#i personally thing something in line with the hp regen/damage down is the most likely

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

the fact that miquella is said to have "divested himself of all things golden" similarly to ranni might imply that we won't be seeing his actual great rune in the dlc. however i still want to know

[tigerkirby215]

5e Pyke the Bloodharbor Ripper build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Riot Games)

You look familiar... You. You were on my blog, looking at my builds.

Well here’s yet another League build, and yet another edgelord champion. I don’t know if it’s a problem with me or a problem with League but I seem to be drawn to characters with edgy personas... at least lore-wise. In game I spam Sona and Yuumi like an eGirl thot.

And Kayn. And Warwick. Alright I might just be an edgelord.

Regardless Pyke is always a character I’ve enjoyed more for his lore than his actual gameplay. Back in my DOTA days I used to main Bounty Hunter (and I might branch out to DOTA builds someday; who knows?) and while Pyke captures that gameplay to some extent he’s never really been my cup of tea. Gondar was considerably more light-hearted than Pyke and focused a lot more on information gathering than the raw killing that Pyke does. Even so I think Pyke was a great addition to the lore of Bilgewater with the rest of the region seemingly existing only as an excuse to put pirates into League of Legends. (Ironically enough I actually think the other character that displays Bilgewater’s lore the best is Tahm Kench, and considering that most people see him as a meme that’s really saying something.)

But regardless: you’re here for the build, not to read me ramble about why I made it. I can definitely say that if you genuinely want to play Pyke you’re certainly one for the roleplay, though try not to be overly edgy.

GOALS

Harpooner - Armed with an iconic Bone Skewer it’ll find its way stabbed into the stomachs or thrown into the backs of many victims.

Until it all sinks... - Pyke swims in the shadows before surfacing to pounce his prey. He did also swim in the water once.

Did I “support” right? - While we won’t have any healing Pyke has plenty of utility in his own right.

RACE

Officially Pyke is some sort of drowned revenant, and while I know there is a Revenant race in the Gothic Heroes UA it’s rather unbalanced and unfortunately doesn’t really work for what we’re trying to do here. The Gothic Heroes Revenant has a goal, but Pyke’s mind is warped so he thinks his goal is never done. While the health regen is in character for Pyke’s Gift of the Drowned Ones the other features don’t really help us or retain the aquatic theme of Pyke.

With that in mind I had a few ideas: Water Genasi was my first idea to have a character infused with the strength of the sea but unfortunately it’s focused far too much on magic as well as Constitution, both of which Pyke doesn’t have. My next thought was for a Kalashtar to have the spirit of the drowned one infused into you, but they’re tied deeply into their dream lore and less-so into the two-minds aspect.

But then I realized there’s a race that gets infused with parts from the ocean, and even starts out human just like Pyke! This is going to sound mad but you’re going to want a Simic Hybrid from Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. While in-lore they receive their gifts from the deep from science we can reflavor it as gifts from the ocean itself. Anyways Simic Hybrids see their Constitution increase by 2 and a stat of their choice increase by 1: choose Dexterity for a better chance fighting the beasts below before your line is cut. You also get Darkvision up to 60 feet and Animal Enhancements. Since Animal Enhancement is tied to level I’ll be addressing it in the build instead of in the race section because this is getting long enough as is. And for your language of choice I’d opt for Elvish, mainly because it’s unlikely you’ll meet any Vedalken this side of the sea.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Fighting the monsters of Bilgewater in their own territory takes a great degree of nimbleness to avoid getting your line cut.

14; CHARISMA - All sea captains fear the Bloodharbor Ripper, and Charisma is a requirement to multiclass.

13; INTELLIGENCE - You need to be smart to hunt any prey, be it a monstrous fish or... more dangerous game...

12; CONSTITUTION - While not in-character for Pyke to be tanky we sadly can’t convert our health into damage in this build.

10; WISDOM - Even if you have to do it to survive jumping into monster-infested waters is not the best lifestyle choice.

8; STRENGTH - While perhaps in-character to drop Wisdom instead we simply don’t need Strength in this build.

BACKGROUND

There are several backgrounds for a man lost at sea but Pirate is the best for one who came back with a vengeance. You get the Athletics and Perception skills to scout out your prey and wrestle with it in deep tide, as well as proficiency with Water Vehicles and Navigator’s Tools to command your own ship someday. But the main feature we’re here for is Bad Reputation so everyone knows that you’re the Bloodharbor Ripper. If you’re in a civilized settlement people will be afraid of being put on your list, and will let you get away with minor crimes. Murder isn’t a minor crime though, so pull someone into an alley if they do end up showing up on your list.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue for the extra proficiencies: take Intimidation, Stealth, Investigation, and Acrobatics as your skills of choice. You also get Expertise in two of those skills and you’re going to want Investigation to find your quarry and Stealth to sneak up on them.

But of course the main reason for the expertise in Stealth is so we can Sneak Attack. Once per turn you can do an extra d6 damage with an attack if an enemy is within 5 feet of your ADC or if you have Advantage on the attack by jumping out of water. You must be using a finesse weapon such as your Bone Skewer, which for now would likely just be a Short Sword since you haven’t received your gifts from the deep yet.

But your time in Bilgewater did allow you to learn Thieves’ Cant, a mix of words and phrases that are actually a code among criminals. They may be speaking about the latest big catch but you know what they’re really talking about is cutting your line.

