Atk Smoke 4

The newest addition to the growing family of stat debuffing skills, Smoke skills provide a powerful AOE debuff to units. Foes within two spaces will receive a hefty reduction of seven to the skill’s target stat. The major disadvantage to using Smoke skills is they do not debuff the actual enemy in combat with your unit. It is possible for Smoke skills to debuff many, or no enemies. The stat reduction of seven is otherwise hugely impactful, especially when fighting clustered groups of enemies.

Smoke skills cannot stack with other debuffs on the same stat, but can be used in conjuction with skills that debuff different stats, or different targets. For instance, Atk Smoke can be used in combination with Seal Atk to ensure that everyone get debuffed. There are several weapons that have excellent synergy with Smoke skills, as they provide similar effects. Clarisse’s Bow and Dark Breath are two such examples that with a Smoke skill can debuff a total of three stats on a wide group of enemies. Ranged weapons are better suited to this skill’s effects, being able to debuff foes from a longer range. Debuff skills are often more powerful in combination, so consider carefully which combination you wish to build onto your units.

The biggest flaw to Smoke skills is their inability to debuff the actual enemy your unit is in combat with. This makes Smoke skills much more unreliable than other debuffs, despite not having an activation requirement aside from entering combat. Debuffs tend to work better when surgically applied to a specific enemy, to prevent or allow a KO to take place. Debuffs such as Ploy skills are better at this, and can debuff a unit before you enter combat with them.