This is something that just came up in my mind while I was writing my post in the United topic, and I thought it would make a great discussion. The title says it all: What skills do you generally place first when you're solving a level? As an extension, what skills do you find easiest to place? Hardest to place?
In my reply, I stated that I generally first place skills which are obvious in the solution. For the most part, if a level provides platformers and builders, I'm very likely to start with these two skills first. Most of the time, these two skills can obviously be placed right away because they're the easiest to determine where they go in a level, but if given the choice, sometimes it's not obvious which skill you should use if both work equally well for a particular gap. The terrain is usually what decides whether you should use a platformer or a builder, but sometimes you just have to use trial and error to determine which one to use. I guess the quantity of platformers/builders provided can also be a deciding factor, where the skill with the higher count is generally the correct one to use.
Other skills are much harder to place because it's not always obvious where they should go in the level. For me, I say stackers and blockers are generally the most difficult to determine. The former because it's generally not obvious if they should be used to hold back lemmings or can be used to ascend the level in short bursts, or even a combination of both. The latter because they can be assigned almost anywhere in a level, but where they're placed is often very crucial and so they can't always just be placed anywhere you like. Most importantly, since they can both hold back the crowd, this fact alone can make it very difficult to determine whether you should use a stacker or a blocker instead.
I guess cloners can be difficult too. Most of the time, they're used to clone a lemming performing a skill, but sometimes it's not always obvious which performing skill you should clone. Should you clone a miner? Glider? Not to mention you can just clone a walking lemming, but you almost always don't ever use a cloner for that purpose, although it's always available as an option when solving a level. Generally, if provided for a level, cloning a walking lemming is used just to meet the save requirement to replace any losses.
Even though the walker skill is quite powerful, perhaps walkers are also difficult. The most obvious use for walkers is to release blockers, but they can also be used to turn a lemming around or to interrupt a basher/miner midstroke. Most of the time, though, they're generally not used to turn a lemming around and is used more for the latter purpose. Because of the multiple uses, it's not always obvious for what purpose the walker should be used when a level provides them, especially in the case of releasing blockers when destructive skills are also provided to release a blocker.
Along a similar line, do you generally place the skills that have a greater skill count first, or the skills that have a lower skill count first? For example, if a level gives 2 bashers and 5 miners, do you generally place the bashers first because there's less of them, or do you start with the miners because there's more of them? In this case, does skill count take precedence over skills that are generally easiest to place? If bashers are easier to place because of the quantity, even though platformers/builders are generally the easiest to place IMO, do you start with the bashers instead or still prefer placing skills that generally are easiest to place first? Now that I think about it, I'm not exactly sure which I generally start with, the skills that have a lower quantity count, or the skills with a higher quantity count. I think for the most part I generally start with the skills that have a lower skill count, because they're usually easier to place. The ones with a higher quantity are usually skills that you're given way more than you need anyway, and so they're generally not problematic in determining placement in a level. Of course, they can still be surprisingly all be used up in the intended solution and thus aren't in excess. Then again, skills with a lower quantity count might be harder to place, and so maybe the skills with larger quantities are easier to place and one should start with them first. Of course, everyone has different methods of solving levels, and which skills are placed first depending on quantity is no exception.
Thoughts? Looking forward to hear other people's methods of which skills they generally place first. In particular, it should be interesting to hear from the level solving experts, but any input is appreciated from anyone.