Which ST skill is the easiest, and hardest, to learn?
With maintenance starting and nothing much to do, I thought it would be fun to categorise all the ST skills in the game by difficulty. I used my football ability (I'm not a pro or anything) to have a baseline, but also thought about how easily any decent, bang-average footballer would be able to learn the skills AND use them in a match.
Some of them are grouped together. That's only because I couldn't think of a distinctive difference between them. For example, Phenomenal Finishing and Passing are in the same category because, at their most basic, they are both about kicking the ball while off balance - the shooting or passing doesn't really matter, it's the same action.
So, in order of easiest to hardest, here is my list:
- Tap Trick - literally just a drag-back and side-heel.
- Low Screamer - just shoot while keeping the ball on the ground.
- Acceleration Burst - simple explosiveness training, with a ball.
- Aerial Fort - train better aerial clearances.
- Long Reach Tackle - train longer tackling distances.
- Blitz Curl, Edged Crossing - need to learn top spin (took me a few months and injured ankles) and apply it to curling.
- Phenomenal Finishing/Passing, Bullet Header - accurate shots/passes/headers when off balance, trainable by doing those things in awkward positions (e.g. using your heel?), but could risk injury if you pull a muscle to its most extreme.
- Momentum Dribbling - train close ball control. A lot.
- Willpower - similar to feeling ‘warmed up’ in a match, but it won’t have the substantial improvement in real life that it does in game.
- Magnetic Feet - you're unlikely to get stronger when there’s more people pressuring you.
- Attack Trigger, Visionary Pass - almost nothing to do with you/your own pass, relies purely on teammates’ awareness/first touch.
- Attacking Surge, Shadow Hunt, GK Spirit Roar, GK Directing Defence - seems more like a superpower, you can’t just exceed your top speed/strength/defensive ability instantly in a match. With many months of going to the gym, sure.
- Game-changing Pass, Fortress - another superpower, you can’t just gain super-passing/super-defensiveness depending on whether you're winning or not.
That's pretty much it. Again, I'm nowhere near a good footballer, certainly not even at non-league level. I don't play defence either, so I might have under- (or over-) estimated the difficulty of the defensive skills.
