Ranking the (known) personal skills

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Now that we have a healthy amount of confirmed personal skills, I thought we could rank them in terms of perceived usefulness. Now obviously we can't see these skills in action since nobody has the game in their hands, but I thought it'd make for fun speculation.

High Tier

• Wisdom to Live: (Ashe) user can open doors and chests without keys: Thieves have always been underwhelming classes in terms of combat, so it's nice that you can have this unit be a strong fighter that can also play this utility role. I imagine he'll make a good cavalier or some other high movement class that can hold their own as he rushes for a chest in a high traffic area. The only way I anticipate this being a poor skill is if door and chest keys are buyable, in which case any unit with access to a convoy can play the role of thief similar to Marth, the Prince of Thieves.
• Live to Serve (Mercedes) When healing with White Magic, user restores the same amount of HP: That honestly sounds like a late game healer skill to me. Mercedes immediately looks like the the most sensible healer in the game with such a skill right out of the gate and this for sure sounds like the best personal skill we've seen.

Mid-High Tier

• Paranoia: (Bernadetta) If user's HP isn't full, Attack +5: Nice. You might be thinking "ew, she has to take damage", and the answer is no. Since a level up giving you a point in HP, or some savage blow-style skill that chips her health can turn the skill on. Based on its wording, you'll lose it once you're healed to full, but you can of course attack before you heal on player phase. And it activating on enemy phase will let the player get some mileage out of the skill without even thinking of it. Also maybe consuming an HP tonic item will put you at less than full health, so that sounds like another potential strategy.
• Strategist (Hubert): Boost gambit Might by 5: I dunno how central battalions and gambits will be to the gameplay, but it's obvious this character will get a lot of out them. I'm also curious if any gambits apply effective damage to your attack, in which case we could be looking at a boost of 15 might. 
• Solitary Wolf (Felix): When a batallion is not deployed or when battalion health is 0, damage dealt +5: Again, I don't know how central battalions will be to the gameplay, but straight damage increases are nothing to sneeze at. Plus there's no drawback to having a battalion in the first place for this character.
• Prestigious Noble (Lorenz): When a batallion is delpoyed, damage dealt +2: Nothing. To. Sneeze. At.
• Prodigy (Lysithea): Experience points toward Professor Levels earned during battles is doubled: Sounds like another snowballing skill, and having that sort of exp be doubled sounds much more impactful than the 20% boost we see on the Lords. 

Mid Tier

• Teacher's Guidance (Byleth): Increases unit and adjacent ally's experience gained by 1.2: Okay, so it's what the other three Lords have, only it affects adjacent allies as well so it's straight up better. Increased experience gains will have no impact regarding combat. However, it will help units snowball into higher levels at a slightly higher rate, and level should still be tied to the earning of promotions. Probably class skills too. I don't care for skills that ask you to keep your units grouped up, but boosting experience sounds less vital for strategy than a damage boost or healing, so it's a nice passive benefit.
• Liege's Shield (Dudue): If user waits without acting, Defense +4 for one turn: Nice, consistent defense boost which can synergize well with an enemy phase-based skill set or front liner class. I also have a theory that this unit may be able to wait, get danced, and still maintain the defense boost. Really the only drawback I foresee is that you won't be able to vulnerary and take advantage of this defense boost, since it says "without acting", and canto may not even be able to circumvent such a weakness either.
• Confidence (Ferdinand): Hit rate and avoid +15 when user's HP is full: Sounds like a good tool for dodge tanking. And a hit rate boost can justify you using heavier, inaccurate weapons. It's also not a Heroes style "when user's HP is full at the start of turn", so healing this guy before he goes into combat should improve his odds. Biggest drawback I can think of is that this skill will shut off the moment he levels up and earns HP. Lame, inconsistent, definitely not higher than mid tier as a result.
• Hard Worker (Annette): When Rally command is used on an ally, target ally receives +4 strength: No issues here. If the rally in question is speed it won't make a difference if the target of your ally is a magic user but otherwise it may help justify using rally skills in the first place now that they're nerfed to 1 range from what I hear.
• Keen Observation (Ignatz) Hit rate +20: While not exciting it may encourage this guy to use stronger, less accurate weapons or combat arts on an already easy to hit target.
• Animal Lover (Marianne) When adjacent to a horseback or flying ally, restores 20%HP at the start of turn. 20% HP gain is the benchmark for what I consider notable passive healing. But the beauty of this condition is that horseback and flying allies can canto into position when the player wants to take advantage of this. I certainly wouldn't hold these high movement units back just to keep our health up, but if Marianne is herself one of those classes then it shouldn't cut too hard in our progress. Probably the best in this tier.
• Doze Off (Linhardt) If unit waits without acting, +10% HP: That's a tiny boost, but at least its activation condition isn't too restrictive so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
• Lady Knight (Ingrid): When using a Gambit, might +3 and Hit Rate +5. 5 Hit is nowhere near a good enough trade compared to Hubert's additional two damage. But I also don't know too much about gambits to really judge if this guaranteed damage isn't still extremely reliable. Little torn on this tier or the one above.

