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This is an article on skills that you should avoid inheriting on your units. For information on which skills to avoid inheriting and explanations on alternatives or better skills, read on!
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Unfortunately when it comes to building units to their maximum potential, premium or rare fodder is the way to go.
While budget options do exist and many newer units have more and more complete kits that need little Skill Inheritance, older or non-meta units still rely on these types of skills in order to be of any relevance in PvP modes like Aether Raids and the Arena.
Because of the nature of premium fodder, it's best to have a plan on units you actually plan to build and use for PvP game modes.
These can be your favorite units or those popular in the meta, but planning out who to prioritize building is crucial to maximizing fodder.
So if you pull for a unit with good inheritable skills and you're not sure who to give them to, save them first!
This way you won't be scrambling looking for a fodder unit when you do have a unit that you want to build.
There are a lot of useful skills in the game, some having a niche in PvE maps, while others are more staple and are used in PvP modes.
An example of this is using the basic skills like Attack +3 or Res +3 to manipulate enemy AI in Abyssal maps.
Other skills are considered the best of the best and can be used in any game mode such as A/R Far Save 3 or Joint Drive Atk.
However, there are skills that should not be inherited because they are not useful in either PvE or PvP game modes, even as budget options.
Due to the nature of the game, skills become obsolete when a better version of their effects come out or the meta shifts.
For instance, Fury 3 was the skill that most units had in their A slot, but has since been replaced with either the Solo skills (Atk/Spd Solo 4 or similar) or the Push skills (Atk/Spd Push 4 or similar).
Many skills have gone the same way and are either now just niche or are straight up not used anymore.
Obsolete or skills you shouldn't inherit are the ones discussed below.
Both Fortress Def 3 and Fortress Res 3 were skills that tanks used to bulk themselves up further while sacrificing some of their Atk.
However, both skills are now obselete because of the presence of Fort. Def/Res 3.
After all, why pick to boost one defensive stat over another when you can boost both and sacrifice even less Atk on top of it?
While some Blow skills like Death Blow 4 or Darting Blow 4 are still relevant in the meta, others like Armored Blow 3 and Warding Blow 3 are not worth inheriting.
This is due to similar, more powerful skills like Swift Sparrow 3, Impact skills (Sturdy Impact or similar), or Solo skills being introduced to the game.
Skills that give units a boost when they're at a certain amount of HP aren't new, but the old set of such skills like Defiant Atk 3 or Defiant Spd 3 have been rendered obsolete because of the Brazen skills.
A skill such as Brazen Atk/Spd 3 not only boosts two stats at once unlike the Defiant skills, but also has a more forgiving HP threshold (HP ≤ 80% rather than HP ≤ 50%).
The Brazen skills are also invisible buffs, which means that your units are less prone to Panic effects, another thing they have over the Defiant skills.
Due to units having higher stats with every release and the differing stats between units, Boost skills like Water Boost 3 have become unreliable.
Even if you did have a tanky unit that could make use of a Boost skill, they could be powercrept by another unit.
The high HPs of enemy units in PvE maps also renders these skills unusable.
The aforementioned Solo and Push skills are miles better when it comes to combat buffs and don't rely on comparing stats against another unit.
While good in theory, the Form skills like Spd/Def Form 3 are lackluster with their effects.
You can whittle away at the bonuses by eliminating a unit's allies, making them receive less and less.
Unity skills like Atk/Def Unity not only does a functionally similar effect, but also has the potential for granting more bonuses because of the amount of debuffs in the game.
It also requires just one ally in range for it to trigger.
You can also just opt for a Solo skill in place of a Form skill.
It will be active at all times, at the cost of giving just one point less in bonuses (+7 max for Form vs. +6 for Solo).
While Iote's Shield and Svalinn Shield do have their uses for flying and armored units respectively, unfortunately the same cannot be said for Grani's Shield.
Due to cavalry units inherently having low stats without a skill boosting them, using Grani's Shield is a waste.
It's better to give your cavalry units Solo skills for their A slot to boost their stats, or in the case of Reinhardt, a skill like Death Blow 4.
Shield Session 3 is a skill that is the defensive counterpart of Blade Session 3.
However, unlike Sword Session being used on certain units, Shield Session is a rather obsolete skill.
This is because this skill relies on giving your unit buffs based on the number of enemy units that have acted.
The nature of this skill wants you to put it on a defensive unit, but tanks can be enhanced by skills like Sturdy Stance 3 or the Solo skills.
Wary Fighter 3 used to be a good armored unit skill to prevent follow-up attacks.
Unfortunately, this skill has since been powercrept by Special Fighter 3, Crafty Fighter 3, or Slick Fighter 3.
Budget options like Bold Fighter 3 or Vengeful Fighter 3 are also still more used, making Wary Fighter the only Fighter skill that sadly has faded into unuse.
Another skill that contributed to making this skill obsolete is Null Follow-Up 3 and similar skills.
