#apparently she does not do damage is strictly a healer/buffer?

[fishareglorious]

Oh? Thats an interesting thing to know about her.

[crystalelemental]

Okay so, I started playing Masters literally two days ago and I don't know what I'm doing except there is a Serperior (with Rosa) for free and I am hype, cause he's my favourite gen 5 starter, what do I do with him?

Oh hey, welcome, I'm sorry if I've dragged you into a gacha. I do enjoy it though, hopefully you're having fun too.

As for Rosa and Serperior...I mean she's not bad, but it's not a great story in the current climate.

General Overview As a general note on battle, the flow tends to be setup phase until first sync move, then attacking with the strikers. Rosa's function then is to use X Sp Atk All to get everyone's special attack as high as it can, and then alternate her own attacks with her trainer move, which can fully refresh the gauge. The only really tough part of using her is knowing when to attack and when to refresh; play around and you'll get a feel for it.

So why is Rosa kinda sad? Well, in the modern game, a lot of supports want to buff more than one thing, and Rosa doesn't. Notably, she doesn't buff crit rate. This isn't a huge deal early on when you're just starting to clear content, but when you make your way up to Master Mode, it's a bit of a problem due to how Physical and Special Shields work. Crits ignore the damage reduction, and because of that, they're considered "free" points, but it does mean crit buffing is mandatory. As a result, Rosa functions best with someone who can buff their own crit, or another supporter helping maximize a single damage-dealer.

The other issue with Rosa is that...well, she's one of the originals. So her moves are notably lacking. On a Roll Energy Ball isn't bad, and is probably her best use. Master Healer Giga Drain sounds great until you realize she's not going to contribute much in damage. This is doubly true because...free 5*. Free is a blessing, 5* is a curse, because the only way to increase her move level to unlock more of her sync grid is using the move candies. Which take forever. I've been playing almost seven months now, and have exactly three supporter candies. You'd need two in order to fully unlock her grid. And unless you go 2/5 move level, she can't get everyone's special attack to maximum, so she's a bit demanding in that sense. There are just...a lot of problems that were meant to limit a good unit back then, but wound up costing them a lot as things developed. But early on, she's fantastic, one of very few special attack buffers, and generally really sturdy, with the best F2P gauge control you're going to get.

Team 1: Rosa, Giovanni, Liza A pretty simple F2P combination, focusing on Giovanni as a damage dealer. Rosa and Liza can top off Giovanni's special attack in two actions each, and Liza can help buff special defense for the team. Giovanni's trainer move buffs crit rate by 2, which means he actually receives some benefits from Rosa's strictly special attack buff. While Giovanni's fast, he's also frail, so attacking quickly is important, and having a quick button to refill the gauge is pretty great.

Team 2: Rosa, Silver, Blaine This one requires Silver to get a Lucky Cookie for Dauntless (Lucky Cookies come from the Battle Villa; it opens tomorrow, but might be kinda challenging at first so just clear what you can and don't worry too much about this one yet), but once he has that, it's very similar to Giovanni. Rosa buffs his special attack for Overheat, Blaine sets sun for added damage. Rosa also has some decent nodes for sun if she goes 3/5, so she fits surprisingly well as a special attack buffer.

Team 3: Rosa, Barry, Winona Barry here actually buffs his crit rate, a thing I did not know. That's great, because now Rosa supplements his special attack, and he can hit faster. Winona sets Rain, which is a huge multiplier for Barry. Weather conditions are a stacked 50% damage bonus, so very very good for damage numbers.

Team 4: Rosa, Koga, BP Erika Apparently Koga raises crit rate? And his sync is specially offensive? So that is...actually really cool, I didn't know that. BP Erika is the choice here, because she has Toxic to bypass the setup phase for Koga. Oh, BP units are units you get by accumulating BP through the Regional Rotation battles under Events. I think the first ticket is after like 500 BP or something? You exchange them for other units, and there are some solid options, but BP Erika is my absolute favorite because she does not care about anything the foe is doing, she's just here to toxic stall.

Team 5: Rosa, Hop, MU Solgaleo Hop and Solgaleo are free events coming up in the next few weeks, and they're a really good team together for physical steel-type damage, because Hop can buff everything for it. Also theme skills, which don't matter until way later, but are basically a way to increase stats based on matching "themes" among your party members. Early on, the only one worth noting is main typing; because they're both Steel, they get stat buffs for being in the same team. But Solgaleo also has Focus Blast, which is great special Fighting damage too. Hop can buff your crit rate, Rosa can buff your special attack, and Solgaleo can go hog wild. Hop and Solgaleo also feel pretty slow, so Rosa's move gauge cap is nice.

Team 6: Rosa, Dawn, Lyra While not F2P at all, this was a team I used my first time through Battle Villa, and they do pretty well together. Not great, but pretty well. They'll get you through the early floors anyway, and that's at least a decent chunk of rewards. Really, I hope they release Sycamore before Villa ends. A lot of F2P players could actually clear villa with that guy.

Final Thoughts I think maybe I undersold Rosa a bit at the outset. I kinda moved away from her due to her buff game being pretty limited, but she's honestly a solid partner for a lot of F2P centric teams, which makes her pretty valuable and flexible.