Low Tier

• Imperial/Royal/Alliance Bloodline (Edelgard/Dimitri/Claude): Boosts unit's experience gained by 1.2: Straight up worse than Byleth's skill, but still decent for the same reasons.
• Songstress (Dorothea): At the start of each turn, restore adjacent ally's health by 10%: It doesn't work on her, and you have to huddle up your units to take advantage of it, rather than take full advantage of their movement or go for objectives. Consistent healing can be nice but the amount will be low throughout the game, and for all we know vulneraries and healing magic could be extremely common place.
• Plead (Hilda): When an adjacent male ally enters battle, +3 damage dealt: Again, skills that only activate when your units are huddled up restrict the player's movement if they try to take advantage of them. This isn't Heroes, units can move more than two spaces in this game. Unless your whole army is the same class, you have to purposely get through the map slower to accommodate the different movement ranges. However, I could see this being good if it activates on your pair up partner but I doubt it with that wording.
• Hunter's law (Petra): Critical rate +20 when foe has less than 50% HP. Okay on the one hand, it seems like some boss enemies will have several health bars worth of HP, even in the mid game based on some demo footage, but against standard enemies, do you really need a crit to secure a kill when they're already dying? This may prove decisive in her role as boss killer if such boss enemies are common, but for now this sounds low tier.
• Ladies' Man (Sylvain)When adjacent to a female ally, damage dealt to foe +2, damage received from foe -2: Kind of similar to Hilda's only it's a personal boost. I like this more than Hilda's since it improves this guy's survivability (it just says damage, never specifying physical or magic). But not enough for mid tier. 
• Hates to Lose (Leonie): When adjacent to a male ally, damage dealt to foe +2, damage received from foe -2: Basically the inverse of Sylvains.

Bottom Tier

• Scavenge: (Raphael): User has a Luck% chance to restore 10% HP at the start of turn: Haha, wow that is bad. Let's say he starts with 8 luck at base. That's a less than ten percent chance of proccing such a minuscule heal. Even if the Luck Cap ends up being a ludicrously high 50, I can't see this making a difference over healing spells or items in the late game, and any player would prefer a skill that provides consistent healing they can plan around. This skill should really be guaranteed to proc if the healing amount is that low. Alternatively, have a chance to proc at the end of each combat, so that he could feasibly get some health restored when engaging multiple opponents on enemy phase. 
• Quarreler (Caspar): -10 Avoid to adjacent foes during combat: Perhaps not as outright bad as Raphaels, but 10 avoid is a small reduction indeed, and only applies to 1 range opponents or player phase engagements where you are opting for 1 range so it's the potential usefulness for this character is quite low. If Caspar wants to be in a mob of enemies anyway, then he can help ensure other allies get their hits if he moves first, but the difference made in such a strategy would be negligible and I'd prefer dropping their defenses or attacking power to secure kills I otherwise couldn't.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Glennstavos

[HappyHawlucha.]

