Because I notice there're so many people asking the same questions over and over again, figured this would come in handy. Note, that these opinions are solely my own and based off of my own experiences.
The first thing every FS should understand that the position varies greatly across different teams. To an extent this is true for every position, especially on defense, in the game, as players should fit their system, but for a free safety it's so impossible to accomplish every task that this is particularly magnified. Just look at the NFL, for instance, and you see a remarkable range of the types of FS there are, and likewise almost every team uses the FS in a different manner. Probably moreso than any other position you're forced to really analyze your own team's defensive schemes and adapt to them, if your defensive coordinator will not or cannot give you a hand, and you're also going to have to become used to looking at games like a defensive coordinator.
For example, some teams love to use a blitz-heavy cover 1 man system in an effort to apply pressure, hold the ground with CBs, and go for the big plays (sacks, picks). The FS in that system is more-or-less expected to prevent big plays from being home runs, so this is one sort of system where you probably are going to want a ridiculous amount of speed. Even at the detriment of many other stats. And a FS in this sort of system is going to find themselves mired in an arms race with wide receivers (who likewise pump speed), but you don't really have much else of a choice, because this is what's expected of you.
But then if you're in a cover 2 system you'll want more vision and agility and jumping than speed, because you'll be automatically placed in relatively good position. It becomes up to you to make the right read and make the play.
And still others run a very man-heavy system where their FS is expected to cover someone on a routine basis. Then you'll find your build is much like a CB with extremely high agility and maybe even the speed SAs like First Step and Change Direction.
And of course, most of these builds will have serious problems converting from one system to the other. It's impossible to be a jack of all trades, especially in the earlier stages of the game, where you simply will not have the stat points to accomplish everything.
The first question most people seem to ask is, "what should put points in?"
Well the simple answer is to ask your defensive coordinator.
The other simple answer is to raise speed, agility, and vision, in an order up to you (most people go speed -> vision -> agility) to the first stat cap. For better or for worse, a FS still has to get to the play, and those three stats will help you accomplish that rather basic task. Plays tend not to come to you, you go to them. Things get a bit more complicated beyond that.
Strength: In the long run you'll want at least 30, 35 here, because for the most part if you miss a tackle it's a touchdown. Most WRs these days don't have a lot of strength so you usually won't be trucked by them, but a powerback almost definitely will. Higher strength will also give you a higher chance of forcing a fumble in tandem with high speed, but because there's no clear formula, it's hard figuring out what levels of strength/tackling/speed/agility will really make you a hard hitter.
Speed: I'm going to touch on this later, but I actually in the long run this becomes one of the more overrated skills for a FS. You'll obviously want at least the first cap and probably the second cap, because it's not especially expensive, but there're other ways of getting to the play faster. Beyond that will depend highly on your system, but for the most part I think you've got better things to spend points on.
Agility: Highly debateable stat. Again, everyone raises it to the first cap, most people to the second cap, because it lets you get to the play faster. Depending on your speed you might have to go even higher, but there're ways to circumvent it. The most crucial role agility plays for a FS is in avoiding fakes and recovering from being faked, but pure acceleration burst is usually not going to be as important to a FS as it is for a CB.
Jumping: Good, but not required. If you find you're losing a lot of jump balls, you should pump it to a certain point (like 40+) but you can function quite well without.
Stamina: tpat's player creation guide is a good basis. 25-30 is fine for early stages of your career, later on it really doesn't hurt to have 45+ Again, because if you falter, you probably give up a touchdown, and you really, really don't want to cost your team the game in the fourth quarter because your player got winded via in-game breath.
Vision: Arguably the most important stat for a FS. Does two significant things: get you to the ball faster, and prevent you from being faked. At higher levels of competition the threat of jukes and pump fakes is gigantic, and you'll definitely feel a difference if this stat is high.
Confidence: Underrated. First of all you'll probably have low strength an tackling, so the extra boost from confidence (which was specifically said to factor into tackling) is a case of "any help you can get." Confidence seems like a global performance effect. Check out the QB's Demoralize skill, which mentions that a demoralized player will fail more tackles and be able to chase less effectively. Coupled with Bort's mentions of how "you have to have the confidence to make the jump, you have to have the confidence you can chase the player" etc. etc. and it becomes evident people don't give this stat enough love. Tpat told me that he wanted at least 30 Confidence in every defensive player, I'd say by level 35+ you'd want at least 40, if not even bringing it to the first cap.
Tackling: Along with strength this is a tough call for free safeties. Again, the exact relationship of stats for tackling isn't really known. Simply having high tackling and strength will still fail you at times, but a FS usually has high agility/vision etc. so if you miss a tackle it's usually going to be tackling/strength/confidence that's messing you up. From my experience a 35/35/35 split between the three stats is competent and will only make you miss like 10% or less of your tackles, but power backs will definitely still have a field day with you. This comes down to game plan and defensive scheme. If you find your team relies on you to make that saving tackle against RBs on a constant basis (ala cover 1), you're probably going to be raising your strength and tackling higher than normal. 30-35 seems sufficient at this point of the game for tackling WRs and most TEs.