But while you were under the undertow you did receive some Animal Enhancement. As a Simic Hybrid you can choose between three Enhancement options at level 1: Manta Glide lets you fall slowly and glide as you do so, Nimble Climber gives you a climbing speed equal to your walking speed, but Underwater Adaptation is the obvious choice for the drowned man. You gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed and can breath underwater. You drowned once but it won’t happen again.

NOTE: If you’re playing outside of an aquatic campaign Nimble Climber would be your next best bet to remaining in character. You can also opt to just play a Variant Human instead of a Simic Hybrid if you don’t mind the lack of swimming speed however, since Simic Hybrid was mainly picked for the aquatic implications.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues get Cunning Action, allowing you to use your quick wit to Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a bonus action. A Bilgewater Harpooner needs to be quick on their feat and always trust their crew. But when that trust is lost...

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 1

As you’re lost to The Drowned Ones you receive their blessing to become a Warlock. The Drowned Ones could be seen as The Undying in many senses, as they keep you from death to serve them.

WHY NOT LURKER IN THE DEEP? - Lurker in the deep focuses a lot more on using the strength of those below more directly. Pike meanwhile merely serves them as an assassin. Not only that but Lurker in the Deep has far more of a focus on tentacles than knives, which is more of Illaoi’s thing.

Undying Warlocks are considered Among the Dead. They get the Spare the Dying cantrip and have Advantage against diseases, and undead enemies may not attack you as they see you as one of their own. If an undead attacks you they have to make a Wisdom save against your Warlock spell DC or choose a new target, losing the attack if there is no one else to hit. If you succeed on the save or you hit them they’re immune to this effect for 24 hours, so perhaps don’t pick fights with Sion.

But along with Spare the Dying you also get access to more Spellcasting. You learn 2 cantrips from the Warlock spell list: Lighting Lure will let you throw your Bone Skewer out at an enemy within 15 feet. They must make a Strength saving throw or be pulled 10 feet towards you, taking a d8 of Lightning damage if they’re pulled into melee range. Eldritch Blast lets you throw your Bone Skewer further down range - make a ranged spell attack against a target you can see and on a hit they take a d10 force damage.

You also learn 2 first level spells from the Warlock list: False Life comes from The Undying patron list and lets you “regenerate” some health in the darkness. You gain a d4 + 4 temporary hitpoints when you cast this spell. That temp HP lasts for an hour or until it’s cut off of you.

Illusory Script meanwhile is the perfect spell to write your list. You can cast this spell while writing with lead-based ink worth at least 10 gold to imbue the words with powerful illusion magic for 10 days. Creatures you designate can read the message normally but any other creature won’t be able to read it, or will see a completely different message as long as it’s written in a language you know. If the spell is dispelled the message is dispelled, so no one will know that your list is truly unending... unless they have truesight, as they’ll be able to read it under the light of a pink ward.

LEVEL 4 - WARLOCK 2

2nd level Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations and the only one we really need is Grasp of Hadar. Every time you hit an enemy with your Eldritch Blast you can pull them 10 feet closer, so you can drag ‘em under and get your hands dirty. You other choice of invocation really doesn’t matter: Armor of Shadows can be a good boost to your AC but I personally like Mask of Many Faces to hide behind your facemask before finding your prey.

You also get another spell and Hex will let you mark your prey as a gift to the Drowned Ones. Whenever you hit a target that’s Hexed you do an extra d6 Necrotic damage, and the target has disadvantage on a type of ability check of your choosing. I’d personally choose Strength so that they can’t swim up when you pull them down to drown.

LEVEL 5 - ROGUE 3

3rd level Rogues get access to their Roguish Archetype and the Soul Knife subclass from the Psionics UA will make sure you always have a Bone Skewer. The Soul Knife gets a Psionic Enhancement: you can either have a 30 foot Telepathy, some extra health and Toughness equal to your Intelligence modifier plus your Rogue level, or 5 feet of extra Walking Speed. These all have their uses but while it’s perhaps not in-flavor Toughness is probably your most consistently useful enhancement.

WHY NOT REVIVED? - Revived focuses far more on the manipulation of death, and has a heavier skill focus than the Soul Knife. But put in simple terms Soul Knife has nearly all the abilities I’d want from Pyke without having to multiclass too much. Undying Warlock is already more than enough undeath for Pyke, and it also helps give him some Deep One patrons.

I should also mention I made this build before the latest Psionics Options Revisited UA. This build uses old features so discuss with your DM if you want to use the newer version.

But of course the main reason to go for the Soul Knife is your Psychic Blade. You can create a bone skewer in your hand, or two bone skewers if you’re feeling particularly vicious. You can’t hold anything in the hand you hold the blade but you can choose to dispel them without using an action.

The blade has the finesse and light properties so you can dual wield them and use your Dexterity as your attack modifier. It deals 1d6 psychic damage on a hit and you can throw it 30 feet normally or 60 feet with disadvantage. Regardless of if you throw your knife or stab with it you can proc your Sneak Attack, which now deals 2d6 damage. If you throw the blade as part of an attack it vanishes immediately after it hits or misses, and the blade(s) disappear the instant it leaves your hand or if you’re incapacitated.

You also get another Animal Enhancement as a Simic Hybrid so you may as well get more AC from the Carapace enhancement, which increases your AC by 1 as long as you’re not wearing Heavy Armor. The only other enhancement I’d maybe suggest is Nimble Climber, which you could’ve taken at level 1. But simply put more AC is more useful, and was limited to us for a reason. You can consider the extra AC as the salt soaked into your skin, and your lust for vengeance allowing you to shrug off attacks.

