Skills - New and Old

[Night Zap]

After their absence in the GBA games, skills have become increasingly common and varied in the last few years. Unless IS massively downgrades the game complexity in FE Switch, skills will surely return once again. Thus, I ask the question: Which new skills would you like to see in the game? Which old skills should make a straight return, and which should be changed a bit?

 

For starters, I would change Miracle to have a 100 % activation rate - but it only works once per chapter. If a character's Luck reaches a certain amount, it can activate two times per chapter.

As for new skills, I had the following idea: First Aid. Learned by the Medic (A reskin of the maid class), it allows the user of the skill to use a healing staff on an adjacent unit during enemy phase, if that unit's HP fall under 50 %. However, the skill has a cooldown afterwards, so you can't outheal an entire zerg rush of attackers.

[sirmola]

What skills should appear in a game depends heavily on the general design and balancing of that game. So the DF's "regain lost stat points twice as fast" skill worked in fates because that game is designed around stat manipulation. THat skill would have deen utterly ussless had it appeared in awakening, but in fates, it can be a life-saver. For this reason, i tend not to think about design elements in issolation.

The "first aid" skill you mentioned notably makes the game much more EP-focused, because it effectively multiplies a unit's hp by 1.5, making it easier to take out a crowd of enemies. As such, it is a good skill idea if the developers want the game to be more EP focused., and a bad skill otherwise. FE games often try to be more PP-focused, because it encourages strategic thinking (as opposed to turtling and watching everyone suicide on you.)

Edited July 11, 2017 by sirmola

[ZessDynamite]

I wouldn't mind the breaker skills being changed to how they work in heroes; affecting double attacks rather than hit and avoid rates. The massive bonuses and penalties always felt like a very haphazard (and sometimes even a little broken) way of "breaking" the weapon. Taking skills like desperation and inserting them into the main series would be fun. Of course, the remaining HP requirements would have to be adjusted.

As for new skills, here's a few:

Distant Counter: Indirect physical damage taken is dealt back to foe.

• This hypothetical skill system has three counter skills: Close Counter, which is just a renamed Counter, Magic Counter, which works as it does in fates, and Distant Counter. This way, all types of damage are covered by a counter skill. I stole the names for the skills from heroes because they sound nice and I can't see their heroes versions being implemented in a main series game.

Pierce: Critical hits deal more damage (4x instead of 3x)

• Perhaps not the most useful skill, but nice for defensive bosses that weaker units are struggling to kill even with critical hits

Pursuit: Enables the unit to follow up if their speed is only 1 or more greater than their foe's

• It's not a new skill, but I think it could be interesting if brought back and applied in the modern FE style, where everyone can double and 5 or 4 more speed than your opponent is the threshold to do so. In effect, it would lower the speed needed to double which would be fantastic for units with middling speed.

Transmute: When used, allows a physical attack to target an opponent's resistance, and/or a magic attack to target an opponent's defense

Magic Mirror: This unit copies their opponent's bonuses and skills during combat

• This would be fun to use on bosses, especially those with combat skills like Luna.

Magic Bounce: Any penalties or status ailments applied to this unit are also applied to the unit that caused them

• This skill only really works if the bonus/penalty-heavy gameplay from fates is brought back.

Retribution: Adds half of opponent's attack power to your attack Edit: Already exists in the form of rend heaven

• Great way to potentially deal big damage against an enemy that hits hard.

No Guard: During combat in which both units can attack, all hits are guaranteed.

• The "in which both units can attack" condition is to prevent this skill from being a complete hindrance when a melee unit with it is attacked from range.

Absolution: +1 attack and +5 crit every turn spent not attacking. (Max: atk +6 and crit +30) Bonuses reset to 0 after attacking.

• This would be perfect for units that are great healers but not the best at combat. Every turn spent healing adds to their potential damage output.

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by 3+2=Pie

[Interdimensional Observer]

28 minutes ago, 3+2=Pie said:

Retribution: Adds half of opponent's attack power to your attack

• Great way to potentially deal big damage against an enemy that hits hard.

We already have this basically- it's called Rend Heaven.

[ZessDynamite]

18 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

We already have this basically- it's called Rend Heaven.

Whoops. I use Basaras so infrequently that I forgot about their skills. I should've looked through the fates skill list a bit more thoroughly.

[Jotari]

I keep a list of skills I think would be interesting on an excel sheet located in my signature. I think the idea I'd like to see most would be to turn rallies into a dedicated support unit and then add some more interesting rally skills.

[KnightOfNohr]

Hmm...Magic Bounce, No Gaurd...are you copying pokemon?

My ideas: Triangle Adept(More heroes skills)= Doubles weapon triangle affects.

