I was thinking about how my favourite Jeigens were always ones that provide utility outside their capacity to kill things while wasting EXP my other units need more. Chokepoint blocking, setting up kills for their allies, that sort of thing.
It seems like a waste for Skills, especially Personal Skills, to do incredibly minor things. +2 magic? An axe-locked unit gets +5 attack with an axe equipped? A skill that boosts his skill gain or growth rates? You could just give them high stats/growth rates/starting skills and give them more interesting skills on top of that. Skills are more interesting when their use requires me to ask “How do I use this?” and the answer is more complex than “This guy kills good and doesn’t die so charge”.
But one thing I’ve never seen before is a skill that gives adjacent allies improved growth rates. That would be awesome.
Seems like an awkward idea. You’re basically condemning the unit to a life of doing nothing except standing next to the death ball of growth units. It would give a Jagen something to do (or not do as it were) later on though.
I mean, most skills hacks give the Jeigen either Savior (most common), due to the belief that rescue strats are ubiquitousily used by everyone, or Mercy to allow the player to use their silver weapons or high stats without sacrificing actual kills to them.
The real point of contention I have with this idea though is, how high of a boost we talking and how wide is the effect?
Cause +5% is just a Metis Tome on legs and thus not worth it, and if it’s adjacent only then you’d likely want to give them a javelin or something so they aren’t defenceless.
At the same time 20% and 2-3 tiles would be way too much since basically it’d be aptitude at longbow range which would make you bunch too many units together.
Even just 10% can cause a snowballing effect.
This kind of skill is just one of those ideas I’d say sounds good on paper but would be a complete nightmare to actually balance around since even now most aptitude units are offset by having meh growths.
If the boost is significant then levels earned outside that range would feel abysmal. Imagine an unexpected crit that gives your unit a level, normally a pretty good feeling! That turns to ash in your mouth, because that +HP/Skl could have been so much more. Suddenly moving this dude around to give his Blossom Aura becomes the main focus of the phase.
Honestly, I’d probably bench the guy immediately just for my peace of mind.