Skill Demotion, and Why It's Important for the Sustainability of This Game...

PREFACE: As far as gachas go, I've only ever played FEH, so please feel free to comment how other gacha address the problems I'm going to be speaking about here. Additionally, I quit about a month ago because I understand I have issues with addiction, in this case gambling, so pardon if I get any of my facts wrong. For all I know, IS has released Swift Impact 6 in that time, and I'm just not aware lol.

I really don't know how much longer Fire Emblem Heroes is going to survive for, and that's kind of a weird thought to have. I started this game right around launch and only recently quit, so I've played a game with occasional breaks for 2 years. So thinking about the future in that constrained view of time makes you think about the direction the game is going, and whether it's the right direction to go. Recently, we've seen the increasing pace of powercreep, with the addition of a new, powerful unit type, Tier 4 skills with extra effects, Gen 3 BST and more. It's almost like Book III is an allegory for FEH dying ecksdee. While this is troubling, it isn't the root of the problem. These skills are aimed at whales who either want a shiny new statline or a skill to put on their arena armors, and the majority of players are still going to be able to beat these powerful, low merge units with their heavily merged favorites.

One of the main aspects of the game is building up units with different skills and builds in order to take on maps and challenges present in the Special Maps and Various modes in the game, and that basic cycle is pretty fun. It's cool to finally merge your unit to +10, seeing how their super high-end skills and weapons interact to beat opponents and support their team in the competitive modes. Or, it could be giving skills to a unit you don't plan to merge or 4☆+10 so they can better serve as a counter or supporter in modes like Arena Assault. The problem arises when trying to find different builds for your units, however. There are many, many garbage skills as fodder from launch units that don't work on all but highly niche builds (Obstruct, Armored/Warding Blow, Seals) or are just outclassed by other skills that have the same purpose (Brazen>Defiant, Dual Spur>Spur). There are some launch skills that are pretty good and have good synergy potential from launch, specifically Fury, Desperation, QR and to a lesser extent DB and Vantage. And these 5 skills are perniciously ruining the game.

I've spoken to a few friends online and some irl who used to play the game and asked them why they quit. Usually the answer I got from them wasn't anything to do with the amount of alts a unit gets or how IS changed the rewards in a mode, but just that the game got boring for them. None of these people were whales, and they usually had a small collection of 5 stars that they would clear content with (horse emblem for instance). Many of them would use the skills available to them on 4 stars as opposed to more powerful options, namely fury or DB on an offensive unit and fury/QR on a defensive unit. They did some content, it was fun, but they're still using these skills on units for months and months, as they haven't been able to pull much fodder that's useful for them. Then they quit because they didn't care enough to play a stale game. Eventually, this happens to more and more people, and all who are left are the hardcore FE nuts and the whales. And then what's the point of playing Arena or AR if it's filled with only the worst people to fight against, whales? And even when a person gets a piece of fodder from a 5 star, maybe there's no unit that wants a skill from the 5 star you don't care about, or the skills just not good enough fodder to give to anyone?

I don't believe IS even needs to demote characters into the regular summoning pool (though, I would really like them to considering all the interesting, but not astonishing units from Book 1 IS recently locked to regular banners). If they added skill manuals with a line of the skills, that would still let us put a skill on a unit without having to pull for a unit you may not want to use.

For fun, here's a list of skills I believe would be okay for IS to demote into the summoning pool or have as SI on free units. Releasing into the regular pool is better though, because you can pull more than 3 copies of them, and not be losing out on merges if you're a fan of the unit. I'll run them down quickly, and you can contest them in comments...

Weapons

Horse-Effective Weapons - These weapons are only out on 3 units: Mathilda, who's easy to get, Gerome, who's free but Grail-able, and Gray, a 5* exclusive who's not in the regular pool anymore. It's not that horse effectiveness is that great of an advantage compared to armor effectiveness, but the option would be appreciated for a 4*+10 Sword that exists to beat cav units, or other builds like that.

Defensive Weapons - The defensive lances are readily available, but Safeguard is on a 5* dancer who's only been on 3 banners, and the defensive axes just don't exist, same for Firesweep Axe. The defensive weapons allow some of the older units to be able to survive these hyper-offense units and BF armors, but not having some in the regular pool for some types is more annoying than anything.