(Artwork by FMM CAT)

LEVEL 6 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get an Ability Score Improvement: increase your Dexterity for deadlier strikes with your Bone Skewer.

LEVEL 7 - ROGUE 5

At 5th level Rogues get Uncanny Dodge, letting them reduce the damage of an attack by half as a reaction. Is a female bounty hunter shooting you? Dive in the ghostly waters and set yourself up for the kill, especially since your Sneak Attack is also increased to 3d6 at this level.

LEVEL 8 - ROGUE 6

6th level Rogues get Expertise in two more skills: I’d choose Intimidation and Athletics. A frightened target won’t be able to lie to you, and Athletics Expertise will compensate for your low Strength score.

LEVEL 9 - ROGUE 7

7th level Rogues get Evasion: if you’re targeted with a Dexterity-based skill shot you can dash out of the way and take no damage on a successful saving throw, or only half damage if you fail. Pyke is far more evasive than the average support, and can get up and personal to do 4d6 with Sneak Attack.

LEVEL 10 - ROGUE 8

8th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement and we’ll max out our Dexterity for even deadlier strikes with your Bone Skewer.

LEVEL 11 - ROGUE 9

At 9th level you get the Terrifying Blade Soul Knife feature. When you damage a creature with your Psychic Blade you can force them to make a Wisdom saving throw based on your Intelligence modifier. If they fail the creature is frightened of you until the start of your next turn, but on a successful save they become immune to this feature for 24 hours. Traitors run from their past, or face them head on. Regardless you’ll kill them all, especially with a 5d6 Sneak Attack.

LEVEL 12 - ROGUE 10

10th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement, and you may have noticed our uneven Intelligence score? The Observant Feat will let us see when traitors talk about their coin. You can increase one of your mental stats by 1 (we’ll improve Intelligence) and you can read a creature’s lips to understand what they’re saying as long as you share a language. Your passive Perception and Investigation also increase by 5, so you can be aware of any backstabbers trying to slip away.

LEVEL 13 - ROGUE 11

11th level Rogues get Reliable Talent, meaning that any roll below a 10 in a skill you’re proficient in is treated as a 10. This means that your lowest possible roll with the skills your proficient in is:

25 on Stealth

22 on Intimidation or Investigation

20 on Acrobatics

19 on Athletics

15 on Perception

Your Sneak Attack also increases to 6d6.

LEVEL 14 - ROGUE 12

12th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement and we’ll want more Intelligence to know how to truly terrify our foes.

LEVEL 15 - ROGUE 13

13th level Soul Knife Rogues can dive into spectral waters with Psychic Veil. As an action you become invisible for 10 minutes. This invisibility ends if you make an attack or if you force a creature to make a saving throw. You can become invisible a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Your Sneak Attack also increases to 7d6 now, and just so you know attacking out of Invisibility counts as a Sneak Attack.

(Pyke concept art by Riot Games)

LEVEL 16 - ROGUE 14

14th level Rogues borrow some techniques from the monk in the jungle and get a 10 foot radius Blindsense to chase your prey.

LEVEL 17 - ROGUE 15

15th level Rogues get Slippery Mind for proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. It’s not much but considering that you have a +0 to Wisdom it certainly helps. Your Sneak Attack also increases to 8d6 now.

LEVEL 18 - ROGUE 16

16th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement and more Intelligence will lead to more Ghostwater Dives and better Terrifying Blades.

LEVEL 19 - ROGUE 17

17th level Soul Knife Rogues can Rend Mind for a powerful Phantom Undertow. If you have a Psychic Blade manifested you can force a creature you can see within 30 feet of you to make an Intelligence saving throw. The target takes 12d6 psychic damage and is stunned until the start of your next turn on a failed save, but only takes half as much on a successful save and isn’t stunned. If you are hidden from the target it has disadvantage on the save, and one of your Psychic Blades vanishes after using this feature.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Pro tip: attacks against Stunned enemies automatically have Advantage so you can use your 9d6 Sneak Attack damage.

LEVEL 20 - ROGUE 18

Our final level is the 18th level in Rogue for Elusive so that no attack can have Advantage against you. "Death keeps spitting me right back out."

FINAL BUILD

PROS

I smell panic - Soul Knife on its own is a very powerful subclass. Having an unlimited supply of weapons that are viable at both melee and range, the ability to turn invisible, and tons of crowd control with both fears and stuns makes for an incredible damage dealer who can provide a lot of utility to the party.

Big Beast - It wasn’t my intention when making this build but for a Rogue you’re remarkably tanky. You have an above-average constitution and Psionic Enhancement buffing your health to a respectable level, and the Carapace Animal Enhancement turns what would be a +5 to AC (from your Dexterity) to a +6. This means that you have 17 AC with Leather Armor, 18 with Studded, and a 19 AC with Armor of Shadows! As a Rogue, meaning you have Uncanny Dodge and Evasion to further increase your survivability! Not to mention you have two Warlock slots to cast False Life is the fight starts to go south.

Crews share the wealth - Expertise in Intimidation and Investigation are helpful, and having Spare the Dying means that your Cleric can focus on stronger cantrips instead. But having 10 minutes of invisibility is insanely helpful for infiltration.

CONS

Every kill makes the voices louder - The two levels in Warlock are done almost entirely for flavor, and while we do get some useful features it does still mean you lose out on Stroke of Luck. If you have a DM who likes roleplay you can take the Magic Initiate feat for Wizards to get Lightning Lure along with potentially Ray of Frost to simulate a long-ranged “pull” and be a Warlock without actually being a Warlock. But the honest truth is that Soul Knife on its own is strong enough and the ability to pull people closer to you is largely redundant.

