Unused Skill Showcase

[VincentASM]

So the game features a bunch of unused skills that aren't in the final game for some reason.

The best one is probably Speculum, which reflects magical damage. It's as amazing as you imagine.

There are also some from previous games, like Lethality, Vantage, Pass, Counter, Wrath, Paragon, etc. I guess they couldn't fit them in.

Fun fact: Lethality doesn't work on Duma or Grima. Duma has a hidden Nihil that negates OHKOs so he always gets left with 1 HP. Meanwhile Grima just seems to shrug it off and I dunno why. Maybe because of Dragonskin?

Edited June 19, 2017 by VincentASM

[Thane]

Awesome, thanks for sharing! Some of these skills seem really damn good, so I can understand why they didn't make it to release. Something so simple as "Attack Twice" would be huge.

[VincentASM]

15 minutes ago, Thane said:

Awesome, thanks for sharing! Some of these skills seem really damn good, so I can understand why they didn't make it to release. Something so simple as "Attack Twice" would be huge.

Well, it's just the same as the Brave effect from Fates. You trigger consecutive hits on the player phase only.

I do think Speculum would've been a game-changer though. Perhaps it was going to be enemy-only? But no enemy uses combat arts, hmm.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Fascinating as always. How did Paragon not get in? (Probably b/c of grinding DLC.) The OG Gaiden was the game that game us the first taste of 2x EXP, and it would have been so useful. As for Aptitude- how large is the boost? Pass would have been wonderful if there was a Lance with it- Pegs and Cavs would have a field day with it. Vantage wouldn't have been that special, but it'd have been nice to see.

Attack Twice sounds like a beta name- Adept would have been more appropriately sophisticated. And given how awesome Double Lion is, even a weaker version on a sufficiently high Atk unit would have been amazing.

100% activation Lethality is obviously too good, unless had a ginormous HP cost, 1 Range only, and a large Hit penalty. They could've made a proc version at 1/2 Crit work though.

On Speculum, is the damage taken Attacker's Atk - Attacker's Res, or Attacker's Atk - Speculum user's Res? I'm assuming the former, but the latter would turn Valbar into the ultimate magic tank.

Nullify Magic seems totally worthless- why does it exist? For joke enemies? For a crippled NPC/Ally on a map you'd have to save?

Anti-Mage would have been yet another splendid and much welcomed way of dealing with pesky Arcanists. The Halve Sword and Lance skills would have been nice to have too- maybe on a Swordbreaker Sword and Lancebreaker Lance? Anti-Mortals would have been menacing on enemies (or would've looked nice on a hypothetical Assassin's Dagger Sword with Lethality I just imagined).

It's a shame enemies don't use command Combat Arts at all- could have made fights more exciting/strategic.

[Roflolxp54]

51 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Nullify Magic seems totally worthless- why does it exist? For joke enemies? For a crippled NPC/Ally on a map you'd have to save?

Judging by the footage, Nullify Magic is a passive effect from the Sealed Ring item. Since the item gives +4 Res to the wielder at the cost of not being able to cast any magic spells, it would only be useful for units that don't use magic to begin with (ie. a knight like Valbar or Lukas would like it if not given the Dracoshield).

Edited June 19, 2017 by Roflolxp54

[BrightBow]

So many perfectly functional unused skills. Truly fascinating.

Originally the Angel Ring had the ability to increase growth rates. This was dropped entirely but since the game rarely removes something that the original Gaiden did, I suppose it makes sense for a skill like that to be coded in, even if they ended up not using it in the end. The Anti-Dragon and Anti-God skills may have been intended for the Falchion but it would probably have made that sword a bit too useful for these kind of enemies. Chapter 6 clearly relies on these kind of enemies giving you a hard time after all. Still, it's definitely awkward that the freaking Falchion is no more effective against dragons then an ordinary Silver Sword. It's supposed to be a dragon slayer after all.

This reminds me of some confusion I had in regards to effective damage. Does anyone maybe know why the boss of Chapter 6 is vulnerable to Anti-Flier weapons despite not actually having the Flier attribute? Are those attributes just for show and their actual type is invisible? I mean, their is an Anti-Mortal skill but no visible Mortal attribute.

