How to buff skill?

[Gradivus.]

2 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

You ask me, this defense falls flat in the face of the very high potential for abuse... Also, I wouldn't be pleased to know that the cooldown on a skill is so high that I can't expect it to be useful at all.

What type of abuse, stacking them with crits to oneshot bosses and super bulky enemies all over the place? Honestly that's just a loophole that should be closed by not letting some skills crit (that and/or crits being too strong). Except it would actually work in a cooldown-based system. With % procs, if you let them block crits it will come back to haunt you because there are enemies where a crit is much more useful than a proc. When you can choose per command when to use it, you can control that. Also, isn't Sol on a bulky unit on EP much more abusable than on a single hit on PP, and what about VV, massive procstacking of +damage skills etc.?

Also, if simply using the effect of the skill in an effective way is abuse, then I'm not sure if your argument makes sense. Let me show you with an analogy. If I'm playing FE11 and using Ridersbanes, am I abusing the system or is the game just preventably weak to Ridersbane because it's too full of cavalry? Similarly, if every enemy is a General and my units have Luna to pierce their Def, is the problem that Luna is too abusable or was it just a mistake to place Generals everywhere? I think you might be overestimating the potential for abuse, it doesn't inherently come with the idea of cooldown skills.

And regarding cooldowns being too slow, remember that if there's no other way, you can just use a different method of activation.

[Shadow Mir]

31 minutes ago, Gradivus. said:

What type of abuse, stacking them with crits to oneshot bosses and super bulky enemies all over the place? Honestly that's just a loophole that should be closed by not letting some skills crit (that and/or crits being too strong). Except it would actually work in a cooldown-based system. With % procs, if you let them block crits it will come back to haunt you because there are enemies where a crit is much more useful than a proc. When you can choose per command when to use it, you can control that. Also, isn't Sol on a bulky unit on EP much more abusable than on a single hit on PP, and what about VV, massive procstacking of +damage skills etc.?

Also, if simply using the effect of the skill in an effective way is abuse, then I'm not sure if your argument makes sense. Let me show you with an analogy. If I'm playing FE11 and using Ridersbanes, am I abusing the system or is the game just preventably weak to Ridersbane because it's too full of cavalry? Similarly, if every enemy is a General and my units have Luna to pierce their Def, is the problem that Luna is too abusable or was it just a mistake to place Generals everywhere? I think you might be overestimating the potential for abuse, it doesn't inherently come with the idea of cooldown skills.

And regarding cooldowns being too slow, remember that if there's no other way, you can just use a different method of activation.

That isn't really what I'm getting at - it's more along the lines of cheesing bosses by attacking them with whoever has a skill ready to go after luring them in. I can't really say anything about Sol or Vantage-Vengeance, because the former honestly stopped being useful after Radiant Dawn, and the latter got nerfed to hell in Fates. Also, any more than 2 procs on a unit tends to be looked at as impractical.

[X-Naut]

10 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

That isn't really what I'm getting at - it's more along the lines of cheesing bosses by attacking them with whoever has a skill ready to go after luring them in. I can't really say anything about Sol or Vantage-Vengeance, because the former honestly stopped being useful after Radiant Dawn, and the latter got nerfed to hell in Fates. Also, any more than 2 procs on a unit tends to be looked at as impractical.

You're cheesing bosses whether you rig crits/procs or "rig" the cooldown meter, the difference is the latter is more strategic than the former because it isn't dependent on RNG. Good luck finding a special attack mechanic that isn't abusive to bosses without granting them immunity.

[Jotari]

I personally don't want the proc system to be outright removed from the series (I just like procs, sue me). But I do like the idea in the OP that proc rates are balanced against enemy stats.

 

But hey, just for the sake of speculation. What if Skill was used like HP in Shadows of Valentia. So, for example, to use Astra you have to nerf yourself 10 points of skill. It can then auto recover 1 or 2 points per turn. This would mean after using a skill your hit takes a nerf for a while, depending on how powerful the skill is. Essentially skill would still be a less useful stat point for point, but there would be significantly more you can do with it as a stat.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Jotari

[NinjaMonkey]

On ‎14‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 12:19 PM, Alastor15243 said:

I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that skill is the worst primary stat in the game, in the sense that a point of skill is pretty uncontroversially less valuable than a point in anything else besides HP.

Yes, it's very clear that one extra point of magic is more useful than one extra point of skill to a General or other unit that only uses physical weapons. 

Anyway, the way I see it, all buffing skill does is make classes that have naturally high skill growths (e.g. Myrmidons) even better in comparison to classes that have naturally lower skill growths (e.g. Fighters) than they already are.