Odd Follow-Up 3 and Even Follow-Up 3 went much like Wary Fighter 3.
Unfortunately for these skills, they are too reliant on what turn it is to score a follow-up attack.
The above mentioned Fighter skills still in use are still better in terms of utility.
On paper, Live for Honor and Live for Bounty seemed like good skills for farming.
However, these skills are simply not worth investing in for a couple of reasons.
The first is that these skills are only found in Seasonal units, which means that they're very rare and only come once a year.
The second is that quests and game modes already give enough Hero Badges and Crystals that these seems like win more skills and are unnecessary.
Seal skills like Seal Atk 3 or Seal Res 3 have become obsolete due to their effects being too weak.
They inflict the debuff only on the target and only after combat.
The Seal skills were eventually replaced by the likes of Chill skills like Chill Res 3, which debuffs at the start of the turn, and Smoke skills like Atk Smoke 3, which is found on the C slot.
Unlike the extremely useful Assist skills used by dancers, the Dance skills found on the B slot like Caldera Dance 2 or Torrent Dance 3 aren't widely used, if they're ever used at all.
This is purely because of the existence of Wings of Mercy 3 which most, if not all, dancers use on the same slot.
Dancer mobility are a better trade off than just giving flat buffs.
It's also notable that some of these skills are available as Sacred Seals.
Dull Ranged 3 and Dull Close 3 were not really seen as good since their release due to better B skills that were available.
This is due to their rather weak effects and being powercrept with better damage reduction skills like Spurn 3 and Close Call 3.
They're further pushed into obsolesence because the game also has damage reduction Sacred Seals like Deflect Missile 3 and Deflect Magic 3.
Feint skills would seem like they would be used in the Arena because Rally skills (Rally Atk/Def+ and similar skills) trigger them.
However, like the Seal and Dull skills, there are better B skills that can be used instead of the likes of Atk Feint 3 or Spd Feint 3.
They are also available as Sacred Seals, but are not widely used as such either because of better options available.
Like the Dance skills, Cantrip skills seem to have been an attempt to give dancers other skills to use in their B slot.
While the debuffs given by skills like Res Cantrip 3 are pretty powerful on a single stat, the utility given by Wings of Mercy 3 is just too good to give up.
Snag skills like Atk/Spd Snag 3 work the same way as the Feint skills in that they're triggered by a Rally skill.
However, Snag skills were powercrept by Ruse skills like Atk/Spd Ruse 3, as they not only provide debuffs, but also inflict the Guard status.
A skill like Live to Serve 3 seems good on paper due to the sustain it gives your healers, but in doing so, you have to give up either Wrathful Staff 3 or Dazzling Staff 3, two skills crucial to healers in the game.
It's also notable that healers are split into two types - utility and damage.
Utility healers don't attack and are support units while damage healers usually aim to one-shot enemy units.
This means that healers in general wouldn't be taking any damage to warrant having a sustain skill like Live to Serve.
Spur Atk 3 or Spur Spd 3 were skills that used to be used on dancers and other support units to buff their allies.
However, these skills were powercrept with the introduction of Drive skills like Joint Drive Atk, which only required allies to be within 2 spaces of each other instead of being next to each other.
The existence of debuffing units like Aversa that discourages allies from sticking together also helped in making these skill obsolete.
Tactic skills like Res Tactic 3 and Def Tactic 3 work the similarly to Drive skills, except they're visible buffs and require at at most 2 units to have a different movement type than their allies.
This restriction wasn't a problem then when many teams were mixed in composition, but with the rise of transforming units like Tibarn, Freyja, and Fallen Edelgard and the Drive skills, Tactic skills quickly fell out of favor.
Skills and structures that inflicted debuffs on visible buffs like Panic Smoke 3 and the Panic Manor in Aether Raids also didn't help and so Tactic skills fell out of use and are not worth inheriting anymore.
Drive skills are the better version of the Tactic skills, which was already mentioned above.
Threat. Atk/Def 3 and similar skills revolve around debuffing opponents when they're within 2 spaces.
Older Threaten skills like Threaten Atk 3 will only debuff opponents, while skills like Threat. Atk/Res 3 will also give buffs to the unit that has it.
While the latter iteration was pretty good for a while, they were soon overtaken by the Menace skills.
Skills like Atk/Spd Menace have a wider range (triggering if an opponent is within 4 spaces) and give stronger debuffs and buffs.
While some Menace skills build out of Threaten skills, the rule of thumb is that you shouldn't inherit just the Threaten skill as the final one in the chain, but try to get a Menace skill as much as possible.
Ploy skills, like Threaten skills, debuff opponents but this time with comparing their stats against the unit that has them.
This usually compares the unit's Res, as in the case of Spd Ploy 3, or HP, like Panic Ploy 3.
However, due to newer units having more and more bloated stats, Ploy skills have fallen largely out of favor because they became unreliable.
