Special Ability - Useless or useful?

[Too Deadly]

Ive had some good results with the free kick, Ariel defender, & corner takers but the others I find are not as important

[dv8r]

Sorry for the bump but this is a useful thread for anyone

[dv8r]

updated this and it should really be a sticky as someone said earlier

[Sjenon]

Free kick specialist - Useful - These players are brilliant at scoring from free kicks. Sometimes the goalkeeper will make a great save but that's nothing you can do about it, that's just the gave engine throwing in some drama. My player currently on free kicks doesn't even have this ability and scores quite a lot of goals from free kicks, so if you have a player with the ability and another player without one but with a much superior shooting stat, then it is better off choosing them. Having said that, you still need one of these in your team.

Personally i would go as far as saying "Extremely Useful" on this. My MC with Freekick ability scores goals left right and center, in 13 league matches he's scored about 10 Freekicks (2 new ones in today's win). I've had my ST take them on some occations, but he blasts them over or into the wall mostly (and this guys as alot higher Shooting/Finishing than my MC).

So all in all I agree with most of your post, but i would upgrade the Freekick SA to somewhat better than only "useful" - and 2ndly i disagree about having your other player with higher shooting (unless its REALLY considerably higher atleast) to take them instead of the one with SA.

Other than that, well written post and it gave a little to think about atleast

[Tornado88]

Personally I don't bother with SA's. I don't look for them when buying a player (Just see them as a bonus every so often). I always look for quality and age.

In my opinion quality is always the most important thing in a player. In fact my team only has two or three players with SA's and most of them are benched old players.

[influenze]

My shadow striker, i would not want to miss him and looking for another striker for the aml position

[SimplySimon]

To add my view: I tend to think that SA improves a player in a certain area, but quality is ultimately more important if a player is much better

Example - last season my free kick specialist, who at the time was only Q20-ish, scored a hatful of free-kicks and when he didn't play my striker (Q22-ish) was set to take them because he had the best shooting ability and maybe scored one. This season my freekick guy is up to Q25 and mostly a sub, so my Q30 midfielder takes them and he's actually scored a few

So the way I approach this in my squad is I have 14 6* players now, a few have SA. I also have 8 5* players, all of them have a SA


Also, a note on playmaker role. I don't think it means Silva/Mata type player, I think that is a Shadow Striker. I think it's more like the Carrick role at Man Utd, which is why so many DMC have the ability

I had low possession success in some games, so replaced a developing Q30 MC youngster with my playmaker MC (Q26) and noticed the pass success rate increase - this is a very small test over just a few games though

[July Fourth]

Shadow Strikers for me are USELESS

I get more success from having a DC with the corner taker SA.

[Tornado88]

To add my view: I tend to think that SA improves a player in a certain area, but quality is ultimately more important if a player is much better

Example - last season my free kick specialist, who at the time was only Q20-ish, scored a hatful of free-kicks and when he didn't play my striker (Q22-ish) was set to take them because he had the best shooting ability and maybe scored one. This season my freekick guy is up to Q25 and mostly a sub, so my Q30 midfielder takes them and he's actually scored a few

So the way I approach this in my squad is I have 14 6* players now, a few have SA. I also have 8 5* players, all of them have a SA


Also, a note on playmaker role. I don't think it means Silva/Mata type player, I think that is a Shadow Striker. I think it's more like the Carrick role at Man Utd, which is why so many DMC have the ability

I had low possession success in some games, so replaced a developing Q30 MC youngster with my playmaker MC (Q26) and noticed the pass success rate increase - this is a very small test over just a few games though

I've never had a player with the free kick taker ability, the last few seasons it was my average quality AML, he scored a lot of free kicks. His quality was average overall with extremely low defence quality but extremely high attack. This season it's my high quality striker and he's converted more free kicks than penalties XD

[PanteraXIII]

Sorry but I think is just your oppinion. For example all my Midfield Playmaker have never got a lot of yellow cards. Some players make you to have this oppinion, but is a bad one.