Unfortunately, some of them were also pretty much useless, like Leo's or Dwyer's.

[Azure Sen]

I enjoy them in concept and some of them were good or fun to use, but a lot of them were super-situational or outright useless. If they return, I'd like to see them reworked to be more universally useful.

Edited February 24, 2017 by AzureSen

[SpearOfLies]

7 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I really liked em, playing around them was pretty fun. I don't think they were too powerful either. Unfortunately, some of them were also pretty much useless, like Leo's or Dwyer's.

Leo's is not useless, but most of time you don't use it effective. Nyx's useless. Not because her personal skill is not good but her res growth rate make her useless. Most of the personal skill have some rare requirement and when it happen, not always is useful. Some is easy to actived and give too much.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

1 minute ago, SpearOfLies said:

Leo's is not useless, but most of time you don't use it effective. Nyx's useless. Not because her personal skill is not good but her res growth rate make her useless. Most of the personal skill have some rare requirement and when it happen, not always is useful. Some is easy to actived and give too much.

Leo's personal skill is good on paper, but functionally useless most of the time because of how Leo grows. Most of the time it's just overkill, unless you purposely chip the opponent out by a little, then have Leo attack. If so, you're better off just having someone else deal with the problem to begin with.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Yes, definitely if they're continuing with the 3DS' reclass focused character progression. In awakening and fates, few characters other than the Lords have a class all their own that comes with a full set of skills. Only with these personal classes did units have a real variation, rather than be a blank slate just waiting for you to pick up galeforce/warp/ paragon/aether.

Fates' personal skills felt insignificant compared to class skills. Hana's personal is just savage blow (maligknight level 5) only you must kill a unit rather than it happening anytime you initiate battle. Setsuna's skill is +50% HP gain from being healed. Neither of these do a thing to make these characters stand out against Takumi and Ryoma. Velouria's is just a worse Good Fortune (Mercenary level 1). There's a few standout skills - Elise and Sakura are both very clutch for Lunatic playthroughs. Odin's is a straight upgrade and fits his character. And I think most of the kids have great skills, I just don't play with them.

[Interdimensional Observer]

They're nifty and serve as a way of integrating a character's personality and add uniqueness without messing with their stats. And yes, the royals do get a bunch of the best. 

Capture/Kidnap was also an interesting way of bringing back an old mechanic from Thracia. Rinkah's Fiery Blood seriously helps her and would be amazing on anyone else. Only Peacebringer and Misfortunate actively hurt you (technically Guarded Bravery and Noble Cause do too, but it is negligible).

A few of the kids do get some nice ones: Percy and Kiragi have amazing ones, Ophelia and Soleil good ones. But then you have Born Steward, Daydream, and Haiku. So all in all it evens out.

One that I think is a real shame is Shuriken Mastery. How wonderful it'd be on a durable unit on Conquest, being able to damage and debuff all those evil ninjas every time they attack you. But no, it is stuck on Kagero, a fragile Birthright unit. Optimist and Perfectionist are also want for more suitable units.

[Shadow Mir]

32 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Yes, definitely if they're continuing with the 3DS' reclass focused character progression. In awakening and fates, few characters other than the Lords have a class all their own that comes with a full set of skills. Only with these personal classes did units have a real variation, rather than be a blank slate just waiting for you to pick up galeforce/warp/ paragon/aether.

Fates' personal skills felt insignificant compared to class skills. Hana's personal is just savage blow (maligknight level 5) only you must kill a unit rather than it happening anytime you initiate battle. Setsuna's skill is +50% HP gain from being healed. Neither of these do a thing to make these characters stand out against Takumi and Ryoma. Velouria's is just a worse Good Fortune (Mercenary level 1). There's a few standout skills - Elise and Sakura are both very clutch for Lunatic playthroughs. Odin's is a straight upgrade and fits his character. And I think most of the kids have great skills, I just don't play with them.

I disagree on Velouria's being a worse Good Fortune - Good Fortune only heals 20%, and hers heals 10, which Good Fortune doesn't equal until 50 HP. Odin's fits his character, but with Fates' forging system being bullshit, it ain't winning the good personal skill award anytime soon... Or ever, if you ask me.

Anyways, I kinda liked personal skills, even if some of them were overly situational, outright useless or worse, detrimental to their users (Arthur).

Edited February 24, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Just now, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I disagree on Velouria's being a worse Good Fortune - Good Fortune only heals 20%, and hers heals 10, which Good Fortune doesn't equal until 50 HP.

Anyways, I kinda liked personal skills, even if some of them were overly situational, outright useless or worse, detrimental to their users (Arthur).

The site says 10% hp, not 10 flat. I'd check on my own copy of fates, but I don't have a file where I've gotten Velouria. As for Arthur, his makes a lot of sense as a crit machine berserker. Remember, Fates is a unique FE game in which enemies actually have luck that protect them against critical hits. 

36 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Leo's personal skill is good on paper, but functionally useless most of the time because of how Leo grows. Most of the time it's just overkill, unless you purposely chip the opponent out by a little, then have Leo attack. If so, you're better off just having someone else deal with the problem to begin with.

Have Camilla rush into a group of 2 or more with Savage Blow. Leo's skill will proc as you target the other nearby units. It's  also great for bosses that don't die in a single round, and works during enemy phase unlike several skills.

[Shadow Mir]

56 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

The site says 10% hp, not 10 flat. I'd check on my own copy of fates, but I don't have a file where I've gotten Velouria. As for Arthur, his makes a lot of sense as a crit machine berserker. Remember, Fates is a unique FE game in which enemies actually have luck that protect them against critical hits.

