DLC Inheritable Skills Tier List! Maddening

[@wizard5552]

A unit that uses rally every turn is more useful than like majority of the party. that boost is so strong.

[@laughingmonkey5522]

Yeah and they dont get xp so its nice for a throwaway unit with a strong passive. Just dont make them do much and they dont count for much for the paralogues

[@scrapyarddragon]

A lot of these fall into "Nice addition to the bracelet's kit when worn, only inheritable out of obligation". Some of them would be better if we had more than 2 slots, but alas.

[@ohmygoddiosmio9138]

true, more slots were badly needed to make use of the more situationnal skills. A bit of a shame, hope they will fix it in future entries

[@Baljetfox]

Also SP conversion it's good to mention that it also gives you sp for every battle the unit does on the arena in the somniel

[@TheIronSavior]

Even the emblem matches?

[@yohanes2034]

​@@TheIronSavior afaik only for standard matches not emblems

[@heroicvileplume7184]

I think Assign Decoy is the most powerful ability in the game for a casual playthrough, simply because of how it allows you to build your team. It effectively reads "If less than four enemies can attack you, prevent all damage and counter when applicable". It is a full party bonded shield that you can use without being engaged, and it completely removes the need for other damage mitigation abilities, especially since it isn't hard to get enough def/res to take 0 damage or enough avoid to dodge every hit. This also gets rid of wasted time/offensive potential when enemies attack your healers/dancers/player phase nukes by directing all the damage to your Panette or Kagetsu or Ivy or whoever. The other S tier abilities are great, this one is playstyle defining (for non-ltc runs)

[@Hyuinn]

Weapon Sync also works on multi hit engage attacks like "Houses Unite" and "Quadruple Hit", the latter getting +20~+28 damage boost from it.

[@microinfinito]

30 Avoid + Quick Reposte and Micaiah engraved tome (Bolganone for example) on Gregory is OP. Soren or Byleth and a rewarp staff is the way to go.

[@MLmaster135]

the most interesting part about starsphere for fixed growths say your unit got only attack or attack+res on a level up without starsphere, you restart the map and give them starsphere. they then get a few extra stats on top of what they'd normally get at that level up. starsphere's incredibly useful for maddening playthroughs, though i assume you deff need to well abuse via the save trick to get starsphere a on good amount of units you plan on using, specifically early-game, as their sp's far more limited compared to solm arc units. Reprisal's deff broken but man sp cost's a big problem, since its contested for stuff like hold out, wrath and vantage++ depending on builds. the only realistic way to get reprisal+ on a unit I can see is via Soren emblem reflect spam, or the well abuse trick for Expert+adept books(including silver weapons) via the save trick.

[@SunshineRey]

As someone who probably isn’t going to get the DLC anytime soon, this is pretty helpful.

[@JusticeJudge]

I misread the guard skills when I played DLC for the first time I thought if I had the Weapon equipped I get the damage reduction so I thought that was a bargain for 1k stack it with Genitilty for -10 damage for a say a Paladin. After getting to end game, I read it properly and I realize how trash it actually was and I felt like such a fool.

[@declanm810]

Geosphere on the Bonded Shield user is a pretty nice combo. I really want to try to make Keen Insight work on a physical unit, but I can’t quite decide on a build… maybe Warrior (can switch between Poleaxe and Hammer and Bow/Hurricane Axe for coverage) with Lunar Brace as the other skill? Maybe with 3H emblem? Or give Eirika as the emblem so they can also Keen Insight with Sieglinde idk

[@JuanMorales-uf9li]

I haven’t tested the hurricane axe but I tried flame Lance and levin sword and since they are both considered magic weapons, lunar brace doesn’t work :(

[@IcyVegeta]

I literally chuck Starsphere on every unit until they reach stat caps and switch to some of the Meta skills. I find Rally Spectrum+ to be very overpowered. I have it on my Jean and Framme Enchanters which can add insane buffs every turn.

[@Whirlwhind1]

I also made Jean an Enchanter on my second playthough. Gave him Micaiah's ring for good measure and he became a swiss army knife in terms of utility.

[@JordiCalcos]

Quick repose is a pretty consistent fe skill that appears in most game….you don’t typically use it with vantage since the over lap of being over a certain hp and being under a certain hp of the two skills is either tiny or don’t overlap at all….vantage is more for strong quick fragile units….while quick repose usually goes on super slow hard hitting tanks so allow them to double so for fe engage basically the same units that would want to be in halberdier for pincer attack will want quick repose for the same reason….this also goes great with the heavy attack ability that also is on hector because you put of of the engraves that is added might at the cost of being super heavy and even though you might not have the build to double now you still double because of quick repose

[@eustacemcgoodboy9702]

I have a fed Kagetsu Wyvern with Hector and somehow I think Vantage++ and Quick Riposte are working together sometimes, somehow.