I find it a bit odd how Ashe can open chests and doors even though it seems the game is leaning toward the Thief line for him - so one of his class skills will be straight up null and void; so maybe just ignoring Steal and going straight for Cavalier or Wyvern Rider could be a good idea for him. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

6 minutes ago, HappyHawlucha. said:

I find it a bit odd how Ashe can open chests and doors even though it seems the game is leaning toward the Thief line for him - so one of his class skills will be straight up null and void; so maybe just ignoring Steal and going straight for Cavalier or Wyvern Rider could be a good idea for him. 

I thought of how Lockpick is a class skill, and you are limited to just three of those. So potentially the Thief line might have a lot of great class skills and Ashe could be a very good member of this class that doesn't have to spend a slot on Lockpick. However, I imagine Lockpick is the first available for this class line, so having more than three to choose from sounds like a Late game scenario, and I don't care for a personal skill that's only suddenly good for late game. Having him be a non-thief just sounds the most optimal

Edited May 30, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Confidence (Ferdinand): Hit rate and avoid +15 when user's HP is full: Sounds like a good tool for dodge tanking. And a hit rate boost can justify you using heavier, inaccurate weapons. It's also not a Heroes style "when user's HP is full at the start of turn", so healing this guy before he goes into combat should improve his odds. Biggest drawback I can think of is that this skill will shut off the moment he levels up and earns HP. Lame, inconsistent, definitely not higher than mid tier as a result.

I would say this is an easy low tier, especially if the RNG is anything like Fates.

[BergelomeuSantos]

23 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would say this is an easy low tier, especially if the RNG is anything like Fates.

He's (based on) a Cavalier. Since (most of time) he's going to attack people with Full Hp before losing some points, he will have a great advantage for the First Hit, as he can use a +Pow/-Hit weapon with more ease and, possibly, get a kill. Avoid is also a great thing if the Hit-Rates in this game are bad/medium, since he can Kill a enemy without losing HP while having a chance of getting into a spree. So..yeah. It's a pretty good skill. But RNG is going to be Major Fact on this Skill. However, we don't have any information on that yet, so it should not be down-leveled because of it.

[TheDreamReturns]

Raphael is definitely the gag character of this game.

Intentionally ugly character design and "quirky" personality already made it clear but now that I've taken a second look at that personally skill....it's almost funny.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, BergelomeuSantos said:

He's (based on) a Cavalier. Since (most of time) he's going to attack people with Full Hp before losing some points, he will have a great advantage for the First Hit, as he can use a +Pow/-Hit weapon with more ease and, possibly, get a kill. Avoid is also a great thing if the Hit-Rates in this game are bad/medium, since he can Kill a enemy without losing HP while having a chance of getting into a spree. So..yeah. It's a pretty good skill. But RNG is going to be Major Fact on this Skill. However, we don't have any information on that yet, so it should not be down-leveled because of it.

Yet Perfectionist, which this skill is a carbon copy of, did not do Subaki, who was also mounted, much good, now did it?? That's more than enough for me to condemn it.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Cysx]

Paranoia is Rinkah's personal skill but slightly better. So it's good, that being said, relying on level ups(that may or may not give HP, she looks like the kind that would have a low HP growth too) or % damaging skills are both completely unreliable and not really relevant. Tonics can work, if they exist.
Agreed with high because it's still +5 damage though.

Wisdom to live... depends how good or bad thieves actually are. In essence I agree with your reasoning, though.

Live to serve is actually extremely niche, as healers very rarely take damage to begin with, nor can they usually withstand it. Most of us thought it was amazing in Fates, and truth is, in practice it really wasn't that useful. It's also completely useless for combat. I'd say it's an easy low.

Teacher's guidance is Corrin's nobility but better; I think most people considered it at least a high tier skill. Depends how exp works in this game, but I doubt it's anything worse than high.