My list just got longer - Soul Knife uses their Bonus Action a lot more than other Rogues, meaning that you can’t use your Cunning Action to hide as often. Yes you can make two knives at a time but this still means that you’ll have to spend another bonus action to “reload” after throwing two hooks. And if both your hands are full you can’t hold your list!

Swim or Sink - Unfortunately you don’t get to max out your Intelligence modifier, which is needed for a lot of your class features. However the far bigger issue is your saving throws: proficiency in Wisdom saves help but your Charisma and Constitution are stuck at +2 and your Strength is forever at a pitiful -1. While you can compensate for strength checks with Expertise in Athletics your saving throws are less than desirable.

But problems only come for those without a plan. Make your list, check it twice, find out who’s naughty or nice before gutting them. Make sure your crew’s got your back and that they aren’t going to cut your line too. You’ve died before, but it doesn’t hurt not to do it again.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

[kisaell]

In the Scions we Trust

So, I’ve been plucking my way through grinding the scions to 80 for that cute little title; and in hopes that there is some bigger reward waiting down the line…

Anyway, I just wanted to note down some interesting quirks of each of the Scions since … It’s a lot of runs to just get them out of each dungeon. It’s a long post, and has some spoilers in it~

Let’s start with the Disaster Twins (who I love with my whole heart);

Alisaie plays like a Red Mage, naturally. However, she drops the OGDC aether blades in favour of more powerful Vercures; should the healer fall, or the WoL get too low she will not hesitate to yell out, “I’ll handle the healing!” and use Vercure 3 to keep people alive. It’s a decent heal too. We all know how extra she can be, so on the first and second boss of a dungeon, should you have Limit Break ready, she will use it on pull. However, should the Limit Break not be ready, and it dings in the middle of the boss; she tends to wait until after her enhanced melee + Verholy/Verflare combo before popping it, so any melee WoL taking her along can use that time to pop it for yourself.

I personally didn’t encounter her dying to mechanics. She is a little ballsy with her placement, opting to get in a little extra damage if she can, but she performed very well whenever I took her with.

Alphinaud plays like a Scholar, no matter what his job title says. He uses his Moonstone Carbuncle rather than a fairy, which makes sense given he isn’t a Nymian-trained Scholar like the WoL can be. Moonstone Carbuncle provides some DPS as it attacks enemies on its own; it also provides a nice Damage up buff every 2 mins (it lined up with my Dancer burst perfectly, everytime).

As for Alphinaud himself, he offers the standard Scholar kit with Adlo shields and Lustrates when people fall low; he also uses Broil 2 for DPS between heals. He is also a little more cautious than his sister, often making sure to step out of AoEs unless he is caught mid-cast; he is unafraid to shield himself and take an AoE should he need to. 

Now we have the Father-Daughter combo;

Thancred plays like a Gunbreaker, because he is one. When I ran dungeons with him, I had not yet touched Gunbreaker, so I didn’t notice anything too off with his playstyle. He is quick enough to establish enmity and will face groups away from people if he can. One unique skill I’ve found is his Quick Slash, which is an AoE attack that also blinds any enemy it hits; it’s not often he uses it, seems to be a mob count thing given I saw it most often in Dohn Mheg with the Wasps.

Personally, he provided the quintessential tank role to the Scions. He held the enemies still, he bosses to either the middle or towards the exit and held them there. My only issue was found in, again, the 73 dungeon… Where he often tanked the final boss in such a way that poor Alphinaud got frogged more than once.

Baby Ryne plays like a Rogue with extra bits, why did Dadcred let a 12 year old have knives? Aside from Y’sthola, Ryne is perhaps the most unique in her kit; not only does she have a 20 second vulnerability up debuff with her Trick Attack (that she can use on every pull) but her unique version of Dream within a Dream - Called Artful Edge - puts a damage done down debuff on the enemy too. And if that wasn’t enough, she has a ranged attack in the form of the spell Banish 3; she only tends to use this after a close-ranged AoE forces her to step away from enemies and bosses. Something that is also neat, is that her Hide isn’t broken by her auto-attacking.

Ryne is again, second only to Y’sthola in terms of how cautious she is. I have yet to see her get hit needlessly when she can avoid it; double AoEs like the Forgiven Apathy’s Earthshakers confound her (like most Trusts) but she will try to only get hit by one rather than both.

Dungeons with Ryne feel a lot faster given how often she can pop that Trick Attack; she’s even uses the Limit Break once or twice which also speeds things up. Another interesting note is that she carries Phoenix Downs to resurrect fallen party members, should there be no one else that can. She is cute baby with a lot of support 10/10 would take her in more dungeons.

Now for Smart Squad;

Boss Ass Bitch Y’shtola plays like a Black Mage, but she has White Mage elements spells to remind you that she’s better than you in every way.

As mentioned, Y’sthola has one of the most unique kits of the Scions as of this moment; all of her spells are followed by the suffix “-of the seventh dawn” and enjoy such elements as, “Tornado”, “Foul”, “Fire 4” and “Water 4”; which as someone who also plays White Mage from time to time, makes me cry. I’ve not noticed her ever use leylines, but she does seem to have a very short recast Triple Cast - which she also pop swiftcast with and just churns out damage when she wants.

