Best early game skills on maddening?

[WolfWin]

What are some of the best early game skills on maddening?

Personally I am conflicted between Canter and Momentum.

I am guessing Canter is ultimately better, due to allowing more attacks from the same space.


What are your guys favorite skills? Early and late? Which ones are good niche ones? Which do you think are underrated?

[samthedigital]

Things like Dual Support, Wrath, Dual Assist, Canter, etc are all really good, but at this point a lot of people know that they're good skills. I would say that Hit+X and Divine Pulse+ are a little underrated and strong for what they provide; Divine Pulse+ works with staves, and it makes status staves far more reliable.

39 minutes ago, WolfWin said:

What are some of the best early game skills on maddening?

Canter is definitely the one you want. Momentum's damage is inconsistent, and movement options tend to be far stronger. You'll want it on Alear at the very least to help set up their personal skill for other units, but you can probably manage getting at least 4 units with Canter if you spend long enough in maps. Another skill that you'll want to get is Favorite Food. You'll only want it on one or two units, but it's incredibly useful to have some guaranteed extra uptime for a few specific emblems.

Edited February 26, 2023 by samthedigital

[Dark Holy Elf]

My feeling so far is that Canter, Speed+X, and Reposition are the big three effective, low-cost skills in this game. Everyone is improved by them, and none are too expensive.

Canter is super flexible and gets incredibly good once you get a certain emblem that allows a four-person dance. Speed+ is a low-cost significant improvement to combat performance (Str+X and Mag+X are incredibly overcosted, so speed is the best stat for most). Reposition, like Canter, is great for tactical positioning plays; not as good because it takes your turn (and you can't use canter after it, sadly), but it's super cheap to buy.

[Ragnell17]

39 minutes ago, WolfWin said:

What are some of the best early game skills on maddening?

Personally I am conflicted between Canter and Momentum.

I am guessing Canter is ultimately better, due to allowing more attacks from the same space.


What are your guys favorite skills? Early and late? Which ones are good niche ones? Which do you think are underrated?

I'm assuming by Early game you mean before chapter 10 or something?

If so, Tiki's geosphere is great on units that will usually end up adjacent to someone like a staff users/ki adept like Framme. 

Lineage from the 3 houses bracelet can help you grow units faster. 

 

If after Chapter 10, brave assist from Lucina on your backup units is good, more chances for chain attacks without positioning. Alacrity on your naturally speedy units like Chloé, Lapis or Kagetsu can help a ton for safe one rounding. You could also inherit the cheap +spd skills on your somewhat slower units to help them hit speed benchmarks.

Vantage from Leif can work on frontliners on enemy phase.

 

While not a skill itself getting the Mercurius weapon from Marth as soon as possible can really pay off in the early game. As its basically a paragon sword.

[hdawgsizzle]

Canter is probably the best early game skill. Like @Dark Holy Elf said, Canter, Spd+, and Reposition are skills that every unit is happy to have.

Dual Assist+ deserves a mention since turning a few units into Heroes with Brave Assist and Dual Assist+ seems to be one of the easiest ways to increase your DPS. You could run X unit in a slightly better class and have them do 2-3 extra damage on their turn or you could run that unit as a Hero and have them do a little less damage on their turn but way more than make up for it by taking chunks of health off every enemy in their range.

Momentum is a nice skill for the Sigurd emblem - it has good synergy with the extra movement - but as an inheritable skill I don't think it's worth the trouble. It's boosting a unit's damage by 5 at the most? There aren't really that many great affordable damage boosting skills unfortunately. Some units might like the "Power" skills. I was able to get Sword Power 2 on Griffin Knight Merrin by the end of the game for a consistent damage boost to both her physical weapons and her Levin Sword. Sadly, not every unit can benefit from the Power skills though. I was trying to figure out a way to boost Fogado's damage output for a while, but didn't like any of my options. I could try boosting his Str, but most of the time he was using the Radiant Bow. I could try boosting Mag, but then that neglects his Longbow/Brave Bow. There's no Bow Power in the game 😕... Forges seem the way to go for trying to boost damage output, outside of giving Eirika to a unit. Lunar Brace is very good but it's probably too expensive to inherit for most units

For a good "niche" - I think with Canter being a popular choice for an early game skill, it makes the most sense to ultimately give Sigurd to later-joining units. With a free Canter(+) from Sigurd, they can invest their large SP pools elsewhere. By giving Sigurd to Goldmary, I was able to give Wyvern!Goldmary Speedtaker very quickly after joining (and Spd+ with the rest of the SP that trickled in over the course of the game) and turn an average-spd unit into a 7-movement tank that could double nearly everything in the back half of the game. Draconic Hex is another nice 2000 SP skill that is good for the late-joiners with lots of SP... Dual Assist+ depending on the unit.