Liege's Shield, I agree with your reasoning.

Strategist, same.

Solitary Wolf has high tier potential. Felix seems like the kind of characters who'd have no trouble doubling everything, and early on you probably won't have money to provide everyone with battalions.

Prestigious Noble is a bonus on top of a bonus. Makes Lorenz the best choice for battalions(unless he sucks), too. It's just +2, but almost unconditional. I'd say barely high as well

Confidence I think is really good but Tsubaki made it mediocre somehow, so... sure, mid tier.

Prodigy, no way is it mid. Weapon Exp is shaping up to be e-ve-ry-thing in this game. It determines class changing, skills, battalions, access to mounts... the only way this could be anything else than top tier is if it didn't affect tutoring at all. Otherwise, good candidate for best in the game, for now.
Edit: Okay, I read too fast, it is for battle only. Still high tier imo.

Exp x1.2: I get that you want to show the distinction between Byleth's and this, but this is Nobility from Fates, and that was not a low tier skill. Top of mid at the very least.

Songstress is Azura's but worse(it was 2 range). Azura's was surprisingly nice, though, so I'm a bit torn, but I guess low tier is fine.

Plead: What you say is true, but co-ordinated attacks already encourage the player to mind their positioning to deal more damage. This is just an additional boost for male units on top of that, and +3 is nice. I'd say it's mid.

Scavenge: Yeah, it's awful, unless he has 60 base luck for some reason, and even then it'd barely be mid tier because 10% is too low. Hopefully he'll be good in other areas.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Cysx

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Cysx said:

Confidence I think is really good but Tsubaki made it mediocre somehow, so... sure, mid tier.

Any reason why you think this is so great? Because I don't see it as being nearly as good as you're hyping it up to be.

[Cysx]

30 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Any reason why you think this is so great? Because I don't see it as being nearly as good as you're hyping it up to be.

It's a good boost(the equivalent of +10 Skl&Spd, or 30 Lck, in Fates) that the character will have most of the time. Not always granted, but I wouldn't judge it harshly just for that, and you typically want your characters at max health anyway.

The hit rates we've seen on many screenshots also look less than ideal.

Edit: From what we've seen of the fighter's stats screen, the formula for accuracy this time around is looking like it'll be just plain skill x1. No luck, no higher multiplier. Same for avoid being AS x1. So he's getting sizeable boosts from his personal skill all in all.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Cysx

[Shadow Mir]

41 minutes ago, Cysx said:

It's a good boost(the equivalent of +10 Skl&Spd, or 30 Lck, in Fates) that the character will have most of the time. Not always granted, but I wouldn't judge it harshly just for that, and you typically want your characters at max health anyway.

The hit rates we've seen on many screenshots also look less than ideal.

Edit: From what we've seen of the fighter's stats screen, the formula for accuracy this time around is looking like it'll be just plain skill x1. No luck, no higher multiplier. Same for avoid being AS x1. So he's getting sizeable boosts from his personal skill all in all.

Doesn't change the fact that you have to go completely out of your way to leverage it - which sounds like a low tier skill to me. Especially with healing being limited.

[Cysx]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

Doesn't change the fact that you have to go completely out of your way to leverage it - which sounds like a low tier skill to me. Especially with healing being limited.

That's not really out of the way when you always start chapters at full health, though, and it's harder to not max up by healing than the opposite. We also don't know how limited healing will be. Could be five uses a chapter(times 2 if Priest), or ten, or two(which I doubt). Renewal or comparable skills could also be around and decently accessible to Ferdinand, and one of the three assistant effects heals you after battle.

[Shadow Mir]

15 minutes ago, Cysx said:

That's not really out of the way when you always start chapters at full health, though, and it's harder to not max up by healing than the opposite. We also don't know how limited healing will be. Could be five uses a chapter(times 2 if Priest), or ten, or two(which I doubt). Renewal or comparable skills could also be around and decently accessible to Ferdinand, and one of the three assistant effects heals you after battle.

