83 replies to this topic

[whase]

Well in that case we now know precisely nothing of any value that we didn't know before you posted. Congratulations?

thank you.
all I wanted to state is that this topic has been discussed too many times already

[Liquid Snake]

There is no reason to praise a change from shit into different shit.

Yeah, there is.

For most of the mastery skills in FE9 you look at it and note "damn, this skill is totally worthless". In FE10, you look at it and note "damn, this skill is actually pretty fucking useful". The fact that they're not diverse doesn't change the fact they're effectively OHKO's, which is a clear advantage from a gameplay perspective, and something worth being glad about.

Edited by Dirk Strider, 05 March 2012 - 04:48 PM.

[Florina Stark]

That was Vortex, not Maelstrom.



On my last PT, Naesala got hit by a crossbow on 4-3 and went from 44 HP to 4... What was that about Naesala not getting hit, again?

I forgot what the FE9 one was called. Sue me. And why was Naesala hanging around the crossbow guys anyway? Even if he has mad dodge, thats still too risky.

[Integrity]

On my last PT, Naesala got hit by a crossbow on 4-3 and went from 44 HP to 4... What was that about Naesala not getting hit, again?

"This one time, Naesala did get hit!"

What was the hit rate? Honestly curious here.

[shadowofchaos]

I'm happy with Masteries, they're:
-Cool
-Useful without being broken
-Work in a simple manner

... err what?

Masteries ARE broken.

Though, I love the bit about:


> Lethality

IS Staff: It's too broken!

> Change to "Leaves them at 1HP".

:O

[Black★Rock Shooter]

They're mastery skills; wouldn't anything less than an OHKO be rather underwhelming to the name?

[NinjaMonkey]

They're mastery skills; wouldn't anything less than an OHKO be rather underwhelming to the name?

Which is why Bane sucks.

[Elieson]

... err what?

Masteries ARE broken.

Though, I love the bit about:


> Lethality

IS Staff: It's too broken!

> Change to "Leaves them at 1HP".

:O

Isn't that Mercy?

[Snowy_One]

I agree that having skills that could be useful without being basically super-crits would have been very nice. Actually unique skills > kekekekcrit > wastes (FE9). Wouldn't be terribly hard to do anyways. I don't know why, but game developers seem to forget that there are 'active' abilities which can open up a LOT of potential. Abilities that have costs (lower one stat to raise another), or can be REALLY powerful in some situations but REALLY weak in others (An ability that causes automatic damage to any enemy who passes through a square would be powerful on a defend map, but aweful on rout), or being powerful but having a usage limit (auto-critical, can only activate X times per map).

[Anouleth]

Well in that case we now know precisely nothing of any value that we didn't know before you posted. Congratulations?

Typical whase post, then.

... err what?

Masteries ARE broken.

No, they're not. I rarely had to rely on Masteries in my playthrough: when I did, I had to do so in combination with Adept and then only on certain very high speed units like Hawks and Naesala who can't ORKO naturally. If anything is "broken", it's not Masteries letting you occasionally OHKO, it's characters like Caineghis or Tibarn who ORKO everything, all the time. Or in FE9's case, BEXP which lets you have ridiculous Paladins that mow the enemy down.

Did many characters in FE7 having ~20 crit on everything in lategame break the game? What about many characters in FE12 having 25 crit on everything? Or FE5 characters having 100 crit, easily, plus skills and movement stars? Or FE4 characters having skills out the bumhole?

> Lethality

IS Staff: It's too broken!

> Change to "Leaves them at 1HP".

:O

I don't think that IS would have been worried about Sothe trivialising Endgame...

I kinda wish they had Maelstrom (like in FE9) for Naesala as a mastery instead of Tear. Like he could totally use Wind magic! That was awwweeesome! Y U TAKE THAT AWAY RD? RD's Maelstrom sucked. I mean come on, Naesala isnt getting hit.

With his low magic, it's unlikely that FE10 Naesala would even be able to damage enemies with Vortex, let alone kill them. What's awesome about tinking enemies?

[shadowofchaos]

No, they're not. I rarely had to rely on Masteries in my playthrough: when I did, I had to do so in combination with Adept and then only on certain very high speed units like Hawks and Naesala who can't ORKO naturally. If anything is "broken", it's not Masteries letting you occasionally OHKO.

Point 1: Activation rate is unaffected by enemy's anything, unlike crit is affected by their luck.

Let's list them shall we?