In my runs, I noticed that Y’shtola did very well to avoid unnecessary damage; and as we were told, she does pop Triple Cast to make up for lost damage when she’s dancing around AoEs. However, unlike what we were told; I’ve seen Y’sthola pop the Limit Break about as often as Alisaie does, although she will wait until a lot longer in the fight before she uses it. I think she’s mad at me because I looked at her ass in that one quest; hero, and thus LB, privileges revoked. ;~;

Urianger, he doth provide the support of one well versed in the Sharlayan art of Astromancy. Which ultimately means he plays favorites with the cards and waxes poetically about killing shit. Urianger uses Diurnal Sect, which means regens! However, he never uses Aspected Helios; just the regular one. The loss of sheilds can be felt in dungeons; when tanking for Urianger, the tank busters hit a lot harder than when Alphi had my back; but that’s to be expected. What Urianger brings, however, is two unique spells. Gravity of the Seventh Dawn is an AoE attack that puts slow and heavy on everything hit; very very useful when you have a lot of enemies plucking away at your HP; and… Death of the Seventh Dawn, where he literally just straight up kills something, and to be fair, he mostly uses it at 10% on trash but still that’s really wild that he has that.

As for his performance… Oh boy; if you thought Alisaie got hit by avoidable shit, you’ve never taken Uri into Holminster. Our Man of the Verbose likes to get hit by everything, which is fine because he can just Essential Dignity himself back to full but still! At least we know where Alisaie gets it from, haha…. 

And for the final wrap up;

If anyone is interested in doing the hell grind of getting all the Trusts to 80; I’d HIGHLY recommend you break them into two groups and level on set with a DPS and the other with a Tank. That will get you all of them 80 in only two sweeps of the gauntlet. 

Your rewards for doing so are;

Each Trust at 80 unlocks their old (SB) outfit; with Ryne getting her blonde look back.

And once they’re all 80, you get the Achievement “Bound by Faith” and the title “Trusted Friend”

[murasaki-murasame]

Since the next batch of mana spiral upgrades should be coming out in the next week or two, I figure now’s probably a good time to go over my predictions for what the first batch of mana spirals for each element might be like, now that we have a good idea of what to expect from them.

This got really long so I’ll put it under a cut.

First off, I think that the adventurers in the first batches of mana spiral upgrades per element will probably be:

Shadow: Nefaria, Curran, Heinwald, OG Cleo, Alex, Audric [maybe], Kleimann, Berserker, and the 3-stars

Water: Xanfried, Laranoa, Lily, OG Elly, OG Celery, Thaniel, Luther, and the 3-stars [except maybe Jakob]

Wind: Hawk, Sylas, Louise, OG Ranzal, Su Fang, Pia, Aeleen, and the 3-stars

Light: Julietta, Lucretia, B-Zardin, OG Luca, Elias, Vixel, Amane, and the 3-stars [except maybe Xiao Lei]

I’m not entirely sure about Lily and Louise since they’re already pretty solid, but I dunno. B-Zardin might be too recent to get buffed but Cassandra was even more recent, lol. And honestly light needs all the buffs it can get, especially when it comes to the non-limited ones.

Botan might have been a special case, but it’d be nice if they include other event units in the mana spiral upgrades as well. Especially since they’ve always been particularly held back by the wonky abilities that event units get. Though I think most of them probably wouldn’t benefit quite as much from a buff as Botan did, since she was already really good.

There’s other units I want to see get buffed, like Annelie and Fritz, but I think other units need the buffs more.

Anyway, let’s break down what changes I think will be made to all of these characters, and what I’d like to see.

Firstly, going by how the flame mana spirals went, we can probably assume that it’ll be the 5-stars and the free story 4-stars who’ll get the most attention put into their upgrades, while the gacha 4-stars and the 3-stars will probably all just have their numbers scaled up across the board, and lots of them will get status afflictions added to their skills. But it’s safe to assume that every single mana spiral unit will get 100% potent status resistance [and off-element resistance units will get their resistances changed to something that actually works for them], and units with any sort of skill prep ability will get it buffed to 100% skill prep + skill charge [aside from unique cases like Naveed].

Either way, this is how I think it’ll go down per element.

SHADOW:

[I’m starting here ‘cause it’ll be the next batch that’ll come out]

As much as I’d love to see my absolute son boy Norwin get a mana spiral upgrade, I think he won’t be in the initial batch since he’s already a pretty solid unit all around. I’d say he’s probably the most well-rounded of the 4-star shadow gacha units, along with Patia.

Orion’s definitely a candidate, but I don’t think they’ll give him an upgrade just yet. Partly because Alex will definitely get one [although they did give both Euden and Karl buffs at the same time], but also because it might really backfire if they give him built-in 100% skill prep since he inflicts blind on his S1, lol. That might lead to some unintended cheese strats, but who knows.

As for the ones who I’m more certain will get buffed, Nefaria’s basically the poster child for ‘absolutely needs a buff’, along with Hawk, but I’m not really certain what I think they’ll do with her. There’s just a lot of fundamental things wrong with her as a unit, and I don’t think that just buffing her stats would be enough. The main thing is just that since blind is such a powerful status affliction, it’s highly resisted by basically every endgame boss, and we haven’t gotten any blind punisher dragons/wyrmprints yet. So a unit like her that’s built around inflicting blind is probably just never going to work because she’ll always be shackled.

Honestly my first suggestion would just be to retcon her entire kit into being about inflicting poison rather than blind, lol. At least then she’d fit in with the poison meta that’s been steadily developing. But that might be too much of a change to make.