Catching/Carrying: If you're in it solely for the stats, it doesn't hurt to raise these. But raising them beyond what is really necessary won't really do your team much favours.
SAs: http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=1618481
The debate about speed. Most people keep preaching the importance of speed for a FS, but from my experience, the reality is that it's going to be an uphill battle to raise speed enough to catch wide receivers. Think about it. A speed receiver will dump massive amounts of points into speed, agility, catching, vision, and to an extent, jumping, carrying, and confidence. But a receiver can function quite well with most of those stats being at the first soft cap. A "standard" FS with second soft-capped speed, agility, and vision will have invested for something like 36 two-point stats, which is a whopping 36 SP difference if a same-level WR were to just leave things at the first cap. Which means a speed receiver can take 12 of that SP and second-cap their speed, and they'd still have 24 more SP to raise their speed further. Even if they second-cap speed and agility they still have 12 extra SP on you. Not to mention that you can't catch them if you're going at the same speed, and at higher levels, if they have 96 speed and you have 97, they'll probably go the distance before you make up enough ground to catch them from behind. One of the top safeties in USA Pro used to be a pure speed FS with like 100+ speed, but he doesn't even start anymore because the speed of the game has caught up to him, and now he's basically got so many other low stats that he's less effective as a whole than a more balanced FS.
At this point it becomes more a matter of trying to ensure you've got better positioning on him. Higher vision may trump higher speed because you've got a higher chance of being in good position to make the tackle anyways. Closing speed and perhaps even a combination of agility, first step, change direction, jumping, and diving tackle combined with vision may be a better way to stop homerun throws than pure speed. After all, no NFL safety can match the speed of Randy Moss and a host of other receivers, but most plays don't go for very long.
On this line of thought, it becomes a legit question whether a hard hitting safety, at the higher levels of the game, becomes more effective than a pure speed safety at whacking these receivers. You may have better success just pounding these receivers after they get the ball than you would trying to chase them down all game. The only problem is that our hard hitting SAs blow – the only one worthwhile is Monster Hit, but we don't got it! What a shame. And there's no hard hitting tree for CBs either, so you don't really get a whole lot of help there anyways. But the idea would be that, with their relatively low carrying and the nature of high speed collisions, you may have a good chance of forcing fumbles or at least jarring the ball out of their hands for an incompletion. Just food for thought. But anyways, before you go hitting that + sign next to speed once you hit higher levels, think it over a bit.
Hope this helps!
The first thing every FS should understand that the position varies greatly across different teams. To an extent this is true for every position, especially on defense, in the game, as players should fit their system, but for a free safety it's so impossible to accomplish every task that this is particularly magnified. Just look at the NFL, for instance, and you see a remarkable range of the types of FS there are, and likewise almost every team uses the FS in a different manner. Probably moreso than any other position you're forced to really analyze your own team's defensive schemes and adapt to them, if your defensive coordinator will not or cannot give you a hand, and you're also going to have to become used to looking at games like a defensive coordinator.
For example, some teams love to use a blitz-heavy cover 1 man system in an effort to apply pressure, hold the ground with CBs, and go for the big plays (sacks, picks). The FS in that system is more-or-less expected to prevent big plays from being home runs, so this is one sort of system where you probably are going to want a ridiculous amount of speed. Even at the detriment of many other stats. And a FS in this sort of system is going to find themselves mired in an arms race with wide receivers (who likewise pump speed), but you don't really have much else of a choice, because this is what's expected of you.
But then if you're in a cover 2 system you'll want more vision and agility and jumping than speed, because you'll be automatically placed in relatively good position. It becomes up to you to make the right read and make the play.
And still others run a very man-heavy system where their FS is expected to cover someone on a routine basis. Then you'll find your build is much like a CB with extremely high agility and maybe even the speed SAs like First Step and Change Direction.
And of course, most of these builds will have serious problems converting from one system to the other. It's impossible to be a jack of all trades, especially in the earlier stages of the game, where you simply will not have the stat points to accomplish everything.
The first question most people seem to ask is, "what should put points in?"
Well the simple answer is to ask your defensive coordinator.
The other simple answer is to raise speed, agility, and vision, in an order up to you (most people go speed -> vision -> agility) to the first stat cap. For better or for worse, a FS still has to get to the play, and those three stats will help you accomplish that rather basic task. Plays tend not to come to you, you go to them. Things get a bit more complicated beyond that.
Strength: In the long run you'll want at least 30, 35 here, because for the most part if you miss a tackle it's a touchdown. Most WRs these days don't have a lot of strength so you usually won't be trucked by them, but a powerback almost definitely will. Higher strength will also give you a higher chance of forcing a fumble in tandem with high speed, but because there's no clear formula, it's hard figuring out what levels of strength/tackling/speed/agility will really make you a hard hitter.
