Let's discuss Tier 4 passives.

[Xenomata]

Tier 4 skills are here to stay, so let's talk about these powerful variants of existing skills.

Background: The first Tier 4 passive was Death Blow 4, a small yet still major upgrade to Death Blow 3 (boosting the Attack of Player Phase attacks by +8 compared to the +6 of DB3). This was made available from the Brave alt of Celica back in September 2018.

At the time, there was probably debate as to what this meant for other skills, but that didn't necessarily equal knowing what to expect from further Tier 4 passives. Ever since, there's been a small yet raging stream of Tier 4 passives making their way to the hands of normal units. They cost the same as skills such as Distant Counter and many Personal skills, and have equally powerful effects.

Later on, we received an update to the skill inheritance function that allowed us to inherit up to 4 skills at a time, up from the 3 that it had been. While this was welcome, it was pretty evident this was because of Tier 4 passives being impossible to pass down properly without inheriting at least the Tier 1 variant prior.

Now that they're here to stay, for what it's worth, what do you think of them? Is this the right way to go about upgrading existing skills? Could this have been handled better? What other skills deserve Tier 4 upgrades, and in what way? Anything else to say on the matter?

I myself think things are kinda getting a little out of hand. Sure, they're premium skills that deserve to hold powerful effects for how hard it is to acquire them. But we very quickly started going overboard with what they actually did. DB4 was a very basic upgrade from DB3, but then you look at the most recent Tier 4, Distant Defense 4, and see not just a simple upgrade to the skill, but also an effect that prior was only available to certain personal weapons, two seasonal exclusive skills I'm not sure anyone actually uses, and the 2018 Valentine units weapons. Many of the skills feel very much like multiple skills in one, and I'm not sure how to feel about that. Though it would be interesting to see what they do to Close Defense...

As a reminder, below are all the Tier 4 skills in existence as of typing, as well as the unit they are available from.

Spoiler

Death Blow 4 (Atk +8 when attacking): Warrior Priestess Celica

Distant Defense 4 (Def/Res +8 when being attacked by a ranged unit, neutralizes foes Field Buffs): Caineghis

Fortress Def/Res 3 (Def/Res +6, Atk -2): Kliff, Idunn

Fury 4 (Atk/Spd/Def/Res +4, unit takes 8 HP of damage after combat): Greil's Devoted Greil

Steady Stance 4 (Def +8 when being attacked, inflicts Special Charge -1 on foe per attack): Surtr

Sturdy Impact (Atk +6, Def +10 when attacking, foe cannot make a follow-up attack): Tibarn

Hone Atk 4 (Grants Atk +7 to adjacent allies at the start of units turn): New Year of Fire and Ice Hrid

Hone Spd 4 (Grants Spd +7 to adjacent allies at the start of units turn): Sue

Joint Hone Spd (If unit is next to an ally at the start of units turn, grants Spd +5 to unit and all adjacent allies): New Year of Fire and Ice Gunnthra

 

[Nowi's Husband]

I think Sturdy Impact is way too good to be inheritable, should have been exclusive to Tibarn.  Imagine other impact skills, like Swift Impact Atk+6 Spd+10 and has built in Null Followup, or Mirror Impact Atk+6 Res+10 negates adaptive damage. 

Edited April 13, 2019 by Nowi's Husband

[Othin]

I don't mind them. I don't use much SI anymore, so to me they're really just a special new ability for certain new units, and I want new units to have cool new abilities that give me reason to care about them. It's also nice to get "fixes" for outdated skills. I do think DD4 goes further than necessary, but still, it's nice to have a further increase to the options for dulling blade tomes, since it seems like Dull Ranged underperformed compared to existing B skills.

I'm curious to see what else shows up. We've gotten multiple effects containing a Quick Riposte effect at 50% HP, so it'd be neat to get that on an actual QR4, if only for the elegance of it. It'd also be nice to have a Desperation 4 that works with any amount of damage, to help Fury-Desperation builds not have to worry about HP increases from stuff like the merge change and Dragonflowers.