Smoke skills like Atk Smoke 3 are more reliable in spreading debuffs, even if they require a unit to go to combat to spread them.
Another set of turn-reliant skills, Wave skills such as Odd Atk Wave 3 or Even Res Wave 3 grant buffs to a certain stat on a certain turn for a unit and their allies.
In this way, they function similarly to Tactic skills.
You can already see the downsides to these skills due to their activation only on certain turns.
While there are Wave skills as Sacred seals, you're better off running a Drive skill like Joint Drive Spd or similar without having to deal with the turn requirement.
The only exception where being inherited a Wave skill is actually good is Nino, due to her weapon refine having Even Atk Wave built in.
You can inherit Odd Atk Wave 3 to her to always have a Wave skill active every turn.
Opening skills like Atk Opening 3 and Spd Opening 3 are support skills that boost an ally's stat even more if they have the highest value of that stat.
However, this excludes the unit that owns the skill.
Because of this, as previously mentioned, Joint Drives are the better alternative, as they not only affect allies but the unit that holds the skill as well.
Gap skills such as Atk/Spd Gap 3 are functionally the same as Opening skills, except they buff two stats instead of one.
Thus, they have the same weakness and also the same better alternative - Joint Drive skills.
Spd/Res Oath 3 and similar skills give buffs at the beginning of the turn if a unit is adjacent to an ally.
Much like the previously mentioned Tactic skills, these visible buffs are easily turned into debuffs by several different skills nowadays that they're not really worth inheriting.
Once again, Joint Drives are the better alternative or equipping a Solo skill on the A slot and Sacred Seal slot.
These skills (like Sword Exp. 3 and similar) are the most unnecessary ones to inherit because leveling up is really easy in the game.
Aside from upgrading your castle to give 100% experience to your units, you can also use crystals or spam the week's Special Training maps.
You are better off using a unit with a Valor skill (Sword Valor 3 and similar) for increased SP, which every unit needs for Skill Inheritance and weapon refines.
Infantry Rush 3 is a support skill for full infantry teams and works similarly to a Ploy skill.
Instead of debuffs, they compare Atk stats and will grant the Heavy Blade effect.
This is also unreliable because different Atk stats of units, and more often than not older units will struggle against newer ones.
Alternatives that full infantry teams use is either Infantry Breath 3 or Infantry Pulse 3.
Units themselves can just pack in a Time's Pulse 3 if they would like their Specials up without the aid of an ally skill.
Astra is a 4 cooldown Special that boosts your unit's damage by 150% when it triggers.
However, while the amount of damage is tempting, the 4 cooldown is a bit long.
The best Specials you can inherit when it comes to damage is currently Ruptured Sky or Blue Flame.
However, even without these premium Specials, you can still opt for Moonbow, Iceberg, or Luna.
Not only do they have lower cooldowns than Astra, the damage your unit deals is still pretty significant when you take into account your unit's entire kit when they're built.
On paper, Vengeance seems like a good Special to give to units using Vantage 3.
However, in the current meta, most units are either likely to be one-shot or not deal enough damage with Vengeance anyway due to the low HP threshold a unit needs to be to be in Vantage range (HP ≤ 75%).
The above Specials mentioned are good alternatives, though for tanky Vantage users, you can also use Bonfire.
Damage mitigation Specials like Pavise and Sacred Cowl were a thing at game's launch and stuck around for a while.
But as we know, powercreep eventually made it and with damage mitigation skills, these Specials were throw out in favor of damage-dealing ones.
Another factor is that even these Specials will not save a unit from being one-shot by a properly built offensive unit.
And since they don't deal any damage, will not be able to trade with them even if they did stack damage mitigation skills.
You're better off having a damage mitigation skill and either a damage Special like any of those mentioned above or a sustain Special like Sol or Noontime.
With the way FEH's meta shifts and new skills are introduced, it's inevitable that skills will powercreep others or will be considered weaker than those already existing.
Are there skills that you think are obsolete now or aren't worth inheriting?
Let us know in the dicsussion board below!
| Hero Roles | |
|---|---|
| Heroes with Refresher Skills | List of Staff Users |
| Physical Wall Heroes (Tanks) | Magic Wall Heroes (Res Tanks) |
| Beginner Guides | |
|---|---|
| Five Things to Know Before Starting | Reroll Tier List |
| Hero Building | Beginner's Guide |
| List of All Skills | How to Get Free Orbs |
| My Summoner Guide | Should I Merge or Fodder Off Units? |
| Arena Guides | |
|---|---|
| Arena Guide | Best Arena Teams |
| Win 5 Battles in Arena With No Deaths | Arena and Aether Raids Seasons |
| Aether Raids Articles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Aether Guides | List of Aether Raids Structures | |
| Aether Raids Offense Guide | Best Aether Raid Defense Units | |
| Summoner Duels Articles | |
|---|---|
| Summoner Duels Guide |
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