Fire Emblem Engage allows players a great deal of customization when it comes to their units, those units classes, and the lineup they bring into missions. One element that players don't have control over is the Personal Skill of a unit. Each and every character that can be recruited into the Divine Dragon's Army has a Personal Skill they can utilize.
Fire Emblem Engage's personal skills are a mixed bag, running the full spectrum from highly situational to consistently powerful, and knowing the Personal Skills of the units brought into battle can play a huge role in strategy, especially on higher difficulties and/or in later maps. This guide will break down some of the best Personal Skills the game has to offer, and suggest some strategies that make good use of them.
Alear: Divinely Inspiring
Fittingly for the main character, and the only character that is mandatory on every story map, Alear's Personal Skill is a very effective skill that can be beneficial in many situations. As the Divine Dragon, adjacent units are inspired by Alear's presence and deal +3 damage while adjacent to them. This means that units with a bit of range, like Clanne and Etie in the early game, can move up behind Alear and dish out extra damage from a safe position. Additionally, Divinely Inspiring reduces all damage taken by adjacent units by 1, so it can strengthen units standing near Alear and help them to survive attacks they otherwise might not.
Keeping Alear on, or near, the frontlines allows them to buff up other frontline units just by existing. This makes them a great addition to most lineups, which is good when they're required for story maps. Since Clanne, Framme, and Vander all have Personal Skills that buff themselves and the Divine Dragon while adjacent to the Divine Dragon, they tend to benefit even more from being positioned to activate this skill, especially in the earlier stages of the game.
Louis: Admiration & Chloé: Fairy-Tale Folk
A more situational, but very useful, skill is Admiration. Louis' personal skill reduces the damage he takes by 2 as long as there are two female allies within 2 spaces that are adjacent to each other. This is a bit specific as a trigger criteria, but entirely doable in the average fight, and allows Louis to become even harder to take out. As an Armored Unit by default in a game where Armored Units are especially powerful, this defensive boost can be very valuable.
On the offensive side of the equation, Chloé's Fairy-Tale Folk skill allows her to deal 2 extra damage if a male ally and a female ally are adjacent and within two spaces of her. With a similar activation condition, this skill allows Chloé to dish out extra damage while active but can be trickier to activate due to her high mobility on the battlefield.
Alcryst: Get Behind Me!
A skill that really shines with good positioning is Alcryst's personal skill: Get Behind Me! This skill boosts his Str by 3 for one turn when an ally within 2 spaces of him is attacked. This allows him to put out extra damage and pairs excellently with his natural affinity for archery, letting him sit behind a tankier unit and gain a buff from them getting attacked. It also pairs tremendously well with Emblem Lyn, whose Call Doubles ability allows Alcryst to have backup on demand that enemies will attack, triggering his skill.
Anna: Make a Killing
One skill that greatly aids any player in need of gold is Anna's personal skill: Make a Killing. This skill has a chance to grant 500G when Anna kills a foe, with the percentage chance of activation equalling her Luck. This means that Anna can generate vast amounts of gold if she's sufficiently leveled up and has a good amount of Luck, and this can be achieved more easily by making use of either Byleth or Tiki to get luck stat boosts that can also be inherited.
Dropping Anna in a Skirmish Map with good stats and a solid strategy can allow her to rake in tremendous amounts of Gold in no time at all, so taking the time to build Anna is well worth the trouble. This is especially true if players want to max out the Donation Level for each region.
Céline: Gentle Flower
This one is especially useful in the early game when access to units with healing abilities is limited and remains useful throughout as a way to stretch the effects of healing items. Gentle Flower boosts the healing effect of recovery items by 50% for allies within 2 spaces of her, which provides tons of extra healing and is relatively easy to activate.
Jean: Expertise
A skill that can quickly turn Jean into a tremendously powerful unit, Expertise doubles the growth rate of all of Jean's stats, meaning he can quickly catch up with and even surpass other units in terms of raw stats and works even better when he switches classes to get access to better stat growth rates. If players have access to the DLC, equipping Jean with Tiki for the flat +12 Growth Rate boost provided by Starsphere can allow him to gain strength even faster.
Yunaka: Trained to Kill
Yunaka's Personal Skill, along with hinting at her murky past, allows her to unleash critical hits far more often by taking advantage of any terrain type that grants Avo. When occupying such terrain she gains +15 Crit, and this type of terrain can be created by certain unit types when equipped with Corrin, allowing Yunaka to pair up with another unit and have permanent access to her ideal terrain.
Lindon: Weapon Insight
Similar to Yunaka's Personal Skill, Weapon Insight gives Lindon a huge Crit boost (+20) as long as he's wielding a weapon with a lower level than the foe. Since most late-game enemies wield higher-level weapons, this allows Lindon near constant access to this boost even when using mid-level weapons, though his default selection of Tomes is a little strong for taking advantage of this constantly.
Pandreo: Party Animal
Another Personal Skill that can greatly strengthen a unit is Pandreo's skill: Party Animal. This grants him a boost to Hit and Avo equal to 3x the number of units within 2 spaces of him. This allows him to perform excellently when fighting alongside allies against groups of enemies and helps improve his survivability.
Seadall: Curious Dance
Seadall's Personal Skill, Curious Dance, is simple and effective. It allows him to restore 10% HP to all allies within 2 spaces of him at the start of the turn, which can be very useful to keep the units he's supporting with Dance healthy, even as they press the advantage granted by the extra turn he gives them. This skill requires players to think carefully about their positioning when using Seadall, but pays off with an excellent amount of free healing.
The Heavy Spoilers Double Feature (Spoilers for Chapters 21 and 22)
The two final recruits in the game, Veyle and Mauvier, have some suitably powerful Personal Skills to encourage their use at this late point in the game. Let's begin by talking about Mauvier's skill: Contemplative. Contemplative encourages players to use Mauvier to press forward by boosting his defense by 2 for 1 turn when he ends his turn without attacking or using an item. This allows him to move in close to enemies more safely, and take some extra hits from attacks during the enemy turn before moving again.
Next up is Veyle, who has a flipped version of Alear's skill: Divinely Inspiring. Her version, called Fell Protection, causes allied units to take 3 less damage and deal 1 extra damage, allowing her to provide a group defensive buff while also providing a small boost to their damage dealt. Her default class has access to decent ranged attacks, encouraging her to stand behind tougher units and provide extra damage while her Personal Skill strengthens their defense and allows them to soak up enemy attacks.
Fire Emblem Engage is available for Nintendo Switch.