The other big issue with her is that her blind affliction is tied to her using her S2 and then using force-strikes. On top of that taking longer to activate than a blind-inflicting S1 would, bow force-strikes are just completely horrible in every way and need to be changed. The bow force-strike should just be a single big charged shot that you charge and fire like you do with the sword and blade force-strikes. That’d make it a lot faster and more reliable to actually hit anyone with them in the first place.

I think her two main abilities will at least get their numbers bumped up, but I think they should take a cue from Naveed’s mana spiral and add an additional effect to one of them along the lines of ‘While Twilight Arrows is activated, increase strength/crit rate/whatever by x%’. It’d at least be SOMETHING to make her stronger, and it’d help justify tying so much to her S2 and it’s effect.

I’m not entirely sure if Curran and Heinwald will get buffed, but I think they at least need it more than Yaten and Natalie do, and it’d be a bit weird if Nefaria’s the only shadow 5-star to get buffed in the next batch, so I’m including them.

For Curran, I think the defense debuff on his S1 should have a 100% chance of applying, and maybe he could get poison punisher added to it as well. And I think his S2 should have either poison punisher or defense debuff punisher [like DY-Malora] added to it. And I feel like they should change his Last Offense ability to just be Resilient Offense like Cassandra. He doesn’t really have a good way of utilizing that sort of ability like she does, but Last Offense is just kinda useless as it is, lol.

For Heinwald, I think he should inflict poison with his S1, and the cap on it’s heal should either be raised or removed. I also think that the team strength buff on his S2 should be changed to not be limited to a short-range AoE around him, but that goes for everyone who has that sort of ranged team buff, and I doubt Cygames would agree with me on this and change all of them, lol. But either way I want either him or Curran to inflict poison so they can synergize with Lathna. Since Heinwald is another unit with an S2 that activates a named effect like Naveed, I could see him getting a similar sort of unique buff added to his skill prep ability that activates while Abyssal Connection is active. Maybe either a recovery potency buff or something related to strength/skill damage/poison punisher.

Kleimann’s a pretty easy one to assume will get a buff since they seem to specifically be trying to correct the whole Gala Cleo issue, and he’s one of the more accessible shadow wand units. But I don’t think they’ll do a whole lot with him beyond making his stats better, and maybe giving him poison on his S1.

Berserker’s one of those units who really needs a bit of a buff, since he’s just a bit too weak and defense-oriented to work well in the current meta. But I think his buffs will also be pretty simple. They’ll probably raise the chance of the strength debuff on his S1, and maybe add poison to it, and his S2 will probably be changed to give him 15% HP per use, which would at least let him hit the cap in two uses of it rather than three. It’d be nice if they also added a temporary strength buff to it though, since he really doesn’t have a lot of personal DPS. I think they’ll add a flurry effect to his first ability that raises his strength or skill damage when he’s got a certain combo count, and like with Curran I think they should change his Last Offense ability to something else. At least he’d benefit more from Resilient Offense since he’s got some self-healing in his kit. [Also with Monster Hunter Berserker on the way, now would be a nice time to buff his OG version]

If they want to buff Audric, I’m not entirely sure what they could do with him aside from just raising the stats of his skills and stuff. He’d at least benefit a lot from getting 100% potent paralysis res, though. Maybe they’d add some kind of ‘dragon attacks dispel enemy buffs’ effect to his third ability, and poison to his S1, to make him even more like Euden.

The fact that Alex already got her kit adjusted before getting a mana spiral makes me unsure if they’re even going to give her one any time soon, but if they do, I think she’ll probably at least get poison punisher added to her S1, and maybe an added effect to her skill haste ability where using skills or force-strikes partially charges her skills.

I think OG Cleo is basically 100% guaranteed to get a buff, but I’m not entirely sure what they’re gonna do with healers in general when it comes to mana spirals. At least the ones that are specifically focused on healing. She should at least get full skill prep and potent paralysis res, and probably a buffed HP = Defense ability. Other than that, I think that either her S1 or her S2 should have a regen heal effect added to it.

For the 3-stars I think that they’ll just get the same sort of basic stat buffs across the board, and status effects added to some of their skills. I dunno if that’d benefit anyone to the extent of how strong Xania became with her mana spirals, though. Althemia might end up getting poison on both of her skills, but since her skill damage ability if locked behind a Full HP criteria, she might not be quite as good as Xania even then. They should also probably retcon Vida’s stun res into either paralysis res or blind res, and it’d be nice if they added blind cleanse to Edward’s S1.

WATER:

In terms of 5-stars, I think Xanfried is the most likely one to get buffed, with Laranoa at a close second, but I’m not even sure if any of the other ones need a buff, since they’re all pretty solid. Really it’s the 3/4-stars that are more in need of a buff here, lol.

For Xanfried, it seems pretty likely to me that they’ll add freeze to his S1, since it’s literally called Dragon Frostfang. It’d at least be better than giving him bog, and we need more water units that have easy access to freeze. And for his S2 I think it’ll be like with Botan where a team crit rate buff for water units gets added to it. Going by how they buffed Euden, I think they’ll buff his Dragon Claws ability to be 45% strength total, and they’ll add enemy buff dispel to his dragon form attacks. Or they’ll just increase the damage that his dragon attacks do, which would at least help justify his dragon time ability. I’m not sure if this would make him meta for HBH or anything, but I think it’d make him a lot stronger in general.