[@JordiCalcos]

@@eustacemcgoodboy9702 the only way in engage to use both is so have vantage++ and quick repose+ and be between 50% and 60% HP which is a very small window to hit

[@tagg580]

Quick Riposte+ and a Nosferatu type tome, either Micaiah or Soren, allows mages to enemy phase tank WAVES and it's hilarious

[@saggsman]

I usually put HP/Luck +10 on Anna just for the higher chance of scoring 500 G. I know it doesn't have a lot of other uses outside of that, but it fits Anna like a glove to me. Plus she can either still go emblem Byleth for magic as a Warrior with Radiant Bow or Mage Knight with Levin Sword and additional luck from the passive and divine pulse also works nicely with Anna's high luck stat.

[@Hunter-qv1ko]

Made the mistake of getting Chloe weapon sync assuming Sigurd syncs with lances but to my surprise… he does not. 3k sp that could’ve gone to Lance power… it hurt (granted it’s still a good ability)

[@buddyjesus10]

Unfortunately I think the Keen Insight boost is added to the effective damage as a flat +7. It does have some applications for the FX stuff since you can run it with Dragonstones and Mage Cannoneer shells. I think Book of Worlds is one of the best cheap skills in the game. If you have an enemy you really need to lock down you can have the unit wait then dance them to trigger the freeze effect every turn. The 20 damage from three waits is nice as well early game or as consistent damage against tough to damage bosses. At 300 SP its a steal.

[@MasterStacona]

Brute Force is 400% damage instead of 300% for crits. Brute Force is best for those high speed, but low STR/MAG growth users to now one shot on crits. Boucheron is very good with it and S tier with Chrom in general since Chrom gives everything that he wants, including the STR+DEX+SPEED ring stats.

[@Hyuinn]

It also triggers his passive since Robin does the chain attack for him.

[@MasterStacona]

@@Hyuinn yep

[@torybeaudet3820]

Actually poison isn’t 1-3 damage it’s 1-5 damage at full stacks which is actually rly good. +1 damage at 1 stack, +2 at 2, and +5 at full 3 stacks.

[@ThePurpleKnightmare]

Quick Riposte is really good on units with low speed caps. Like Generals. Instead of having to have some badass Amelia-level General in order to make them double. You just need this skill. Suddenly Louis and Jade take 0 damage, and attack twice. It's really good, one of the best skills in the game IMO. It negates 1/2 of the weaknesses of the strongest normal class in the game. Find a way to be invincible to mages and General becomes perfect.

[@dwbryant13]

Did you just say “Amelia level general?” LOL

[@ThePurpleKnightmare]

@@dwbryant13 Amelia has a Speed cap of 25. The best Mage in FE8 has a speed cap of 26, Swordmaster's Speed cap is about 30ish. Amelia will reach her Speed cap, making her the best general this franchise has ever known. Aside from maybe a grinded up Awakening Unit, since it's kind of hard to compete with a General that has Sol and Luna. Let alone if the General is Cynthia with Aether. (Or whoever you make the sibling of Lucina) People don't consider General's that good even in Sacred Stones. However General Amelia relative to the rest of Sacred Stones, is better than Generals have ever been. Gatrie in his games, Edelgard in hers, these are some of the stronger generals that Fire Emblem games have known, but in their own games, they aren't as powerful as Amelia is Sacred Stones. As I said, Awakening with grinding class changes can create a General that within Awakening has higher status than Amelia has in Sacred Stones, however if you just go off provided Generals without class swaps Kjelle and Kellam don't compare to Amelia. So what I am saying with this comment is that you don't need Jade, Madeline or Louis to actually be as good as Amelia stat wise because of Quick Riposte. Btw 25 Speed in Sacred Stones is like 31 Speed in this game. So Amelia is like 10+ Speed higher than this games Generals. She's pretty amazing.

[@henrynguyen4315]

​@@ThePurpleKnightmare generals have always been bad due to low move as well as speed. Mainly the low move.

[@ThePurpleKnightmare]

@@henrynguyen4315 I understand that's how the majority feel, and it doesn't dispute the point but rather it supports it.

[@eustacemcgoodboy9702]

@@henrynguyen4315 Generals were definitely not bad in the FE games on GBA. They were super strong there.

