Save skills in Main Stream Fire Emblem

[Jotari]

So I haven't been keeping up with all the trailers and screenshot analyzing for Engage. I just don't for new releases. I'm patient enough to wait after the initial trailer and I like figuring out the game myself. So forgive me if this is something already confirmed or denied, but I'm really hoping Engage has Save skills. For those that don't know what Save skills are, they're a type of skill for armoured units in Heroes that let's them basically swap places with an ally on enemy phase. So if you stick your dancer beside your armoured knight and the enemy tries to attack the dancer, they will instead be fighting the armoured knight (with some buffed stats).

And this is pretty much a genius idea I'm baffled it took the series so long to come up with it* or that I never considered it myself before. Armoured Knights suck for the player because the enemy can just walk around them to attack other units. They're your tanks, but they can't actually tank unless you have a choke point or are just luring enemies in one at a time. And since their movement is low, you need to slow your army down to use them. It's scenario that works against itself so much they actually made it the basis of an entire joke character in Awakening in the form of Kellam. Everyone ignores him and forgets he exists as that's basically how enemies treat Armoured Knights. But with save skills you have a very useful way of making them a zone of protection for your squishier units, letting both of them do their jobs better and making placement all the more important. And I think this kind of mechanic lends itself better to mainstream Fire Emblem than it does Heroes. Since you have a more diverse cast of classes and stat ranges fielded at once in a typical Fire Emblem, and positioning of multiple units.

So yeah, I'm really hoping we see Save skills in Engage in some form. Not putting this in the Engage forum though as it's also more about Fire Emblem  in General as I'd like to see it as a new shift for Armoured units in the series in general.

*Okay, so actually they did have save skills in Fire Emblem before Heroes, with them first coming up in Radiant Dawn, but it was based on Support levels which limited it's use and was never actually suggested you pair it with armoured units. I also don't think it allowed the guarding unit to counter attack. It was basically there to extend the Sephiran boss battle further.

[LoneStar]

I'm not familiar with the Sephiran example, but I know in Heroes they gave Ashera two save armors to cover her. Saves in the player hands in a mainline game is probably cheesy, but giving them to bosses as an alternative to placing them on +30 avoid thrones could be a nice addition. It would also subvert turn one cheese, but maybe speed runners would hate this.

From what has been shown so far the niche that armors have in Engage is that they're immune to the break mechanic, at least breaks caused by triangle disadvantage.

[Armchair General]

Ike has Reposition, Paladins have Pivot (requires an empty space, so I doubt if that'll be used that often, Generals get Swap (which is what you're looking for)

[BrightBow]

Sounds like you are describing Guard in Berwick Saga.

Was particularly nice on Marcel, since him using Greatshields meant that getting his defense halved when defending an ally didn't bother him too much.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Sounds like what the Rescue mechanic could have expanded into if it wasn't pre-occupied with canto users ferrying units across the map. Maybe give armor knights the unique Shelter command, where they step in and absorb attacks for any adjacent unit on enemy phase, but at severe stat penalties as they attempt to play 'goalie'