Savage: Triples STRENGTH, not damage. The likeliness of someone surviving even if they were gonna do 0 damage originally is about as likely as Gatrie is to get married. Unlikely chance they survive? Status effect.
Rend: 5x STRENGTH. Again look at Savage's comment.
Roar: See Savage.
Ire: Another non affected crit. You're a dragon. This is just another critical. Now if you're a BLACK Dragon... yeah you can see this doing damage.
Aether: One of the crappiest Masteries, but it still does its job.
Astra: 5x Consecutively. Add a Brave Sword and how Trueblades are most likely doubling everything in sight and there you have it.
Impale: 4x Damage. Not broken, but not the worst either
Luna: 3x Damage AFTER your defense has been nulled to 0. With something like a Silver Lance, that's 39 damage WITH ZERO STRENGTH.
Eclipse: You're dead. Enough said.
Sol: Another critical, and you gain what you do. NOT that bad compared to strength multipliers.
Flare: Now THIS is one of the ones that I'd accept you saying isn't broken. Negates Res and gives you back health.
Corona: Same as Flare except no health gain. It'll almost always give them a crappy hit rate if they happen to survive.
Bane: Nerf'd Lethality. Works best with Adept.
Lethality: It's good... except it doesn't work on Bosses and Volke could probably kill them with a crit anyways.
Stun: Another critical
Deadeye: Deadeye... Deadeye again. Rinse. Repeat. They're asleep. They're already dead.
Colossus: See Savage, except without the status effect.
Tear: Do I even need to say anything? If you Tear, they're dead. If they happen to survive? You'll double them.

Example on Savage:

Volug Level 30: 29.5 Str Average when transformed. 88.5 damage - def.

Unless you're facing REALLY buffed def Disciples of Order "Pseudo-Marshalls"... they're dead.


Experiences:

Savage: I've seen FEW Disciples of Order Marshals survive this.
Rend: Never seen anyone survive this. Not even in Goldie's hack videos.
Roar: Lions/Tigers and THEIR Strength? You're not surviving.
Ire: Dheg wants you dead.
Aether: A few survived this... assuming they have full HP.
Astra: Ahahahahaha. I have to use a Bronze sword just to see the full animation
Impale: With a Silver weapon? I've seen someone survive it ONCE.
Luna: No one survives this.
Eclipse: You're kidding right?
Sol: One of the masteries that are lower on the list via mortality rate
Flare and Corona: Definitely one of the survivable ones
Bane: They always survive this unless they have an adept activate before it.
Lethality: Miracle. Only way. Or Nihil.
Stun: Another crit
Deadeye: They don't survive after being put to sleep. It's an unwritten rule.
Colossus: Gatrie on Goldie's hack videos has been the ONLY one I've seen survive this.
Tear: Same as the other strength multiplying skills.

Only ones I can accept that aren't broken:

Ire (It's another crit)
Aether (It got nerfed from the increased HP in enemies compared to FE9 and it's activation rate)
Sol (Again, another crit)
Flare and Corona (Negating Res isn't that much of a bonus to damage, unless you're target is Res heavy)
Bane (It's just silly)
Stun (Crit replacement)


"Occasionally" one hit KO eh? Majority of the skills listed there 99% of the time kill their target.

Also, depending on your biorhythm, you COULD also have a +10% activation rate regardless of your stats.

Edited by shadowofchaos, 05 March 2012 - 08:15 PM.

[Sangyul]

Masteries are pretty hard to survive, from my experience. Most of the time, my characters just kill stuff if they ever activate a mastery. Exceptions being an archsage using Flare on a white dragon, if they don't activate Flare twice. And perhaps Corona. But for almost all of the other Masteries that I've seen ... enemy dead. (Unless I leave Mercy on Elincia.)

[BwdYeti]

The problem with FE9's masteries isn't that they didn't have strong enough effects, it's that they took skill capacity. If they took 0 capacity they'd be very useful.
And having to use an Occult scroll didn't help them either.

[Anouleth]

Point 1: Activation rate is unaffected by enemy's anything, unlike crit is affected by their luck.

Enemies usually lack luck. Only in FE5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 have enemies had any luck stat at all, and FE5 enemy luck is usually negligible. FE8 luck is typically quite low, too. FE6 has +30 crit SM bonuses.

"Occasionally" one hit KO eh? Majority of the skills listed there 99% of the time kill their target.