[@pogo3593]

I misread the guard skills at first and wasted one of my units sp on it :(. I thought they reduced damage based on YOUR unit's equipped weapon which honestly makes so much more sense to me

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

I wish that is what it did, they would be very good in that case

[@iamlordapollo]

I've been looking forward to discussing quick riposte with you. You are correct that it works with vantage. Vantage (and Resolve) is below 75 at max, and riposte is above 60. So you wanna ride the sweet spot between with your hp. It's also extra convenient that it's from hector because he also has the glare that costs 20% of your hp to make funnel for enemies. So your getting a funnel for the extra low price of exactly the amount of HP you need to get to the sweet spot. Think of timerra. She loves doubling to proc sandstorms, but lacks the build to use literally any lance. Instead of spending a slot on a stat boost, speedtaker (which needs time to stack), or whatever, you just give her ike and inherit riposte and glare, or give her hector and inherit resolve for a flat +7 to sandstorm. Then you have a choice between hitting the storm button and making yourself double, or hitting the glare button and doubling anyway because your HP is in the sweet spot. Tons of cool builds you can work around. My current run has timerra with edelgard, with riposte+ and resolve+ inherited. The str/dex/def buffs really put her in a good spot as far as regular damage, sandstorm procs, and sandstorm damage. My panette inherited vantage++ and wrath, and she's got hector so she's enemy phasing entire maps with double crits that hit first. Another good candidate is Diamant. Mine has ike for wrath and resolve, and inherited riposte+ and break defenses. I don't think I have to explain why triple crit/sol chances with buffed def are awesome. I bet you could run it on alcryst to and force Luna's.

[@lux3239]

As someone who uses surprise attack, I agree with your placement because the only use case that I have found is on specifically a thief/sniper in the late game and you are fighting enemy mages and you have Corrin support. There are better skills to run but if you wanna make a fun niche build it serves its purpose.

[@baklava64]

I inherited surprise attack on my Yunaka specifically for fell xenologue ch. 4 because of all the avoid tiles. Especially near the starting position where you are locked for basically the entire battle, it's definitely a very fun yet very situational ability to have that comes in handy on maps like those with a ton of avoid tiles

[@AdmiralWalrus]

As good as Reprisal is (and it's VERY good), I don't think I'm using it nearly as much as I could be. Like it's easy to throw it onto a dodge tank or whatever but on a lot of other units I feel like I just don't have room for it.

[@MasterStacona]

Reprisal is a fun post game skill that becomes broken with Holdout+++, but for actual campaign gameplay, it is like C tier and not very good to be honest plus it is insanely expensive to acquire. Post Game it is S tier for sure since you can make units crazy overpowered strong with it and Holdout+++ Try Saphir with Vantage, Holdout, and Reprisal if you want to see her true potential of power!

[@foreverflat6135]

I’ve used reprisal with panette/Ike great aether and she does like 90 consistently

[@JetpackCat1106]

Put geosphere on your Lucina user. Bonded shield defense, then geosphere to be more aggressive on player phase.

[@AceStarThe3rd]

Heavy Attack is very good on low build high speed units like Framme, who can easily quad and can afford having both Sword/Lance/Axe power and Heavy Attack + a speed Emblem

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

Why not run STR+5 or Weapon Sync?

[@AceStarThe3rd]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming Aw fuck, you're right about Weapon Sync+, since it's true damage Rip, it's mid

[@GodChaos333]

If I'm not mistaken. Couldn't assign decoy actually make quick repose super tanks actually get attacked? Same with perfect avoid units? Sure it would work for only 3 hits each, but what if you made 2 tanks. One physical and one avoid based. And had them both assign decoyed in different aggro spots. To make them actually kill things completely safe. I wonder if you could make a run utilizing overinvested tanks. Sorta fixing the maddening mode thing of enemies avoiding OP tanks

[@aghadlarhen9397]

you can only have one decoy assigned at a time, if you add another it'll cancel the first.

[@chompyferaligatr3753]

I think a good idea with guard skills here is with Leif’s adaptability and arms shield, tho that’s mainly it

[@sphyxsairiss]

22:28 this is my struggle. I keep getting ideas for builds but i only have so much in time to test them. Surprise attack, heavy attack, all these situational things are best to just leave as perks of having the emblem equipped imo. Book of worlds, too. Edit: getting SP conversion early with starsphere is good af. Just wait till you get roy/sigurd back to get sword/lance power for no book cost. Resprisal is absolutely broken.

[@interestingmaneuver]

Weapon Sync is still quite good, but it’s player-phase only, so it doesn’t have the overlap you mentioned with Heavy Attack for enemy phasing.

[@couchpotato8729]

I think Lifesphere could be B tier as an enemy phase option. You can totally bonded shield/chain guard, but if you don't want to or have a unit off on its own, Lifesphere could bump up survivability some.