Edited February 26, 2023 by hdawgsizzle

[kremelover]

Nobody mentioned this yet... mentorship gives 1.2 exp to the unit it is equipped on and to anyone adjacent to them!  You can get it early and cheap.  Slap it on anyone and in a few maps your team will be stronger!

[lenticular]

By early game, I'm going to assume that we're talking about chapters 1-10. I'm also going to assume no DLC, mainly because I don't have it and don't know what the DLC emblems offer. With those assumptions out of the way, these are the skills I'm most likely to consider.

• Canter. Pretty much everyone recognises that this is good, so no reason to elaborate.
• Build +3. This is generally a worse choice than Speed +3, but it's available earlier. If you're expecting a character to be routinely using a weapon heavier than their build allows for, then it does basically the same thing and you don't have to wait for it.
• Hit +10. Pretty much everyone can benefit from the extra reliability of more hit, but it's especially nice on people who will struggle for accuracy.
• Avoid +10. Yes, it's only 4 more points of avoid than Speed +3 and it doesn't have the other advantages that speed offers, but it's available considerably earlier. If you want to build a dodge-tank style unit for the early game, this is your choice.
• Favorite Food. I haven't really used this much, but it feels like it should be useful, and is cheap enough that it isn't a big investment.
• Staff Mastery 2. More accuracy with status staves and more healing with healing staves? Yes please. And it only costs 300SP to inherit, meaning it's easy to get and that it doesn't slow down your final build very much if you switch away from it.
• Healing Light. Not the greatest skill, but very cheap, and can be useful if you want to keep your qi adept's health topped up for more chain guards.
• Knife Precision 2. Another one where the main virtue is how cheap it is. It's just an immediate nice little boost to the performance of your knife units, and it doesn't greatly slow down your final build progression if and when you swap it out later.

Of these, I think the best three are Canter, Hit +10, and Staff Mastery. These offer the best combination of being an immediate boost as soon as you pick them up, and also keeping their relevance longterm.

[CompteSecours]

By early game, I'm guessing you mean until chapter 10.

Canter of course, if you can buy it. I always buy it for Alear. It is very useful to reposition him and use his personnal skill.

I always give my Vander Hit+10 from Sigurd. If I can I give it to Boucheron too.

Build +3 is also very good to fix some units, like Chloé or Alfred.

Healing Light on your Qi Adept if you are keeping it. Not so sure about Staff Mastery but it's cheap so why not. You won't be able to inherit Canter anyway.

 

[DaveCozy]

Personally I'd only go for Build+3 if I am gonna combine it with Speed+3 or higher, equipping both skills to benefit from both bonuses. Spending 1k SP to undo -3 AS and also gain +3 AS is much more cost effective than spending 2k SP for only speed+5. Particularly if you want to quad with Brave weapons. 

Otherwise speed+3 does the same thing, not only does it offset the weight penalty but also applies more AS if you overdo the penalty. I'd say is more worth it over Build+3.

Edited February 26, 2023 by DaveCozy

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, DaveCozy said:

Personally I'd only go for Build+3 if I am gonna combine it with Speed+3 or higher, equipping both skills to benefit from both bonuses. Spending 1k SP to undo -3 AS and also gain +3 AS is much more cost effective than spending 2k SP for only speed+5. Particularly if you want to quad with Brave weapons. 

 

Yeah, I wouldn't bother with Build+3 outside this, and even for this I wouldn't describe myself as a huge fan. Sure, it's pretty low-cost, but it eats both your skill slots. I feel like if I want to devote both my skill slots for speed, I'd be inclined to just get Speed+3 and then wait for Speedtaker, since that has a far more pronounced effect. (Maybe dipping 200 SP for Reposition first.)