Seasonal Weapons - Seasonal Weapons aren't that big of a deal, since most are very niche, but some things like the Effective Daggers, the Wo Dagger, and the Owl Breath are seasonal only, and situationally great, or fairly good options that don't have an equivalent in the regular pool.

A Skills

Bond Skills - Some are already on TT units, but not the Atk/Spd and Def/Res. Altogether, the positioning limits the usefulness of Atk/Spd, as seen with the seal, but I understand the Def/Res one because it could facilitate supertanks.

Push Skills - Push Skills are kind of bad given that they only benefit the first encounter, even if the boosts are powerful at+6 to two stats. But with things like Falchions, Renewal, or carrot weapons, there are ways to play around this which makes push skills decent.

Stance Skills - While EP technically seems better than PP for increasing stats on considering the possibility of engaging multiple foes, but in practice, they're not great. The Defensive ones are ok, but the Spd one is more unreliable than QR, and Fierce means you can't run a defensive A slot in it's place, but it has it's places. Dual stance skills are pretty decent, but it's better to get +3 to all rather than +4 to two stats only on EP, but they have their uses on tanks.

Dual Blows - Mostly Sparrow should be dropped, because EP is generally more valuable nowadays and most of the units who really wanted it have it in their base kits.

Heavy/Flashing Blade - You usually want something to increase your offenses in the A slot, plus the latter is locked to infantry and armor, so its use is limited anyway.

Boost Skills - These skills are pretty bad, but it's crazy that Fire Boost is only available by promoting V!Eliwood to 5*, and Wind Boost isn't available at 4* at all. It would help out the launch units who tend to have higher HP.

Dual Stat Skills - These are nice and simple, especially on healers, but some of them are ludicrously difficult to obtain, like Spd/Def 2 only being on Tana, or Def/Res 2 only being on H!Myrrh. They're not even that great, but not being able to get them at all is kind of a shame for budget builds that just want two stats.

B Skills

Feint Skills - To use these skills well, it means sacrificing your ability to attack on your turn, in order to get the feint off. They're a bit better than Ploys and especially good on mixed attack/support units, but they also require the B slot, which is contested by good support like Chills and good attack like QR or Desp. These also only work on some stats, so IS could release the "weaker stat" versions and release others later.

Link Skills - These have even less of a reason to stay rare, considering high arena scoring means using Rallies instead of Repositionals. It provides a great stat boost for the two units affected, and it's not broken in the hands of AI, because it tends to use assist skills on people that don't matter usually.

Dual Seals - These aren't great because of how focused FEH is on ORKOing, so it's a mystery why these are kept on 5* exclusives and never dropped. For some units that aren't great at KOing, or for Splash damage builds, they could be at best a usable option.

Dual Dance Boosts - WoM is a much cheaper option with more utility, so it's a wonder why we never got the best of the dual dance boosts to counteract these. I'd run the Atk/Spd one, but it's currently on a 5* exclusive unit on 3 banners ever, and that's not even telling all of the Dance skills that are exclusive to seasonals.

Dull Ranged/Close - These skills aren't bad on units that are meant to counter movement type teams, and Ranged isn't bad to get. But the close version would be a great answer for armor teams running fortify, and that was only on one seasonal for some reason.

Shield Pulse - This one isn't a great skill, even on Fjorm, but it would open up the possibility of running defensive specials on units at all, which basically don't exist at the moment because it's too important to run offensive specials.

*C Skills

Skills that only have one option not easily available - All of the Drives except Atk are available on 4 star units that have been available for a while, Spd tactic is only available as your free unit for year 2, Goad Armor is only available with V!Eliwood, and from Hector.

Dual Spurs - Except for I think the defense/res one, these are only really available on 5 stars. Dual spurs are actually decent, not great, but it's way easier to get the Drive buff, and to get the Drive skills.

Close/Distant Guard - You'd think these would be good considering the premium units they're on, but it really amounts to one point more Defense than Drive Def, but only for either close or ranged foes. It's fairly good defending on your team comp, but mostly, you choose Drive Def or Res because they're easier to get.

What are your thoughts?