[@redchicken5533]

I might try running surprise attack/chrom on a smash weapon user in a future run, as it almost completely mitigates the consequences for smash weapons - player phase attack. That said I only expect it to be helpful in chapter 21 when smashing veyle off of the massive heal tile.

[@SwiftSpeedVortex]

Book of worlds is really on great of supportive units because all the books will build up assuming you are not dum and get someone down tk like 3 hp each book will be unlocked after a turn of nothing so if the support let’s say framme gets in trouble bam burn freeze damage and heals

[@eustacemcgoodboy9702]

Lots of gold here. Your point about Rally is well taken, I'll make my Merrin Alchemist into a Rally bot. She has so much utility already with Micaiah. Cram all the utility into one unit! Assign Decoy is absolutely S tier as you say, basically it lets you play badly and have the same results as someone playing perfectly. That's S tier. I never considered inheriting it but I absolutely should do so.

[@ThePandaByte]

Mage cannoneer makes great use of keen insight bc you can choose to whip out whatever effective cannon type you need. Paired with lunar brace mage cannoneer can do good damage without using stupidly broken stuff like reprisal

[@JuanMorales-uf9li]

Some thing I wanted to make note of, but if anyone can test this out, it would be greatly appreciated, I was wondering if a weapon sync skill Will be active when Erica‘s brother takes her place and you use a LANCE instead with him?

[@lapisthederg]

Groundswell is so lopsided, yeah it’s good for getting rid of fire and smoke and whatever, but it also gets rid of fog. So if you want the user to be on a fog tile with Corrin, you have to move them first before moving the Corrin user

[@dullededge1395]

they should have made surprise attack an engage skill that just prevents counter attacking tbh would make chrome kinda cracked

[@DragonGamer64]

Yeah nice thing about book of worlds 1-3 you don't need to hit or deal damage only initiate combat Lv boost thankfully doesn't seem to factor like internal lv so if you reset someone to lv1 as long as the enemies are lv4+ in this case you can max out the stacks i guess one of those things that's nice to have for free but not inherit Argue that +1-2 to your stats maybe better than some of the stuff in d tier at least

[@spindrift6464]

The skill power creep is real with DLC

[@DarkflameEmperor]

I feel like the last phase of a guard skill should've said "Gives a percent chance to not be broken by this weapon type", so you could have a sword guard on an axe unit and perhaps 50% of the time they won't get broken by getting hit by a sword. Even then it would be situational, but it would make more sense to use.

[@TheIronSavior]

Starsphere is the *only* skill you need

[@christianasian7938]

Enchanter giving effective on corrupted probably makes keen insight (+7 damage on effective) a bit better, but it's still competing with _ power skills so eh

[@Mecht]

I just wanted to make sure reprisal was S tier. Lol Great skill for a lot of builds, evasion tanks can take advantage of engravings to take enough damage to one round just about anything. It works on magic, knifes, bows, arts and canons too. Oh and fell stones. Its just broken.

[@leoerus]

Sigurd isn't Lance. I tired a weapon sync / Lance power halberdier build and found that Sigurd was sword. As said so in game. I think the only Lance one is ephiram. Sigurd uses tyrfing has his main weapon. Wish there was more Lance access though...

[@Or_ange]

Technically Dimitri is as well.... When you are lucky enough to have him

[@DragonGamer64]

Yeah the last weapon you unlock from an emblem is what is weapon sync boosted only exceptions are the 3H ring and Ephraim which is Lance

[@Baljetfox]

I would say lineage should be higher just because its basically free, 150SP is so easy to pay, you can get it on everybody right away

[@ljthompson3011]

Someone made a Reddit post on the math of lineage basically units who had lineage gained in average of one extra level by endgame the way maddening calculates xp it’s not a flat 20% it’s good for catching up low level units but it’s practically useless on maddening (may have been a KZbin video now that I think of it)

[@bestgirlyagoo800]

Lifesphere with Hold out is a cheese build for the rarely played PVP mode

[@Blood_Ronin]

Can confirm if you unlock starsphere and the SP skill from veronica asap, you will literally brake the game to the point it is completely broken... I mean legit broken where you gotta try to fail lmao.

[@KoopaKoot]

Book of Worlds is totally busted. You can lock a Boss in place using a longbow and then clear an entire map. The after combat damage breaks Hold Out so it's useful vs Marni and Roy and by using end turn instead of wait, you can manipulate what level you want

[@braveagentg]

I've been thinking about those "Guard" skills. Take that tome guard one, the effect is broad and it skips through skills that may punish high RES; wouldn't it be good for PvP? 🤔

[@Bellumbeck271]

Actually, from what I've seen, I think Brute Force makes the crit multiplier go from x3 to x4.