That said there may absolutely be certain benchmarks you want to get with certain weapons and so I definitely think this has a use.

[SumG]

There's not much that I think is super viable prior to Chapter 10, particularly if you don't have the DLC.  Canter is the best option if you can afford it, but when I was playing on Maddening (no DLC) I didn't have anyone who could afford it by the time I got there.  If you really focused on one or two units, maybe you could pick up, but that's not everyone.

Picking up a staff mastery on a unit that you intend to use as healer wouldn't be a terrible idea, but really the only one who might be doing that for you might be Jean.  Healers probably want Canter more, but if they can't afford it by Chapter 10 they should be able to earn enough SP to make up what they've spent by the time Sigurd comes back.

One thing that could be an interesting one-off is Favorite Food from Celica.  It's only 200 SP, and it effectively gives a unit a free engage meter refill.  If you have a unit that shows up early that you know is going to pick up one of the first emblems in the second half of the game, maybe you pick it to be able to use the engage attack more often.  But you obviously only want it on one unit, since you only get one meal per visit to the Somniel.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I can't say I'm that impressed with Favourite Food as an inheritable. If you can afford to burn a character's turn on eating food, you can probably afford to spend it going to a square to pick up some emblem energy. With forward thinking it's generally easy to be near emblem energy the turn your engage expires, at least on most maps. Highly recommended for getting emblems like Corrin and Byleth back into supercharged mode ASAP. Both skill slots and inventory slots are valuable, Favourite Food ties up both.

I suppose it can play a filler role until you get something better. By the time Chapter 13 ends, though, you're all but guaranteed to have access to something better, so it's a pretty short window.

[samthedigital]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I can't say I'm that impressed with Favourite Food as an inheritable. If you can afford to burn a character's turn on eating food, you can probably afford to spend it going to a square to pick up some emblem energy. With forward thinking it's generally easy to be near emblem energy the turn your engage expires, at least on most maps.

I tend to use it when I need to refresh emblem energy and use a Goddess Dance on the same turn, and positioning units around emblem energy while also having a lot of enemies in range isn't always possible. It allows some other units with slightly less desirable engage effects to recharge more freely, and it doesn't help that the best rally bots are all foot-locked.

Quote

Both skill slots and inventory slots are valuable, Favourite Food ties up both.

That's a problem if you're using it on a combat unit that isn't a Thief, but there isn't much else you'd want besides Canter on a unit who is only really being used for Goddess Dance. To be fair I don't personally find it to be useful on any other class, but I can imagine someone else finding a lot of value in it if they struggle without having Corrin up at all times.

[Speedy]

Im playing with DLC so Lineage (extra xp) is a a good pick on units you intend to run with, and its cheap (150sp).

Canter is always a good pick, cause extra mobility and positioning can decide lot of battle.

Best example, for how good Momentum is, is Chloé. With this skill she can carry early game and it helps with her low Str growths. So if you have high mobility unit with mediocre Str I would try this.

+Stuff depends on what units you run and what you wanna turn them into, it can be benefitial early game, but I tend to focus on these late game, when I'm trying to finish builds.

Also I'm still experimenting with Starsphere (extra growths), I'm not sure if its +15% flat, or +15% from the current growths.

 

[Shadow Mir]

57 minutes ago, Speedy said:

Best example, for how good Momentum is, is Chloé. With this skill she can carry early game and it helps with her low Str growths. So if you have high mobility unit with mediocre Str I would try this.

Momentum is only particularly good if you are engaged with Sigurd, to be honest. Otherwise, you're only adding like 6 might at the most.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[DefyingFates]

52 minutes ago, Speedy said:

Also I'm still experimenting with Starsphere (extra growths), I'm not sure if its +15% flat, or +15% from the current growths.

It adds a flat 15% to growth rates to existing growth rates, if fan-made calculators are any indication.

[Speedy]

50 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

It adds a flat 15% to growth rates to existing growth rates, if fan-made calculators are any indication.

Hmm, I wanna confirm, equipped emblem ring doesnt work in arena? I know you dont gain SP with emblem rings in arena (but you do with bond rings) so I assume, you dont get the passives from emblem ring either? If it worked it would be benefitial to switch Tiki around, when you lvl up from arena, but my believe is it would not work. 🙂

[DefyingFates]

3 hours ago, Speedy said:

so I assume, you dont get the passives from emblem ring either?