                 Guard: Def+3 on the enemies turn.

[Night Zap]

If there are many strong skills, somehting like Nihil should make a return, so that tough nuts with powerful abilities are broken a bit more easily. These Anti-Skills should be broken up into specific categories, so you can't just have one thing be the answer to every skill combo the Devs throw at you.

• Pierce: Disables the enemy's defensive abilities (such as Pavise and Counter)
• Overwhelm: Disables the enemy's offensive abilities (such as Sol and Luna)
• Sabotage: Prevents the enemy from benefitting from passive abilities, whether they are there own (such as Breakers or Renewal) or buffs from their allies (Such as Inspiration or Amaterasu). Effect lasts for two turns.

These skills are not learned by any classes, they are taught through scrolls that can be found throughout the game.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I really like the idea of canto to make horse units feel unique to use. As well as more accurate to how horseriders fight on the battlefield without stopping. They just have to balance it. Make it so your attack cannot double. Because you're riding past your opponent, there's no time for a followup swing. The opponent can still counterattack, as well as double, since their second swing would be aimed at the rider's back. Add some more penalties to the canto user or the enemy until you have something that appears to be balanced. They can also have canto as an option alongside "attack" on player phase, though that may give cavs way too much utility.

[ChibiToastExplosion]

I just hope that skills are tied to set weapons/classes, whatever they are, because when everyone can learn anything, nothing is special.

[SavageVolug]

I would like to see the Combat Art, Tigerstance reworked as a skill exclusive to the Dread Fighter class. Overall I love the specifics of this skill, I just don't think we'll see the whole "spend HP to use X ability again" but as I said I DO really like Tigerstance. It is VERY strong.

[wissenschaft]

Anyone else like the idea of what Echos does and have weapon arts be in the game? Different weapons giving you access to special attacks was a very interesting idea. If we had both skills units could learn and optional weapon special attacks, that would add even more options to the game. And I think FE games are at their best the more options you have in combat.

Edited October 14, 2017 by wissenschaft

[Titamon]

I think skills should be segmented into class skills and individual unit skills.

[SavageVolug]

There are many skills that I would like to see make a return such as Resolve, Corrosion, Nihil, Stun, Adept, Cancel, Celerity and many more besides I would also like to see the combat arts turned into skills. Namely Tigerstance and Hunter's Volley, while the combat arts were fun I think that they can only work if FE incorporates what other RPGs have done and that is either give units a MP bar with which to cast their combat arts or make the combat arts free to cast. DragonQuest games use something similar to the Combat arts but you have an MP bar and some of the abilities cost MP to cast some do not, if the Combat arts are to make a return this is what needs to happen. 

Now as far as the actual skill system is concerned while I like some aspects of the ones used in Awakening and Fates I favor of the one used in the Tellius games where characters had a skill pool that upon promotion will be increased thus allowing additional skills to be used. I like the concept of some skills being learned through a given class and believe that should stay. However in other cases like for example the skill Paragon where there's no reason to delegate it to a particular class line the ability to assign it to one person and then unassign and reassign it to someone else should be a thing. For example skills like Astra, Stun, Colossus, Sol, Luna, Deadeye,Corona, Canto, Great Shield will be restricted to their respective classes but skills like Paragon, Corrosion, Nihil, Resolve, Discipline, Daunt, Disarm can be applied to whoever and additionally some skills will be obtained by purchasing the scroll from shops or maybe is given to your party as a reward for something. However I would like it if the majority of skills did not feel like "filler skills" while there will always be some that are more useful or valued than others, it always annoys me how many skills in Awakening and Fates feel of no value, and are not important. A lot of the skills from those games felt like "Oh we need a skill for level 15 of X class what should it be? Uhhh. Lemme think......how about ______?"

Now yes, I'm aware that in Awakening and Fates, Discipline has been assigned specifically to the cavalier line, But I see no reason why this skill should be locked to the cavalier line especially when other classes also wield multiple weapons. On the flipside the skills of Astra, Vantage, and Swordfaire all make perfect sense to lock to the myrmidon line, a skill that I think would make sense to lock to cavaliers is the Saviour skill from Radiant Dawn which allowed rescuing without any stat reductions.

That's another thing I want Rescue, Canto and Shove to all return again, but they are mechanics that either all or almost all units can perform in the case of Canto only mounted units and flying units have this. Skills like Luna and Sol I want to return to how they functioned in Radiant Dawn and to their respective classes especially since it made 3rd tier cavaliers similar to the RPG Paladin class. I would like to see snipers and bowknights get Deadshot, mages to get Corrona on top or Tome fair, in short I want the next game's skill system to be heavily based on the one from the Tellius games, resurrect skills that have not been used in a while and to also borrow from the newer games.