Special Ability - Useless or useful?

[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

[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