I think the game itself said a flat 10. As for Arthur's, it'd be useful... In Awakening, that is, because most enemies in Fates don't have anywhere enough luck to really feel it (note that it takes 2 points of luck to get one point of CEv in Fates) and by lategame, they nuke what little CEv they have with silvers. It doesn't help that it can lead to his demise thanks to just how much more valuable, and powerful, crits are for the enemy (and honestly, with Arthur's crit evade woes, Berserker is the absolute last thing I'd want him to be).

Edited February 24, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Azure Sen]

16 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

The site says 10% hp, not 10 flat. I'd check on my own copy of fates, but I don't have a file where I've gotten Velouria. As for Arthur, his makes a lot of sense as a crit machine berserker. Remember, Fates is a unique FE game in which enemies actually have luck that protect them against critical hits. 

Having just tested it, it is indeed a flat 10 HP recovery.

[Dragrath]

Hmm With regards to personal skills I'm a bit mixed I like them in theory but many of the skills in Fates seemed completely arbitrary and thus wasted or unnoticeable

That said I feel that personal skills should be held by every character that has a portrait even bosses. The role of skills is to add nuances to  units making some more dangerous than others based on skill combinations This allowed things to be more than a strait up question of stats.

(Of course I am one of the players that likes when the enemy gets the same tools as you and then some so long as the game is balanced.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I think the game itself said a flat 10. As for Arthur's, it'd be useful... In Awakening, that is, because most enemies in Fates don't have anywhere enough luck to really feel it (note that it takes 2 points of luck to get one point of CEv in Fates) and by lategame, they nuke what little CEv they have with silvers. It doesn't help that it can lead to his demise thanks to just how much more valuable, and powerful, crits are for the enemy (and honestly, with Arthur's crit evade woes, Berserker is the absolute last thing I'd want him to be).

Hm! Silver weapons on the enemy are a good point. Do you have a source for the Fates change to Critical Evade? That's news to me. I guess a single point of Luck is good for almost nothing if it takes 2 for +1 to hit rate, avoid, and critical avoid.

[Extrasolar]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

They're nifty and serve as a way of integrating a character's personality and add uniqueness without messing with their stats.

 

This is basically my feelings on the matter.

Though they do tend to elevate characters above others, depending on how useful/good the skill is in question. But then again, that's with all skills. Some are more useful than others.

[Augestein]

Like the idea, but they need to be refined. Some like Hana's are pretty good, and make for some interesting setups. Others are far too situational or just outright useless. Like Azama's is only useful when unpromoted, and no one in their right mind would leave a unit without weapons if they could wield them. 

[NekoKnight]

It's a solid idea but it needs refinement. A personal skill should be readily exploitable but not a serious game changer. Beruka, Hinoka and Ophelia are good examples. Ideally they can be combined with growths/bases to make a unit stand out for a particular role. I'd like to see the feature return for FE  Switch.

[Slumber]

I think it'd make sense for it to be more like 4/5/9/10, where units didn't necessarily have personal skills, but a lot had unique sets of common skills by default that would suit their personality. Personal skills ended up being far too circumstantial for 75% of units, and the remaining 25% ended up being flat-out better than others similar units because of skills that are just complete upgrades to whatever anyone else could get. They could balance these, but FE games typically have 40-60+ characters. A few of those skills will be major clunkers if EVERYONE has a unique one.

Edited February 25, 2017 by Slumber

[Lord Tullus]

I like personal skills.  FE 4 had them, so why not?  

[Jotari]

They shouldn't be unique. Even among the smaller Fire Emblem casts the number of playable units is still too big for everyone to get a personal skill that is useful, resonates with their personality and isn't broken. Just make them a regular skill that the unit can equip for no capacity cost or not fill up one of the five available slots. Stuff like vantage and nihil work just as well as personal skills as the random useless ones that Fates gave units. Of course some of them could be unique, it just shouldn't be a requirement for every unit in the game.

[Dragrath]

@Jotari I have to agree with you there is no need for excessive useless skills especially when there is such a large pool of more useful skills that have been created in more recent FE games. I feel they should consolidate down to truly tachically uselful and give personal skills that best fit from the existing pool of options.

It also could improve the complexity of character choice. For instance if you have the choice between a unit with a sub par personal but good growths or a powerful high utility skill as a personal but comparatively bad stat growths which would you choose? That is the kinda choices I feel that should be done(If they are balanced such that neither outright wins of course we aren't talking Jagens here but the star growth unit and above average but not as good as that guys growths).

[RedEyedDrake]

One thing I'd like to note is that there shouldn't be any personal skills that deal with fixed numbers. Fixed numbers on a personal skill  would result in such a personal skill being either broken when the unit that has it is low leveled or being unimpressive at best when the unit is high leveled. Thus it would be better to stick to percentages for such personal skills.

On a similar note, if functions like Shove, Swap, ect. are to return then I think IS should keep them as Skills that take up Skill slots but instead of having certain classes learn them have them be only accessible with Skill Scrolls. Have the Scrolls be non-consumable items that can be used by anyone but that you have to go out of your way to get, have each character be only able to learn one such skill and make it so that only up to, say, five units that you deploy can have any such Skills at all and that only up to two of the units that you deploy can have an identical Skill of this type.

Edited February 25, 2017 by RedEyedDrake

[Tolvir]

I really like the idea, it adds diversity to the characters and can help characters who may have lesser stats edge out a bit compared to the better choices. They just need to be a bit more useful, and some need to be toned down. Midori's skill was easily abused, and Selena's skill was too situational. There needs to be a balance somewhere in between.

[Jedi]

I like the idea, but not its execution, 90% of them were too situational or silly to the point where they didn't even need to exist.

[Corrobin]

How would you fix some of the bad personal skills? Like, say, Saizo's?