 

Edited November 21, 2017 by NinjaMonkey

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Yes, it's very clear that one extra point of magic is more useful than one extra point of skill to a General or other unit that only uses physical weapons. 

Anyway, the way I see it, all buffing skill does is make classes that have naturally high skill growths (e.g. Myrmidons) even better in comparison to classes that have lower skill growths (e.g. Fighters) than they already are.

 

You realize there’s only a 5% difference in class growth rates between fighters and mercenaries when it comes to skill, and that fighters and samurai have the SAME skill growth rate, right? Fighters have great skill, their weapons just don’t have good accuracy. In fact buffing skill would make Fighters better.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Alastor15243

[NinjaMonkey]

20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

You realize there’s only a 5% difference in class growth rates between fighters and mercenaries when it comes to skill

I said myrmidon's, not mercenaries.

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Fighters have great skill, their weapons just don’t have good accuracy.

Charlotte with her 10 base skill and 35% skill growth rate says otherwise (and that's only one example, there are plenty more I could give - especially in the GBA era).

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In fact buffing skill would make Fighters better.

Yes, but that would also make higher skilled classes even more better, doing nothing to close the gap between them.

Edited November 21, 2017 by NinjaMonkey

[Alastor15243]

10 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

I said myrmidon's, not mercenaries.

And I corrected it minutes in, and the correction makes your point even weaker, because samurai/myrmidons have an identical kill growth to fighters.

And what gap between myrmidons and fighters? Last time I checked for the last two games fighters/berserkers have been a higher tier than myrmidons/swordmasters.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

46 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Yes, it's very clear that one extra point of magic is more useful than one extra point of skill to a General or other unit that only uses physical weapons. 

Anyway, the way I see it, all buffing skill does is make classes that have naturally high skill growths (e.g. Myrmidons) even better in comparison to classes that have naturally lower skill growths (e.g. Fighters) than they already are.

 

Is that really a bad thing? I mean swordmasters are fun to use but outside of one or two games I don't think they're generally considered top tier as far as units go.

[Shadow Mir]

57 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Yes, it's very clear that one extra point of magic is more useful than one extra point of skill to a General or other unit that only uses physical weapons. 

Anyway, the way I see it, all buffing skill does is make classes that have naturally high skill growths (e.g. Myrmidons) even better in comparison to classes that have naturally lower skill growths (e.g. Fighters) than they already are.

Myrmidons and Swordmasters haven't exactly been a good class in most FE titles (about the last title where they could legit be argued as being good was FE6)...

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Myrmidons and Swordmasters haven't exactly been a good class in most FE titles (about the last title where they could legit be argued as being good was FE6)...

Which is funny since Myrmidons as we commonly perceive them were only introduced in that game. The precursor classess weren't all that amazing either. FE5 where they were as viable as any other class (Maretta was awesome but more so for her weapon than class), FE4 they could kick ass but lacked a horse so instantly sucked. Not sure about 1 or 3 but they were probably the best class in Gaiden. Although if you want to count Dread Fighters as Myrmidons/Swordmasters then the most recent game where they were good would be Shadows of Valentia.

[Shadow Mir]

23 hours ago, X-Naut said:

You're cheesing bosses whether you rig crits/procs or "rig" the cooldown meter, the difference is the latter is more strategic than the former because it isn't dependent on RNG. Good luck finding a special attack mechanic that isn't abusive to bosses without granting them immunity.

You have a point, but to be frank, I still have my doubts that a cooldown system can work well in a game where you don't breeze through maps in a couple minutes tops.

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Which is funny since Myrmidons as we commonly perceive them were only introduced in that game. The precursor classess weren't all that amazing either. FE5 where they were as viable as any other class (Maretta was awesome but more so for her weapon than class), FE4 they could kick ass but lacked a horse so instantly sucked. Not sure about 1 or 3 but they were probably the best class in Gaiden. Although if you want to count Dread Fighters as Myrmidons/Swordmasters then the most recent game where they were good would be Shadows of Valentia.

I wouldn't say Myrmidons existed in that game since Myrmidon was a fancy name for Hero.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

You have a point, but to be frank, I still have my doubts that a cooldown system can work well in a game where you don't breeze through maps in a couple minutes tops.

I wouldn't say Myrmidons existed in that game since Myrmidon was a fancy name for Hero.

Indeed, but the Dread Fighter focus on high speed is quite swordmaster like. If you do discount them (and FE1 and FE3 for the same basis) then the only games where Myrmidons as a class are genuinely great is FE6.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Jotari