Other skills may have been intended for an potential Lunatic Mode. Or maybe for DLC. I would hardly be a surprise if the game had a lot more DLC planned then what we got in the end. IS is already working on FE Switch after all, so the folks who may have otherwise made more DLC might have been quickly transferred to help out with that project.

Edit:

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Nullify Magic seems totally worthless- why does it exist? For joke enemies? For a crippled NPC/Ally on a map you'd have to save?

Well, I suppose it depends on what you would have gotten in exchange. Like, having an item that turns a Priestess into a physical powerhouse could have been fun.

Edited June 20, 2017 by BrightBow

[r_n]

Makes me wonder if at one point they had more sweeping changes in mind. Those anti-x skills, spectrum, and so forth would have been frustrating skills to face.

Pass & Vantage would probably have been shield skills and its a shame they didn't make it in. Would have given more reason to use shields and lord knows Pass would have been useful for the droves of enemies that clog up the halls.

I bet that Lethality was probably more for debug purposes for when they just want to rush through a sequence or something. 10 HP for an instakill wouldn't have been balanced no matter who was using it. Putting it on enemies would be disastrous, putting it on the player would be way too in their favor.

 

e: Counter absolutely would have been a shield skill

Edited June 20, 2017 by r_n

[Emperor Hardin]

Speculum sounds the most interesting out of the unused skills.

[SoulWeaver]

I'm wondering how Pass and Vantage were supposed to work in a game where you needed to be standing still at the end of your movement to trigger Skills, not have them be Passive(barring Anti-Fliers/Bowrange+ of course). I guess Vantage could simply be altered to be a trigger Skill that ends that Unit's actions for the turn, then whenever said Unit is attacked during the next Enemy Phase, said Unit goes first assuming HP is below X amount. Pass is still not really fitting with the whole idea of Weapon Arts, though - they'd need to just make it a Class-Exclusive Skill, I guess.

[Emperor Hardin]

Come to think of it, I'm still surprised there are no anti dragon skills. I guess because Dracozombies aren't counted as a Dragon units here, there's less incentive to use it.

[VincentASM]

Forgot to mention I doctored some items and skills.

None of the "unused" items actually exist and are just existing items renamed for thematic purposes. So Paragon Ring is really just the Keepsake Ring, etc.

Also Lethality had 0 HP cost, so it was even more broken originally XD

18 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

On Speculum, is the damage taken Attacker's Atk - Attacker's Res, or Attacker's Atk - Speculum user's Res? I'm assuming the former, but the latter would turn Valbar into the ultimate magic tank.

It's the Attacker's Res.

One thing I wanted to attempt was to use it against Medusa...

16 hours ago, BrightBow said:

This reminds me of some confusion I had in regards to effective damage. Does anyone maybe know why the boss of Chapter 6 is vulnerable to Anti-Flier weapons despite not actually having the Flier attribute? Are those attributes just for show and their actual type is invisible? I mean, their is an Anti-Mortal skill but no visible Mortal attribute.

Yeah, the attributes are for show. Each class is individually assigned a weakness (or multiple).

For reference, every playable class is defined as mortal. As are Arcanists, Witches, etc.

The creepiest thing is that Fiends and Guardians are classified as Mortal + Armour + Terror. Not sure if they just copied data from Baron or they literally are half human, half Terror...

There are other "for show" attributes too. Such as Absolve and I *think* Phantasm.

Saints actually have a hidden skill that negates terrain damage (shared by all or most Terrors), but they slapped on Absolve so you can "see it". Similarly, I believe you can't have multiple "halve weapon" effects, so how Phantasm works is that there are two hidden skills (Halve Magic and Halve Bow) and Phantasm merely pretends to be the sum of those skills.

[KliffIsTheOG]

I'm surprised that the angel ring's doubling level up gains isn't even in the unused skills

[BakanGin]

Im wondering how would someone use the Sealed ring in combat, it nulifies their magic, and for mages thats death.