[Landmaster]

I don't really have a problem with any of them. Steady Stance 4 is probably the most annoying of them, but thanks to the holy Pegasus Carrot, Surtr is no longer an issue for me~

Edited April 13, 2019 by Landmaster

[Nym]

What is great about Tier 4 skills is that they make bad units much better.

For example I gave forteress Def/Res 3 to my Gerome. He's a decent tank now (but SS4 would have been better but no Surtr for me sadly)

The problem is that these Tier 4 skills make already powerful units even stronger.

Also not all of them are broken, just Sturdy Impact and Steady stance 4

 

[Xenomata]

1 hour ago, Nowi's Husband said:

Imagine other impact skills, like Swift Impact Atk+6 Spd+10 and has built in Null Followup, or Mirror Impact Atk+6 Res+10 negates adaptive damage. 

I could imagine them Tier 4-ing Mirror Blow or Steady Blow, but I'm not sure they'd do it to Swift Sparrow, the skill that's apparently so great and mighty they feel a need to put it on at least one unit per every other New Heroes banner, as well as too strong to lower it to the 4* pool.

...at most I'd imagine just plain ol +6 Atk/Spd, or even Kestrel Stance getting a Tier 4 long before Swift Sparrow.

[Hilda]

i dont see the issue. Game and units need to evolve. I rather have them evovle via passives then in creased powercreeped BST

[Jingle Jangle]

From my perspective those are the super premiums goods. Everyone wants them but there is a limited amount. It's a good bad thing that they are coming out slowly. Good in the sense that it's makes the powerceep slower then it could be. Yet bad because an unit that has a tier 4 skill seem significantly more impressive than a unit than has swift sparrow for the 20th time in the same banner.

[Othin]

2 hours ago, Xenomata said:

I could imagine them Tier 4-ing Mirror Blow or Steady Blow, but I'm not sure they'd do it to Swift Sparrow, the skill that's apparently so great and mighty they feel a need to put it on at least one unit per every other New Heroes banner, as well as too strong to lower it to the 4* pool.

...at most I'd imagine just plain ol +6 Atk/Spd, or even Kestrel Stance getting a Tier 4 long before Swift Sparrow.

I think a simple +6/+6 Swift Sparrow 3 is likely eventually, with no additional effects.

It's important to consider why Swift Impact gives extra Def. It's because Def/Res boosts are often less significant in the same numbers than Atk/Spd ones, especially on player phase. Heroes tried to pretend that wasn't the case at first, but it started accounting it in the later months of 2017 with the inconsistent stat boosts for the dance B skills and for legendary heroes.

I think structure similar to Steady Impact is likely to keep showing up on its Atk/Res, Spd/Def, and Spd/Res counterparts, but Atk/Spd will stick to +6/+6 while a Bracing Blow upgrade would probably get +10/+10.

[Flying Shogi]

I want Guard 4 to prevent cooldown charge without a HP threshold and prevent specials from activating even if the special is ready to activate. 

[Nowi's Husband]

2 hours ago, Hilda said:

i dont see the issue. Game and units need to evolve. I rather have them evovle via passives then in creased powercreeped BST

Yeah powercreep skills I can keep inheriting to old favorites to keep them usable, just takes lots of orbs.

[Ice Dragon]

I like the new tier 4 passive skills. In general, they are fairly balanced and aren't so strong that not having access to them puts you at a crippling disadvantage.

My thoughts on each one so far:

• Death Blow 4: The additional +2 Atk isn't too big of a deal, but it gives Brave weapons a breath of fresh air in the current meta where bulk is actually a thing.
• Distant Def 4: Competes with Distant Counter for the skill slot on melee units, so it's effectively restricted to ranged units and units with Distant Counter already on their weapon. The main draw of this skill is not the +2 Def and Res, but the ability to negate visible buffs, which have been easily exploited in Aether Raids defense teams, without needing to use the B slot for Dull Ranged.
• Fort. Def/Res 3: Perhaps the least impressive of the current tier 4 passives on paper, but it really shines on Ploy users and bulky dual-phase units.
• Fury 4: Works just like Fury 3, but competes on even terms with Swift Sparrow 2 and Atk/Spd Solo 3.
• Sturdy Impact: Arguably the strongest of the current tier 4 passives. +10 Def relative to Death Blow 3 makes it much safer to initiate combat, especially for physically squishy units, and the ability to prevent the opponent's follow-up helps deal with how strong Quick Riposte and Vengeful Fighter still are. It's actually kind of absurd how well Quick Riposte has stood up to the passage of time.
• Steady Stance 4: Appears to be designed to counter Bold Fighter and other builds intended to activate a Special skill every round of combat without external charging mechanics. Incorporating Guard into the skill frees up the B slot for stronger skills similarly to Distant Def 4, which is a plus because tanks want so many skills in that slot, but can't run all of them, meaning the less essential ones are typically the ones that get cut.
• Hone Atk 4 / Hone Spd 4: Updates the skills to actually be competitive against more recent skills like Tactic and Wave skills. A good thing overall.
• Joint Hone Spd: Updates the skill to be competitive against Wave skills. A good thing overall.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[coldhand25]

Better this than more powercreep armour shenanigans. Although I'm still not sure if I like them or not, and that's mostly because I don't really have any use for them. I don't really care about arena scoring, so I don't have a built-up Reinhardt to run DB4 on, or an armour team, who could benefit from SS4. I would give Sturdy Impact to my Leon in a heartbeat, but I would still use his CC probably. As for Fury 4, I would run it on my Bleeding Valter, but that is a fun meme build only, and not viable in arena or aether raids, so it doesn't really make me like these "upgrades" any more or less. So, as long as  there is no inheritable upgraded CC (with build in close defense, or bracing stance, idk), I won't really be able to form an opinion on them. But it was inevitable I guess. I wish they had a better looking border though, as right now they look like it's not even their final form...

[DraceEmpressa]

I like them for the fact that some of them are actually two skills in one, like DD4 is actually DD + Dull Ranged, Steady Stance 4 is Steady  Stance + Guard, and makes "fixing" low tier in gameplay faves easier as much saves slot.

[XRay]

I think they are great, and it seems to be the best way to upgrade skills so far. In terms of how it can be handled better, I guess I wish Tier 4 skills are easier to acquire, but I think Intelligent Systems might need their profits.

Guard needs an upgrade to remove the HP requirement. Stance-Dull feels superior to Close Def/Distant Def-Guard due to Guard needing HP requirement.

I think Quick Riposte needs its HP requirement removed too since I think Enemy Phase units are still slightly underpowered as Sturdy Impact basically just cancels it out.

And like others have said, I think power creeping skills is much better than power creeping BST.

[Humanoid]

I don't like the large non-linear increase in some of them, and I'm starting to see some effects in casual arena where if I don't really set up specifically, I can encounter unwinnable situations due to effective defensive stat inflation. But I guess I have to get used to the new meta after several months off. I do also see the argument that the old 1-3 series of some skills are notably underpowered, but in that situation I'd like to see the old ones also brought up a little to make the transition, instead of rank 4 being amazing and 1-3 continuing to be worthless. Like, give Steady Stance 1-3 the Guard 1 effect.

That said, this is a lot more palatable to me than straight BST powercreep because it's transferrable powercreep, which at least means it's not increasing the gap between new and old units. I just wish the dragonflower cap was even higher specifically for Gen 1 units.

Oh, and there's the ugly yellow ring of course. Blergh.

[NekoKnight]

I think they can be a nice way to make under powered skills more desirable. For example, Steady Stance 3 is clearly inferior to Steady Breath despite them having the same prerequisites and being Rank 3 skills but Steady Stance 4 is a good competitor and might be preferred depending on the desired build. The Fortress/Hones/Joint Hones feel like healthy improvements on underpowered skills as well. I wouldn't say DD really NEEDED an upgrade but I would say it's a nice counter to Lazura +Blade tome combos.

What I don't think we really need are skills that do exactly the same thing but slightly better without changing the function of the skill like Fury 4 or Death Blow 4. Yes, higher numbers are better but I don't think those skills had become obsolete anyway so why bother?

The only skill I think was probably too good for SI was Steady Impact. It's an interesting skill but it's head and shoulders above the competition in many cases when it probably didn't need to be.

