Skills: proc or no proc?

[Augestein]

And therein lies the problem - player phase is generally less important than enemy phase, to say nothing of the part where level 15 skills ain't gonna see much playtime unless your name is Felicia, Gunter or Jakob.

I don't know, people like Xander could make use of it. He has generally too much defense at moments, so making an option where he suddenly can take damage again can be a good thing. Combine that with Elbow room and Xander is flat out doing +13 damage in battles which is quite nice. If you need to lower the damage, you have skills like Demoiselle /Gentilhomme, Voice of Peace, Foreign Princess, Quiet Strength, Supportive, Peacebringer (not super great, but if you have thresholds that kill with +8 attack then it can be useful), Competitive, Bushido, Lily's Poise, Rose's Thorn, Pragmatic (a bit risky but still possible, but I wouldn't have LoD Leo by virtue that ... Eh), Guarded Bravery, Sisterhood, and Daydream can be stacked with skills to help with that. Granted not all of them can stack, but it's definitely possible to use skills in conjunction with LoD at key choke points to buff your damage and reduce damage by enough to make this skill useful.

Honestly I'd say it's a skill done right, it's useful at moments, but it shouldn't be equipped at all moments because it depends on the map. I'll definitely say that it's more useful in Conquest though, which is a shame that it's a skill that's more commonly learned from Birthright units.

Quitoxic can be useful too. The problem is that the units that learn it are all "dodge or die" styled units. If it was on someone like Effie that doesn't dodge very well? It'd be great.

[Shadow Mir]

I don't know, people like Xander could make use of it. He has generally too much defense at moments, so making an option where he suddenly can take damage again can be a good thing. Combine that with Elbow room and Xander is flat out doing +13 damage in battles which is quite nice. If you need to lower the damage, you have skills like Demoiselle /Gentilhomme, Voice of Peace, Foreign Princess, Quiet Strength, Supportive, Peacebringer (not super great, but if you have thresholds that kill with +8 attack then it can be useful), Competitive, Bushido, Lily's Poise, Rose's Thorn, Pragmatic (a bit risky but still possible, but I wouldn't have LoD Leo by virtue that ... Eh), Guarded Bravery, Sisterhood, and Daydream can be stacked with skills to help with that. Granted not all of them can stack, but it's definitely possible to use skills in conjunction with LoD at key choke points to buff your damage and reduce damage by enough to make this skill useful.

Honestly I'd say it's a skill done right, it's useful at moments, but it shouldn't be equipped at all moments because it depends on the map. I'll definitely say that it's more useful in Conquest though, which is a shame that it's a skill that's more commonly learned from Birthright units.

Quitoxic can be useful too. The problem is that the units that learn it are all "dodge or die" styled units. If it was on someone like Effie that doesn't dodge very well? It'd be great.

I think that both of them are guilty of being learned by "dodge or die" units. Also, most of those damage-reducing skills have added stipulations that inhibit their usefulness (Voice of Peace requires Azura to be within 2 spaces of whatever is attacking, at which point who's to say it won't attack her instead?, Foreign Princess is literally worthless in the main game, Daydream requires pairing AND positioning, etc.). On top of that, I'd say Life and Death ruins Xander by stripping him of his niche as a nigh unkillable physical wall.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Augestein]

I think that both of them are guilty of being learned by "dodge or die" units. Also, most of those damage-reducing skills have added stipulations that inhibit their usefulness (Voice of Peace requires Azura to be within 2 spaces of whatever is attacking, at which point who's to say it won't attack her instead?, Foreign Princess is literally worthless in the main game, Daydream requires pairing AND positioning, etc.). On top of that, I'd say Life and Death ruins Xander by stripping him of his niche as a nigh unkillable physical wall.

2 spaces away isn't too bad. Foreign Princess is one of those skills that I can see coming into play in a Rev playthrough tbh. Azura spends so much time around that even if you weren't planning on using her she'd gain quite a few levels. Daydream is a bit wonky I'll admit on that note. However, the point is, is that you can place these skills and make them work. If your Xander gets a little blessed in Defense, his defense can actually become a detriment in Fates because of the way the AI works now. Sure you could argue that you could take Siegfried out of his inventory, but that hurts him to pointless degrees at that point. I'd rather him have LoD instead.

But yeah, LoD is guilty of being on a class that it has no business being on. I'd honestly say Hinata is the best user of it in Birthright, and even then, it's still a bit too risky for my liking because he's just begging to die from it with how the mapps are setup. Ditto for Quitoixc. I don't know what they were thinking putting on those classes.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Augestein

[Shadow Mir]

2 spaces away isn't too bad. Foreign Princess is one of those skills that I can see coming into play in a Rev playthrough tbh. Azura spends so much time around that even if you weren't planning on using her she'd gain quite a few levels. Daydream is a bit wonky I'll admit on that note. However, the point is, is that you can place these skills and make them work. If your Xander gets a little blessed in Defense, his defense can actually become a detriment in Fates because of the way the AI works now. Sure you could argue that you could take Siegfried out of his inventory, but that hurts him to pointless degrees at that point. I'd rather him have LoD instead.

But yeah, LoD is guilty of being on a class that it has no business being on. I'd honestly say Hinata is the best user of it in Birthright, and even then, it's still a bit too risky for my liking because he's just begging to die from it with how the mapps are setup. Ditto for Quitoixc. I don't know what they were thinking putting on those classes.