I’m not super familiar with Laranoa since I don’t have her yet, so basically all I can assume from looking at her kit is that it’ll just get buffed across the board. But it’d be nice if the short-range team buff on her S2 got changed into a normal universal one, at least. I’m not entirely sure if they should add any status effects to her S1. In general I’m really worried about what might happen if they give lots of water units bog on their S1, since that didn’t turn out well for the summer units. Maybe if they were willing to rework bog into something that can be applied regularly throughout the fight without being overpowered it’d work, but since you always want to save it for a specific part of the fight, putting it on a skill is kinda bad.

OG Elly is pretty obviously gonna get a mana spiral sooner or later, but I’m a bit worried they’d make her overpowered, lol. Though on the other hand, it’d be kinda funny if in exchange for letting you upgrade her S1 to a 25% team strength buff, it locks it to only working on water adventurers. That’d help balance her to make her more in line with other buff units, but it’d probably make a lot of people mad, and it’d mess with a lot of rainbow Mercurial Gauntlet team compositions. I think it’d be worth it, though. Also they should just commit to giving her 100% burn res. That on it’s own would probably make her even better for HBH since she wouldn’t need to run a burn res print anymore.

It’d be nice to see OG Celery get a buff if only so she can get to full burn res as well, which would hopefully also make her a much better pick for HBH, but we’ll see. I can’t really think of anything to add to her kit aside from that, other than a crit rate/damage buff on her S2.

I can take or leave Luther, but I feel like he literally never gets used in any content so he really needs some sort of buff. Even if it ends up not helping him much. I’d at least want his debuffs to happen with 100% chance, though maybe they could also move the defense debuff to his S1. And he should at least get Flurry Strength added to his third ability.

I’m very biased on this one but I DESPERATELY want Thaniel to get a mana spiral upgrade that makes him as good as if not better than Jiang Ziya, lol. He at least really needs to get a regen heal added to his S2 to that his heals in HBH aren’t as tight. In a perfect world they’d add full skil prep to one of his abilities but that’d be a bit of a pipe dream. I’m curious to see if they’d add anything to basic recovery potency abilities like what he has, or if those will just get buffed for everyone that has them.

Summer Ranzal also needs a buff but since he’s fairly recent I don’t think he’ll get one just yet. But probably later.

I feel like a whole bunch of 3-stars are gonna get bog or freeze added to their skills, and I really don’t think that’d be quite as useful as what happened with flame. At least when it comes to bog, because of how that whole affliction works and how you want to save it. So that might backfire and make a lot of them even more off-putting to use. Waike’s a good example of this, since even though Joe benefited a fair bit from getting even more burn added to his kit, Waike would just use up all the bog inflictions before the boss gets broken in the first place.

Personally I’m hoping that Jurota will get freeze added to his S1 [since it’s called Avalance Blade, lol], and that doing that along with giving him full potent stun res would help make him better, at least for stuff like Void Agni.

WIND:

Hawk’s basically a carbon copy of Nefaria except he’s a wind unit who inflicts stun, so basically everything I said with her applies to him. Like with Nefaria he suffers from the fact that stun is a very powerful status affliction that I think is fairly heavily resisted by most bosses, and we haven’t gotten any stun punisher dragons or wyrmprints yet to capitalize on it. And the recent banner with Kirsty and Joachim just goes to show that wind is leaning even more heavily into favouring poison as a status effect. So my first guess for him would also be to just make him a poison-inflicting unit, but that seems even less likely than it would be with Nefaria, since basically every single other wind bow in the game is about inflicting poison too, and would do it better than him. They could at least add some sort of effect to one of his abilities where his S2 effect also increases his strength/crit rate/stun punisher, but there’s just a lot of issues inherent to niche status-inflicting bow units.

This might require more of a broad overhaul of the status effect system, but maybe to get around the relative uselessness of a lot of statuses, they could introduce some kind of a mechanic where a boss can be ‘marked’ as having a certain status ailment without suffering any debilitating effects from it, so you can still benefit from punisher abilities. Or maybe they could experiment with adding something like Volk’s plague effect to their kits, so that they can manually increase the boss’ vulnerability to status effects. In general I think there’s a lot of potential for the plague mechanic to address the central issue of how there’s nothing you can do when a boss fully resists a status ailment.

Other than him, I think Sylas is the only wind 5-star who I think 100% needs to get a buff soon. The other ones are all up in the air, with Louise and Wedding Aoi probably being my runner-up choices. Even Lin You’s fallen out of relevance a lot lately, but she’s still very strong. Sylas on the other hand is just super wonky. For one thing I think the strength debuff on his S1 should happen all the time, and it should have a poison punisher effect added to it, but the main issue is just his S2. It’s way too expensive for way too little value. The easiest way to improve it would probably just be to lower it’s SP cost to around 8k so you can use it at around the same frequency as Kirsty or Xanfried’s S2s, but really the whole idea of it being a roulette buff is just fundamentally bad. I’d honestly be happy if they just reworked it into being a flat skill haste and crit rate buff. All of the roulette buffs aren’t really that important when wind already has units like Noelle, Kirsty, and Lowen to provide those sorts of buffs more consistently. So he should probably just focus on more unique buffs. Basically I think his S2 should be more like Laranoa’s. 

Also, Last Recovery is just a really weak ability, so it’d be nice if they could add some sort of extra affect to that, or just change it into something else. Maybe they could make it happen three times per quest rather than just once, and add a permanent 10% defense buff to each use of it, to make it like a tanky version of Resilient Offense. And the health regen effect would help let him get to low health several times in a fight, like Cassandra.