Speed: I'm going to touch on this later, but I actually in the long run this becomes one of the more overrated skills for a FS. You'll obviously want at least the first cap and probably the second cap, because it's not especially expensive, but there're other ways of getting to the play faster. Beyond that will depend highly on your system, but for the most part I think you've got better things to spend points on.
Agility: Highly debateable stat. Again, everyone raises it to the first cap, most people to the second cap, because it lets you get to the play faster. Depending on your speed you might have to go even higher, but there're ways to circumvent it. The most crucial role agility plays for a FS is in avoiding fakes and recovering from being faked, but pure acceleration burst is usually not going to be as important to a FS as it is for a CB.
Jumping: Good, but not required. If you find you're losing a lot of jump balls, you should pump it to a certain point (like 40+) but you can function quite well without.
Stamina: tpat's player creation guide is a good basis. 25-30 is fine for early stages of your career, later on it really doesn't hurt to have 45+ Again, because if you falter, you probably give up a touchdown, and you really, really don't want to cost your team the game in the fourth quarter because your player got winded via in-game breath.
Vision: Arguably the most important stat for a FS. Does two significant things: get you to the ball faster, and prevent you from being faked. At higher levels of competition the threat of jukes and pump fakes is gigantic, and you'll definitely feel a difference if this stat is high.
Confidence: Underrated. First of all you'll probably have low strength an tackling, so the extra boost from confidence (which was specifically said to factor into tackling) is a case of "any help you can get." Confidence seems like a global performance effect. Check out the QB's Demoralize skill, which mentions that a demoralized player will fail more tackles and be able to chase less effectively. Coupled with Bort's mentions of how "you have to have the confidence to make the jump, you have to have the confidence you can chase the player" etc. etc. and it becomes evident people don't give this stat enough love. Tpat told me that he wanted at least 30 Confidence in every defensive player, I'd say by level 35+ you'd want at least 40, if not even bringing it to the first cap.
Tackling: Along with strength this is a tough call for free safeties. Again, the exact relationship of stats for tackling isn't really known. Simply having high tackling and strength will still fail you at times, but a FS usually has high agility/vision etc. so if you miss a tackle it's usually going to be tackling/strength/confidence that's messing you up. From my experience a 35/35/35 split between the three stats is competent and will only make you miss like 10% or less of your tackles, but power backs will definitely still have a field day with you. This comes down to game plan and defensive scheme. If you find your team relies on you to make that saving tackle against RBs on a constant basis (ala cover 1), you're probably going to be raising your strength and tackling higher than normal. 30-35 seems sufficient at this point of the game for tackling WRs and most TEs.
Catching/Carrying: If you're in it solely for the stats, it doesn't hurt to raise these. But raising them beyond what is really necessary won't really do your team much favours.
SAs: http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=1618481
The debate about speed. Most people keep preaching the importance of speed for a FS, but from my experience, the reality is that it's going to be an uphill battle to raise speed enough to catch wide receivers. Think about it. A speed receiver will dump massive amounts of points into speed, agility, catching, vision, and to an extent, jumping, carrying, and confidence. But a receiver can function quite well with most of those stats being at the first soft cap. A "standard" FS with second soft-capped speed, agility, and vision will have invested for something like 36 two-point stats, which is a whopping 36 SP difference if a same-level WR were to just leave things at the first cap. Which means a speed receiver can take 12 of that SP and second-cap their speed, and they'd still have 24 more SP to raise their speed further. Even if they second-cap speed and agility they still have 12 extra SP on you. Not to mention that you can't catch them if you're going at the same speed, and at higher levels, if they have 96 speed and you have 97, they'll probably go the distance before you make up enough ground to catch them from behind. One of the top safeties in USA Pro used to be a pure speed FS with like 100+ speed, but he doesn't even start anymore because the speed of the game has caught up to him, and now he's basically got so many other low stats that he's less effective as a whole than a more balanced FS.
At this point it becomes more a matter of trying to ensure you've got better positioning on him. Higher vision may trump higher speed because you've got a higher chance of being in good position to make the tackle anyways. Closing speed and perhaps even a combination of agility, first step, change direction, jumping, and diving tackle combined with vision may be a better way to stop homerun throws than pure speed. After all, no NFL safety can match the speed of Randy Moss and a host of other receivers, but most plays don't go for very long.
On this line of thought, it becomes a legit question whether a hard hitting safety, at the higher levels of the game, becomes more effective than a pure speed safety at whacking these receivers. You may have better success just pounding these receivers after they get the ball than you would trying to chase them down all game. The only problem is that our hard hitting SAs blow – the only one worthwhile is Monster Hit, but we don't got it! What a shame. And there's no hard hitting tree for CBs either, so you don't really get a whole lot of help there anyways. But the idea would be that, with their relatively low carrying and the nature of high speed collisions, you may have a good chance of forcing fumbles or at least jarring the ball out of their hands for an incompletion. Just food for thought. But anyways, before you go hitting that + sign next to speed once you hit higher levels, think it over a bit.
Hope this helps!