All the same, I'd rather not run a skill with a crippling downside that requires me to contort my game to limit the impact of said downside. And once again, Foreign Princess does bugger all in the main game, and that's IF you get it, which is a pretty big if (it only works in Castle Battles). Also, you make it sound as if enemies refusing to target Xander is an entirely bad thing, which it ain't.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Augestein]

All the same, I'd rather not run a skill with a crippling downside that requires me to contort my game to limit the impact of said downside. And once again, Foreign Princess does bugger all in the main game, and that's IF you get it, which is a pretty big if (it only works in Castle Battles). Also, you make it sound as if enemies refusing to target Xander is an entirely bad thing, which it ain't.

I'm pretty sure Vallites are counted as "Foreign Armies." As for LoD, that's the thing, it's not a bad skill though. It just requires you to pay attention if you use it. I'm not saying it's a good skill, but it's not bad either.

[The_antithesis]

I think this dilemma is very much a "casual vs hardcore" debate. For someone who just wants a fun turn-based romp with their favorite smash fighters, having more uncertainty makes every battle more interesting, including the ones where the skills don't proc. That being said, it does mean that no strategy is 100% certain, and sometimes people may get screwed by bad RNG. The point is, it's a balance. I would argue in favor of the casual side as you can just press LR&start if you do happen to get screwed over, but I can see why it's frustrating. Also, if we were going for an alternative to proc skills, the new skills would have to be very rare and heavily nerfed, which a lot of people (especially newer fans) would hate.

[Dragrath]

I actually enjoy the proc skills at least when done well. While they aren't suited for LTC they serve as a potential threat on the map(I would argue it is the possibility of procing that a serious player should consider at least that is always my approach...) As others have said proc's serve a useful role of adding value to the basically "useless" luck stat as well as the more subtle skill stat which otherwise only would matter towards hit and (if high enough)crit.

Also a lot of the skills being complained about; Life and Death, Quixotic, etc. are clearly part of fates trying to raise the importance of the player phase a point that I though would be obvious with skills like Darting Blow Certain Blow Killing Blow... Really that was a good thing for the series which has been enemy phase oriented for a long time. In that respect they should not be dismissed. (Only proc skill that  has ever bothered me is lethality without Nihil present the rest are when done right relatively unique and mix up combat in a good way :) )

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Dragrath said:

I actually enjoy the proc skills at least when done well. While they aren't suited for LTC they serve as a potential threat on the map(I would argue it is the possibility of procing that a serious player should consider at least that is always my approach...) As others have said proc's serve a useful role of adding value to the basically "useless" luck stat as well as the more subtle skill stat which otherwise only would matter towards hit and (if high enough)crit.

Also a lot of the skills being complained about; Life and Death, Quixotic, etc. are clearly part of fates trying to raise the importance of the player phase a point that I though would be obvious with skills like Darting Blow Certain Blow Killing Blow... Really that was a good thing for the series which has been enemy phase oriented for a long time. In that respect they should not be dismissed. (Only proc skill that  has ever bothered me is lethality without Nihil present the rest are when done right relatively unique and mix up combat in a good way :) )

I'm fine with trying to increase the importance of Player Phase, but the likes of Quick Draw, Certain Blow, etc. do that well enough. I don't see the need for skills such as Life and Death or Quixotic, which hurt more than they help. Also, I wouldn't call the luck stat "useless".

Edited February 28, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Dragrath]

48 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I'm fine with trying to increase the importance of Player Phase, but the likes of Quick Draw, Certain Blow, etc. do that well enough. I don't see the need for skills such as Life and Death or Quixotic, which hurt more than they help. Also, I wouldn't call the luck stat "useless".

Yeah I know luck isn't really useless (hence the quotation marks) I certainly like the blow skills but the reason I like Quixotic, and to a lesser extent Life and Death, is the high risk high reward play style adding to the possible options available to a player. Yes they will not see use on most units but there are circumstances were they become quite useful. I will be honest I actually Really like Quixotic just not so much on the class that normally gets it (It really goes well on low skill units (bonus points if they have access to a class with a proc skill.) So the real issue is that the units that want the skill(mainly axe users) tend to be Nohr classes while it is a Hoshido Class. Both are really meant to be on frail yet strong back line units that would die anyway if attacked on the enemy phase. Nyx in particular would really benefit from Quixotic considering she never levels skill or defense ever...

[poptdp]

I prefer no proc skills. 

 

After playing Echoes, battles flow smoother and there's definitely more strategy involved. No long ass skill activation animations which make me skip the battle scene. 

 

In Fates, I got to a point where I had at least one proc skill on all my mains and Quixotic, making a high chance of skill activation. I thought I would like it, but the game became so boring and unbalanced after that. Every battle would result in a proc skill being activated, the enemy dying and a long ass skill activation which made me just skip the battle scenes wall together and less enjoyable overall. The worst offender of this is when the enemy has 1hp and then Lethality decides to proc.

 

After turning off all my units proc skills, I found the game to be a lot more enjoyable. Except for Arena battles and My Castle battles in Fates, which sadly require proc skills and chance :(

Edited May 23, 2017 by poptdp