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FE10 had a lot of useful and useless skills. I reviewed FE 4 and 5, but I haven't played them so my opinion will still be biased.

Best: Eclipse

There are a lot of really good skills and all of the mastery skills for FE10 are broken. Heck, even resolve in FE9 increased strength by 1.5 until it got nerfed in FE 10, (Probably because it allowed units to have over 50 attack XD and Ashnard would be howling in pain if not for his armor's blessing). This skill however is godly. Five times the damage and it completely ignores, completely ignores (I have to repeat myself at the sheer lunacy of it all) defense!!! Lethality may have the power to instantly kill, but it does not work on bosses, this, however, will completely destroy ANY enemy unit. This skill along with the BK's ludicrous strength stat and weapon is just plain overkill. No other unit can have it making it the single most unique and best skill in the game. Fanboy/fangirl scream whenever the BK activates it. Also the reason why Ike gets Nihil in endgame XD. Aether and Resolve from FE9 get my own personal shot out along with wrath from FE 5 because I can just imagine how broken that skill would be any of the Fire Emblem games. (Nephenee gets hit for no damage, criticals the next turn XD) I'm not voting wrath because units still have a chance if their defense is high enough. Eclipse just bypasses that entirely.

Worst: Shriek (As in Yikes! this skill sucks. >.>)

I don't even...I thought that Mercy was utterly useless, but at least it makes it so that others units can get the kill if they need the experience (Helpful for Part 4 especially if you want someone like Pelleas in your endgame group for fun). But this, THIS BS is nothing compared to that. For flying laguz to be attacked indirectly is a VERY bad thing because one of those instances could be bows or even wind magic. Reducing luck to zero is also very pointless, useless in fact when units probably won't need that reduced luck to land a critical anyway. In addition this is a skill that if the enemy activates it their turn, then it'll go away on your turn! Absolutely pointless! At least quickclaw acts as a laguz counter skill and howl does something useful like immobilize a unit to be used as a punching bag for weaker units. Takes up too much space and the other non-royal laguz are better off with tear.

Best: FE5 Wrath

It's a guaranteed crit for every counterattack. That's ******** ridiculous. FE10's version ******** sucks in comparison. Many characters have PCCs that make it somewhat overkill with, but the fact that it comes in scroll form and that many, many people benefit enormously from it, makes it insane. It does wonders to plenty of the units that have it, anyway. Definitely the best version of Wrath in the series.

Shooting Star in the Jugdral games is pretty insane, also. And it is nice to plow through otherwise unkillable enemies through hitting them so many times with people like Ayra. But considering the damage formula for the games in question, guaranteed critical hits do a lot more damage then repeated hits for what may be a small amount of damage will do. Elite is also a skill I considered, but units level up with or without Elite, so it doesn't get title of best.

Worst: FE10 Mercy

If you need to be babying units by this point, you've either got problems or are being terribly inefficient. Neither of those things are good. This skill is useless.



Looking at the history of skills in the series, it becomes clear Judgral is much, MUCH more generous with what they're capable of. It's possible to make some insanely impressive units through skill combinations in FE10, but the skills in FE4-5 make units incredible with extremely little effort.

Also: just my opinion, I suppose, but Sacrifice is one of the best things Micaiah has going for her. It gives her something to do when it's to dangerous to have her attack or be exposed to enemies before she gets staves. She can use it in conjunction with Wrath to much more easily control getting into its activation range than other units to make for a potent glass canon. It's up to the player to sufficiently protect her.

Another Also: Xavier is totally useful. He's not amazing or anything, but he certainly has a lot going for him. Provides you with a unit who can definitely use lances indoors, likely has exclusive access to all the bows in the game because so many of the bow units suck, etc...

This week's best/worst is staff.

Best: Fortify, best way to heal multiple people than one. :3

Worst: Unlock. Why bother if you have a thief or Assassin or the keys to unlock? >>;

Best: Hammerne.

Really? You need this to be questioned? It fully restores the durability points in a weapon, allowing it to last even longer. Prof. weapons like the Mani Katti and Wolf Beil in Eliwood mode (or Rapier in Hector mode) only appear once in the game and are really good, so keeping those around even longer is perfect. Using it on Legendary weapons is also a good option. Other weapons with low durability points can be kept around longer with the Hammerne too. While it does only get 3 uses, it's probably best to put it to use on weapons you use a lot, but can't get much of. Honorable mentions go to the other utility staves, like the Warp, Rewarp, Rescue, Thief, and Again staff.

Worst: Mediocre

It's hard to pick a really useless staff when most of them have some sort of utility or heal you, but I have to go with the Mediocre staff. According to the data, it's weaker than Heal. I mean, Mag/2 + 1? The Heal Staff guarantees at least 10 HP recovered anytime. The Broken Staff is a honorable mention, but it's not the worst because if you can get it fixed, it becomes whatever it was before it broke.

Best: FE5 Warp. FD gave his reasons for this. It's just a kickass staff that can help anyone.

Worst: Barrier. You can use this, but for me...why bother? I just charge in anyways, and have a way to heal if I need to. I don't bother with buffs that often for my characters, so these are just useless staves for me.

Best: Again. [FE3] Hooooly karp. ALL allies that have gone can be used a again? This is better than a heron that can sing to four units! Of course, a heron would be better in the long run, since Again only has 3 uses. 8'B

Worst: Does Charm count? It's a staff in FE4 that has no effect, but Serenes also says it's unattainable. It does however, exist...

If not, I'll just go with... FE3's Thief, I guess. Worse than other games' thief staff by far in my own opinion and pretty useless to my gameplay, since I usually take care to utilize my thief- which would be better to have anyway, since that thiefness has more than 5 uses and said staff user could be doing something more productive.

Berserk

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Also, Serenes doesn't give me any special info about FE5's Warp... just the basic "transports ally unit to a square". Why is this different than other Warps?
Another question, does barrier work the same way it does in FETO? Because buffs from those staves in FETO are very useful.