12 hours ago, Flying Shogi said:

I want Guard 4 to prevent cooldown charge without a HP threshold and prevent specials from activating even if the special is ready to activate. 

This would be a nice answer to the Infantry Pulse AR meta. And as soon as this happens, my new complaint will be how super tank meta is ruining the game.

On the topic of skill upgrades, I could see Harsh Command+  becoming a thing. Not only could it reverse debuffs but it could cure status effects on your unit and make them immune to debuffs units until your next turn.

[Yexin]

i'm ok with them, as long as they give me swift impact or whatever the name'll be

i need it for my levin

[Jotari]

If any skills need an upgrade it's the rallies. +4 to a stat at the cost of a unit's turn when we have so many passive boost options simply doesn't cut it any more (if they ever did, I assume before skill inheritance having a rally was pretty decent).

minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I think they can be a nice way to make under powered skills more desirable. For example, Steady Stance 3 is clearly inferior to Steady Breath despite them having the same prerequisites and being Rank 3 skills but Steady Stance 4 is a good competitor and might be preferred depending on the desired build. The Fortress/Hones/Joint Hones feel like healthy improvements on underpowered skills as well. I wouldn't say DD really NEEDED an upgrade but I would say it's a nice counter to Lazura +Blade tome combos.

What I don't think we really need are skills that do exactly the same thing but slightly better without changing the function of the skill like Fury 4 or Death Blow 4. Yes, higher numbers are better but I don't think those skills had become obsolete anyway so why bother?

The only skill I think was probably too good for SI was Steady Impact. It's an interesting skill but it's head and shoulders above the competition in many cases when it probably didn't need to be.

This would be a nice answer to the Infantry Pulse AR meta. And as soon as this happens, my new complaint will be how super tank meta is ruining the game.

On the topic of skill upgrades, I could see Harsh Command+  becoming a thing. Not only could it reverse debuffs but it could cure status effects on your unit and make them immune to debuffs units until your next turn.

Sacrifice should have healed status ailments like in its original game. Unfortunately IS seems incapable of ever upgrading or adding a nonweapon skill a unit already has.

Edited April 14, 2019 by Jotari

[redlight]

They're fine for the most part. It's only when they're tailor made for prfs that they get stupidly obnoxious.
I can understand the premium aspect, but to be honest that logic is BS when much weaker skills are locked at the same rarity and devs can't throw a relic from 2017 into the 3-4 star summoning pool. IS is somehow unable to see the SI pool for summonable heroes has it's issues like having nothing of value, outdated skills and/or 5*-ing to get one okayish skill. I think there'd be less backlash for powercreeped skills if they remove rarity restrictions on skills. 20k feathers is way too of a hefty price to get salvageble skills from trash fodder units. You'd get more value for when you'd summon something.

[Hilda]

14 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

The only skill I think was probably too good for SI was Steady Impact. It's an interesting skill but it's head and shoulders above the competition in many cases when it probably didn't need to be.
 

I disagree, Sturdy Impact is fine. Its restricted to Infantry and Flier (although i think allowing Fliers is a mistake). I even would say that Sturdy Impact was needed so you can run something else on your ranged player phase units instead of Litrblades or Sweep skills. With this skill mages can actually run their original tomes without getting obliterated by 43094039403gazillion+ Def/Res Armorers or Dragons. Also dont forget that while it prevents follow up attacks from the enemy, it still becomes a Speed check if the Enemy is running Quick Riposte/Breaker skills or Vengefull Fighter.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Some of them are quite overpowered, but at least they make older units more viable.

 

My Michalis has been rocking Steady Stance 4 and it has done wonders for his survivability.

[Xenomata]

I find it interesting everyone is saying Sturdy Impact is overpowered.

Maybe I just haven't run into it much yet, but I honestly don't feel that the case. Sure it's strong, but it's not like it does a tremendous amount of good on EP (that is, the Sturdy Impact wielders enemies phase). Maybe I'm just missing something about it...

15 hours ago, Etheus said:

My Michalis has been rocking Steady Stance 4 and it has done wonders for his survivability.

Oh god that's right... man, am I glad you brought that up and that I have a spare Surtr.

Eenie meenie minie moe, who's the wall to get this uber-Guard...?