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

This is correct, I had the multipliers wrong/was going from memory

[@jimmychen7903]

Any suggestions for Mauvier? I wanna use his base class but I'm torn between speedtaker + resolve or qr + lifesphere, player phase vs enemy phase focused?

[@enny7377]

Knives are bows during weapon sync

[@MNtoCali]

I don’t think you know but with Book of worlds you can wait, dance, wait, byleth and then you have 2 ranks of it

[@theshnoz352]

Do you know if the poosted xp you get from lineage/mentorship is fixed xp gain or not, bc if so then that would finally be a way to get Vander a somewhat decent amount of xp early on. (I'm asking bc I'm planning on using atleast every unit once so my next playthrough I have to use Vander lol)

[@DARKMalice9000]

What was your opinion of what I thought for Alear

[@ThePurpleKnightmare]

Hmm, you do a lot of "No DLC runs" Would be neat if instead you did a "DLC only run" Not allowed to run any Emblems or skills except the DLC Bracelets. (Obviously forced use of the Emblem is acceptable)

[@brandon3059]

Keen Insight might be good on mages because there is no Tome Power skill but they deal effective damage to Armor with all magic and effective to Fliers with Wind magic. Something like a Draconic Hex Thoron with Keen Insight to occasionally blast down fliers or armor might be really good?

[@Hyuinn]

Tomes don't do effective damage to armor, only Micaiah's Thani does that. Armored enemies just tend to have low res, that's why you see big numbers. I'm also pretty sure it's +7 damage with no multipliers, the damage calculation is after the effective damage multiplier. So let's say you have an archer with a 13 mt bow and 17 str. The flier you're targeting has 20 def. If it wasn't effective damage, that would be (13+17)-20 = 10 dmg Since it is effective, then it is (39+17)-20 = 36 dmg; because the weapon might triples, not the damage. With Keen Insight, it should be (39+17)-20+7 = 43 dmg; because it adds 7 damage if it is effective damage.

[@MasterStacona]

SP Conversion is D tier, before the well i say S tier, but it came with the well update so it is completely useless.

[@IcedCoffeeGaming]

It could enable more overall SP on your team if used early, even with the well you can't run that many 5-8k SP abilities across multiple units

[@MasterStacona]

@@IcedCoffeeGaming meh, not very useful, only argument for it being good is post game for faster SP grinding

[@yohanes2034]

​@@MasterStacona what coffe said is true. The difference is around 2-3k SP by the time you unequip the skills. Inherit it to your units that you plan to inherot expensive skills like reprisal+ or str/dex+ or mag/dex+. It will alleviate the expert books scarcity. Even with tier 4 welling every time expert book is still 10% chance, like I may get it 4-5 times the entire playthrough from the well and it's not enough to max everyone

[@michaelpaul92]

inheritable skills are cool

[@brianwinters2285]

SP conversion is actually pretty expensive because you need 1300+ bond fragments. With the Wishing Well, bond fragments have become the new scarce currency. So I think it should go on only your main attackers.

[@yohanes2034]

I get it on 3 of my main early characters usually that I plan for future heavy SP consumer (like sword/lance/axe power or str/dex+ or mag/dex+) by the end when I unequip SP conversion they will have between 3000-4000 SP. Helps to alleviate the expert books scarcity. Bond fragments scarcity can be managed by proper planning, like equipping the emblems for a while instead of immediately doing emblem battles in somniel. I think only 1 time where I did feel bond fragments scarcity

[@MasterStacona]

World Tree is honestly D tier, it is not very good at all.. best case low C tier, though the gachapon aspect makes it fun.

[@lracseroom8286]

Starsphere is so dumb. Hey guys! Every character has the growth of Jean and Anna now but without any of the drawbacks! Like, they could at least have made it more SP.

[@MegaNerfguy101]

I will stand by Weapon Sync from edelgard. One thing I don't hear you or anyone else talk about is the -10 Avoid that Sword power gives you. I would agree that 90% of the time, that -10 isn't a big deal. You would usually throw it on if you don't care about the avoid anyway, focus on one rounding, etc. But what ultimately makes Weapon Sync good in my opinion are 2 things Avoid tanking. You could easily run this on someone who has good avo and let them hit relatively harder as well, now you can be both a decent dodge tank and one round. 2, availability. Since you can get it as early as chapter 6, where as you don't get roy back til chapter 17. You have it for essentially the entire game. Also, just as a psa, it works while engaged no matter the weapon type. So it can be used to buff your daggers. You just need to be engaged.