Answer me this then - just how often do you enter battles at full health??? Because more often than not, I don't.

[Corrobin]

32 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Doesn't change the fact that you have to go completely out of your way to leverage it - which sounds like a low tier skill to me. Especially with healing being limited.

The obvious solution is to pair Ferdinand up with Dorothea so her Personal can keep him at full HP.

[Shadow Mir]

4 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

The obvious solution is to pair Ferdinand up with Dorothea so her Personal can keep him at full HP.

That depends on if her personal works in the back of a pair up - and I'm not exactly willing to bet on that being the case, if Fates is any indication.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Corrobin]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

That depends on if her personal works in the back of a pair up - and I'm not exactly willing to bet on that being the case, if Fates is any indication.

Sorry, worded that wrong. I didn't mean 'pair up' like that, I meant just keep them next to each other.

[BergelomeuSantos]

14 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Yet Perfectionist, which this skill is a carbon copy of, did not do Subaki, who was also mounted, much good, now did it?? That's more than enough for me to condemn it.

Oh, sorry. I didn't play Birthright/Revelations that much. However, I know Subaki avoid isn't that good (35% Speed and 45% Luck). Also, Fates had some real ''Hp Down'' stuff (Poison Stuff, Anything being able to deal damage, Anything being able to hit, etc, etc) (Also, I'm not considering ''Super Max Stats''). So it just feels natural for that Skill to not be good on Subaki, which doesn't mean that everyone is a bad user of it, especially if you combo with other skills.

Also, it is really that hard to begin combat with Full Hp? Usually I try estrategies that are supposed to keep risk at minimum level, not to get every enemy killed in 2 turns. Which means that everyone is either getting 0 dmg, getting healed, avoiding attacks or attacking from far away. 

[BastienSoul]

I think Canto existing in this game might help the usefulness of Confidence. If Ferdinand does take damage, he can Canto into the range of a healer to be at full health at the beginning of Enemy Phase, or just to avoid taking too much more damage.

[Cysx]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Answer me this then - just how often do you enter battles at full health??? Because more often than not, I don't.

More often than not, honest. Guess we don't play the same way then.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Corrobin said:

Sorry, worded that wrong. I didn't mean 'pair up' like that, I meant just keep them next to each other.

Except it only heals 10% - which, again, ties into needing to go out of your way to ensure it's active. Unless you think stalling for a 10% healing ability to heal you completely isn't going out of your way...

2 hours ago, BergelomeuSantos said:

Oh, sorry. I didn't play Birthright/Revelations that much. However, I know Subaki avoid isn't that good (35% Speed and 45% Luck). Also, Fates had some real ''Hp Down'' stuff (Poison Stuff, Anything being able to deal damage, Anything being able to hit, etc, etc) (Also, I'm not considering ''Super Max Stats''). So it just feels natural for that Skill to not be good on Subaki, which doesn't mean that everyone is a bad user of it, especially if you combo with other skills.

Also, it is really that hard to begin combat with Full Hp? Usually I try estrategies that are supposed to keep risk at minimum level, not to get every enemy killed in 2 turns. Which means that everyone is either getting 0 dmg, getting healed, avoiding attacks or attacking from far away. 

I can't help but think we'll have some of that in this game.

2 hours ago, BastienSoul said:

I think Canto existing in this game might help the usefulness of Confidence. If Ferdinand does take damage, he can Canto into the range of a healer to be at full health at the beginning of Enemy Phase, or just to avoid taking too much more damage.

Well, I don't. Because Canto can only really help if you didn't use most of your move getting to your opponent in the first place.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Armchair General]

Most of these are kind of good, but I think Songstress is kind of underrated if you turn Dorothea into an ranged unit and put someone in front of her.

[BergelomeuSantos]

20 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Most of these are kind of good, but I think Songstress is kind of underrated if you turn Dorothea into an ranged unit and put someone in front of her.

This made me realize something..