I mean that they "occasionally" OHKO in the sense that they only activate about ~30% of the time, which isn't outrageously higher than FE7 or FE11 crit rates and certainly lower than FE5.

The problem with FE9's masteries isn't that they didn't have strong enough effects, it's that they took skill capacity. If they took 0 capacity they'd be very useful.

They wouldn't be very useful, given that FE9 enemies aren't so tough you really need fancy status effects to deal with them.

Edited by Anouleth, 05 March 2012 - 09:04 PM.

[Snowy_One]

They wouldn't be very useful, given that FE9 enemies aren't so tough you really need fancy status effects to deal with them.

Actually, no. This is true. The biggest problem with FE9 masteries was the capacity cost. I mean, just look...

Aether: Broken. One of two good masteries.

Sol: Other good mastery.

Stun: Costs 20 points to leave a enemy unable to move for 2 turns. To make it worse it only has a SKL/2 chance of activation. Even if the enemies were gods among men, this is simply too unreliable to be used. At best your falcon knight has, like a 10-15% chance of stunning a 1-range enemy then runs away and lets ranged units pound them down. Had this cost 5/10 points it *might* have been worth it, but as-is you sacrifice your ability to use all other skills for something that might only activate once or twice per map on something outright useless and might not even survive long enough for that lack of movement to even matter.

Astra: You're paying 20 capacity for a version of Adept with lower activation rates, can potentially murder your forged silver sword/KE/VK/whatever's durability, and isn't even guaranteed to deal more damage than its cheaper counterpart.

Luna: While this might have been useful, it's on the general class, which is NOT known for having exceptional speed or high SKL. Even on the Hali's it's iffy and won't really help out too much unless you're fighting DEF loaded enemies. Not actually a bad skill, but not worth 20 points by far, especially since this means Nephenee needs to give up Wrath if she ever wants to use it (leaving Devdan as the only user of Luna).

Colossus: Because Warriors are known for lacking damage and having extra-ordinary high skill. Sarcasm aside, this is another one that could have been useful, but at 20 points... it's just not worth it in the end. Only a few non-bosses could survive two attacks anyways, so the value comes from jumping Boyd's damage up somewhere between 4-7 points (I am assuming this is after DEF... No one talks about Colossus).

Deadeye: Could have actually been useful if it wasn't on a sniper, but has the same problem as stun.

Lethality: Awesome... when it activates. Probably worth 10 points, but it requires Volke to be used who will suck when this skill doesn't activate. To make it worse it's a SKL/2 thing, making it even worse. Might have been worth 10, but certainly not 20 and deploying Volke.

Roar: One turn without movement. Actually not too bad... but unless you have a habit of using Lethe into the endgame and sticking her in a location surrounded by enemies it simply won't ever be in a spot where it can be used with even remote effectivness.

Cancel: Awesome. Doesn't exist unless you take Tibran.

Vortex: Kinda cool, but only exists if you take Naesala and even then it's only chip damage. Beats no damage, but is unlikely to do more than bother or maybe push a enemy into KO range who wasn't before. Certainly not worth 20 points.

Blessing: Pretty cool... if it wasn't on a Heron which is the least likely class to have player units standing around them at the start of the turn (since they will likely have been chanted and moved). Only 'worth it' on a heron because herons don't get into combat making most abilities useless to them.

Boon: Even assuming you had a dragon member with this from the beginning of the game and had 1 character per map get hit with a status effect, the simple odds of the two being next to each other at the start of the turn makes this something that wouldn't be used more than once or twice per game. Just NOT worth 20 points.

[Liquid Snake]

Cancel: Awesome. Doesn't exist unless you take Tibarn.

Janaff and Ulki can use it too.

Of course, this brings up the issue of giving them an Occult scroll.

[incognit0]

Even if Masteries weren't automatic kills, third tier units are trained to the point where they should be one rounding well over half the map. I like the fact that they can auto kill enemies that otherwise would not be one rounded.

[Othin]

Even if Masteries weren't automatic kills, third tier units are trained to the point where they should be one rounding well over half the map. I like the fact that they can auto kill enemies that otherwise would not be one rounded.

In a game with serious balance issues, sure, that's all that matters.

Edited by Othin, 06 March 2012 - 08:30 PM.

[Anouleth]

In a game with serious balance issues, sure, that's all that matters.

All Fire Emblem games have serious balance issues.

[Othin]

All Fire Emblem games have serious balance issues.

And this is why I play Berwick Saga.