You're right. All Emblem Rings/ Bracelets are effectively unequipped in the arena.

[DaveCozy]

I do want to add, Avo+10 is useful to a certain extent as well. A few pre-10 units like Celine or Chloe really appreciate the boost to stack on top of their already high avoid. And it's not enough to be overkill on them either, as enemies just ignore them if it is overkill.

If you give Celine Avo+10 with Celica, you can enable some riskier Warp Ragnarok strategies too. Most notably baiting Hyacinth in Ch10 to use and miss with his Arts instead of Lyn's Astra Storm. It's possible with an engraved weapon to drop his hit rate to the 20s, enough that the AI will still attempt to go for a break. It's not completely risk free mind you, but I have have found it to be fairly consistent.

[Barren]

13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Momentum is only particularly good if you are engaged with Sigurd, to be honest. Otherwise, you're only adding like 6 might at the most.

But if she is doubling naturally or using a brave lance, that’s still some good damage. You can even use forged weapons with an engraving on top of that.

[Shadow Mir]

39 minutes ago, Barren said:

But if she is doubling naturally or using a brave lance, that’s still some good damage. You can even use forged weapons with an engraving on top of that.

Unfortunately, Momentum only works on the first attack. Every other hit will do normal damage.

[Galap]

after I got lyn I gave pretty much every single unit speed + 2, and I think it was a good decision.

[Dark Holy Elf]

18 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I tend to use it when I need to refresh emblem energy and use a Goddess Dance on the same turn, and positioning units around emblem energy while also having a lot of enemies in range isn't always possible. It allows some other units with slightly less desirable engage effects to recharge more freely, and it doesn't help that the best rally bots are all foot-locked.

That's a problem if you're using it on a combat unit that isn't a Thief, but there isn't much else you'd want besides Canter on a unit who is only really being used for Goddess Dance. To be fair I don't personally find it to be useful on any other class, but I can imagine someone else finding a lot of value in it if they struggle without having Corrin up at all times.

Fair point that if someone's job really is just a Bylethbot, their skill slot competition becomes much lower, and at that point I can see Favourite Food winning out. And yeah, setting up for a good Goddess Dance on the very same turn does make emblem energy a bit more finnicky to gather.

[Barren]

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Unfortunately, Momentum only works on the first attack. Every other hit will do normal damage.

At least it’s still extra damage. And sometimes that extra damage could be all you need.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, Barren said:

At least it’s still extra damage. And sometimes that extra damage could be all you need.

If it were just "do you want this extra damage? (y/n)" then obviously, yes, we take the extra damage. Because, as you say, it sometimes ends up being just what you need. The real question is whether it's worth the cost. Does Momentum end up making the difference more often than whatever else we could have spent those 1000SP on? And in that case, I'm not so optimistic.

Let's assume that we're putting it onto a unit with 6 move. If we aren't playing around Momentum at all and it's completely random how far (from 0-6) we move before attacking, then that would give us an extra 3 damage on average. But if we are playing around it, we can probably do somewhat better than that. Let's say that doing that pushes us up to an average of an extra 4 points of damage.

For comparison, if we took Strength +2 instead (which also costs 1000SP) and we're doubling then that is also giving us an extra 4 points of damage. There's going to be some circumstances where Momentum is the stronger choice and some where Strength +2 is the stronger choice, but in terms of raw damage output, I think they're pretty comparable. And Strength +2 is generally assessed as being a pretty weak skill.

Those 1000SP could have given the unit Canter. Or maybe Hit +10 and Avoid +10. Or maybe they're saved up for later to be able to pick up Speedtaker or Pair Up earlier (amongst other options). And I think that any of these choices would make a concrete difference more often than the little bit of extra damage from Momentum (or from Strength +2).

(As an aside: Is Momentum+ the single most useless inheritable skill? It's fine when you actually have Sigurd equiped and can make use of having the hard cap of 10 lifted. But if you don't have Sigurd and have inherited it instead, is it even possible to have Momentum+ be any better than Momentum, or have you just yeeted 1000SP into the abyss?)