If 2-3 rng weapons are a thing (or a Bow Skill with similar effect), there will be pretty  easy stuff to exploit. For example, on a 1-block section of a map, you can place a General/Knight/Defensive Guy on the front and put Dorothea 2 spaces behind him (4-Enemy, 3-Defensive Unit, 2-Nothing, 1-Dorothea) and pretty much make a, boring, invincible/farming team. (Specially if you combo the General with skills that Reduce Dmg/Restore Hp) (The only bad spot might be Dorothea's STR stat, which should't be that good)

[colossus86]

I feel like confidence isn't bad in isolation as you could keep it up very consistently on a ranged focused unit like an archer or a mage. But I think Ferdinand is supposed to be an Axe Cav or something so that might be a bit questionable.

Dorothea's skill might depend on her bulk as if she's very frail, keeping her below 100% but out of ORKO range could be problematic.

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, BergelomeuSantos said:

This made me realize something..

If 2-3 rng weapons are a thing (or a Bow Skill with similar effect), there will be pretty  easy stuff to exploit. For example, on a 1-block section of a map, you can place a General/Knight/Defensive Guy on the front and put Dorothea 2 spaces behind him (4-Enemy, 3-Defensive Unit, 2-Nothing, 1-Dorothea) and pretty much make a, boring, invincible/farming team. (Specially if you combo the General with skills that Reduce Dmg/Restore Hp) (The only bad spot might be Dorothea's STR stat, which should't be that good)

And this is why the Spy's weapons are broken.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

13 hours ago, Cysx said:

Exp x1.2: I get that you want to show the distinction between Byleth's and this, but this is Nobility from Fates, and that was not a low tier skill. Top of mid at the very least.

The way I see experience boosting skills in this game is that 20% is a tiny increase. If you normally get 30 exp from a kill, this skill gives you 36 instead. If a Nobility unit and a non Nobility unit get ten kills worth of experience, it's still three level ups. Not groundbreaking. I'd rather have a skill that helps your combat immediately. And we don't know how large the growths will be in this game. Even if they end up being good growths, I'd rather use units that are good out of the gate with high base stats or other features. I'm not going to ignore the student characters, since they'll be all you have for the early game, but if one or two of them aren't shaping up to meet my standards, then they get the bench. Stopping to grind is one thing I don't concern myself with for rankings, but it sounds like you have less grinding opportunities on higher difficulties anyway. One extra level up here or there on an individual unit slowly soloing a skirmish chapter isn't going to make them a powerhouse unless that's how they started out.

Also I should mention that my skills are not ranked within the tiers. I could not begin to attempt that sort of fine-tuning with how little information we have on the game's mechanics and calculations.

1 hour ago, BergelomeuSantos said:

This made me realize something..

If 2-3 rng weapons are a thing (or a Bow Skill with similar effect), there will be pretty  easy stuff to exploit. For example, on a 1-block section of a map, you can place a General/Knight/Defensive Guy on the front and put Dorothea 2 spaces behind him (4-Enemy, 3-Defensive Unit, 2-Nothing, 1-Dorothea) and pretty much make a, boring, invincible/farming team. (Specially if you combo the General with skills that Reduce Dmg/Restore Hp) (The only bad spot might be Dorothea's STR stat, which should't be that good)

Dorothea's skill only works on adjacent allies. She must be right behind the tank to heal him up. And even if it did heal allies two spaces away, she would still put herself at risk of 3 range weapons. As it is though, she's at risk of any 2 range opponent if she tries to sit that close to a chokepoint. And since she'd be more frail than your tank, the AI will prioritize attacking her however they can and then your tank has nothing to do.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Well, I don't. Because Canto can only really help if you didn't use most of your move getting to your opponent in the first place.

Or you're in a scenario where the enemy came to you, hit you because you weren't lucky, and you can finish them off before retreating. Saying canto is bad because movement is not infinite is like saying a weapon that's about to break is no use to you. Plan around your limitations.