I don’t think much needs to be done with OG Ranzal aside from just making all of his skills and abilities stronger, but I also think that Last Defense sucks, so they should probably change it to something like a Resilient Defense ability where he gets a permanent defense buff each time he gets to low health up to three times.

Aeleen has a fairly basic kit and I don’t think they’d really add much to it aside from maybe poison or poison punisher on her S1. And maybe an additional short buff on her S2.

Pia is basically Aeleen but in far more need of a buff, lol. Her kit’s just so wonky. There’s really not a whole lot that can be done to salvage her unless they add more energy users to the wind roster. At the very least her S2 should give the team two or three energy stacks, on top of maybe another buff to make it more worthwhile, but I dunno if that’d do much to help her.

I’m not sure if they’d bother buffing Su Fang, but if they do, I think they’ll probably add a crit rate buff to his S2, and make his skill damage ability into a 35% one.

There’s not much to say about the wind 3-stars, but I hope they at least give Philia either bog or freeze res. I could see them also adding poison to her skills [and removing the existing paralysis effect from her S2].

LIGHT:

Light’s just in a really weird situation all around where most of their really good units are event limited ones, so I hope that some of the older, non-limited ones get some good buffs. It feels like a lot of light units in general tend to suffer from being defensive in a way that doesn’t really work in the endgame, or from using energy in a lackluster way. So there’s a lot to improve.

Julietta’s a good example of being too defensive for her own good. At the very least, I think her S2 should be a team-wide defense/knockback resistance buff. A purely selfish defensive buff like what she has now is just kinda useless. It’d at least help her trigger strength doublebuffs and whatnot. And to help her DPS overall I think they should probably add either paralysis or a defense debuff to her S1. And like with Sylas I think they should add something to her Last Recovery ability. Maybe make it so that when her S2 effect is in place, she has a passive HP regen, or something like that.

Lucretia’s not super weak or anything but her energy usage is kinda disappointing, so I think they should at least make her S2 into a team-wide energy buff, and maybe buff it to three stacks rather than two. It’d also probably be nice if they added paralysis to her S1 too.

They might skip over B-Zardin but he probably needs a buff even more than Lucretia. He’s just really bad all around. Both of his skills give energy buffs to him and nobody else, so I think at least one of them should be a team-wide energy buff instead, and the debuffs on his S1 should happen 100% of the time. Though I think they should also focus on giving him a good strength or defense debuff, rather than giving him two mediocre ones at the same time. I feel like his Stunning Visage effect really needs to give him some sort of strength buff or something as well. And he’s one of the many units that make me think there should really be some stun punisher dragons/wyrmprints, lol. His first ability is also sorta weak so it’d be nice if they added something to it, but I dunno what.

I think OG Luca will probably get 100% curse res, paralysis punisher on his S1, and paralysis infliction on his S2, and not much else, so hopefully that’d be enough to make him worthwhile. But probably not. I’d also like to see Summer Luca get a buff, but like with Summer Ranzal it’ll probably take a while for him to get a buff too.

Elias is probably the event unit that needs a buff the most. He at least needs to have his S2 give two or three energy stacks, and his S1 should probably inflict paralysis, or have paralysis punisher on it. And his Last Offense ability should be changed to something like Resilient Offense, but it probably won’t be.

I honestly forgot that Felicia existed since her event happened before I started playing the game, lol. But if she gets a buff, I think her S1 should get poison cleanse, she should get full poison res, and full skill prep. I dunno how good that’d make her, necessarily, but still.

And on the topic of 4-star light healers, Vixel really needs a mana spiral upgrade if only just to fix his goddamn useless sleep resistance. Since Felicia is already based around poison resistance and cleanse, I think it’d make sense if he got turned into a curse res unit. Especially since Lucretia and Elias are also curse res. I’m not sure if he’d get curse cleanse added to his S1, but it’d nice. It might invalidate Hildegarde, though. He’s also got a kind of weird and under-tuned S2 that really needs to be buffed. It should at least be two stacks of energy for the team, and I’m really not even sure that the point of the teamwide recovery potency buff is meant to be, other than making his own S1 stronger. It’s not like you’ll be running with more than one healer on a light team 99% of the time, so nobody else would benefit from it. If they want to really lean into the idea of it powering up his S1, maybe they could have it instantly energize him [though not the rest of the team], or have it immediately ready his S1 for use. Something like that. Or they could replace it with a regular team heal. And of course he’d probably get 100% skill prep. Though if he gets curse res, maybe they could replace the recovery potency buff on his S2 with a team defense buff so that he can basically be like a light version of Thaniel, and help people deal with HZD’s opening blast.

I also kinda forgot about Amane since I don’t use her often, but I really think they should lower the SP cost of her S2 a fair bit [sorta like with Sylas], and make the HP buff into a 15% one so that it only takes two uses to hit the cap. She should probably also get a debuff or paralysis punisher or something added to her S1, and she’d benefit a lot from getting full skill prep and skill charge.

I think Xiao Lei’s the only light 3-star that’d really benefit from a mana spiral, but going by how they skipped over Marty they might also skip over her since she also got added post-launch. But if she gets a flat 35% skill damage buff like Xania on top of a stronger crit rate/damage boost on her S2, and maybe paralysis on her S1, she might become super strong.

Anyway, that’s all far too much effort put into thinking about stuff that I’ll probably get proven wrong on soon enough, lol. There’s just a lot of characters who I really want to see get improved, and with how much the flame mana spirals shook things up, I have high hopes for the rest of them.