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Major Rebalancing Walkthrough and Thoughts (August 2020 Edition)

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Rebalancing Overview (August 2020 Edition)

Hello there!

wheezing intensifies

Today we’re going over the upcoming balance changes to the following heroes:

Please keep in mind that these buffs are only PROPOSED buffs and Smilegate may decide to change them (though this is unlikely).

Hero Listing
5⭐ Heroes 4⭐ Heroes 3⭐ Heroes
Melissa Benevolent Romann Azalea
Baal & Sezan Roaming Warrior Leo Adlay
Aramintha Pyllis
Chaos Inquisitor

5⭐ Heroes

Melissa

Melissa

Melissa received some QoL updates which should make her more usable in content with heavy effect resistance..

The changes are as follows:

  • S1 soulburn was removed
  • S3’s crit requirement for extra turn was removed
  • S3 gained a soulburn effect that allows it to ignore effect resistance.

Now, what does this all mean?

  • Melissa’s S3 is 100% reliable if you soulburn it. You will always fully dispel the enemy and inflict Curse
  • Melissa’s S3 into her S2 is guaranteed to do high damage, since Curse will proc 100% of the time with soulburn
  • There is no longer a need to build effectiveness on her unless you really want/need the Unhealable debuff on her S1 to proc. This frees up her stats in other places.
  • S1’s damage cap is reduced, but Melissa was all about her S3 to S2 combo anyways.
Baal & Sezan

Baal & Sezan

Baal & Sezan

SG hasn’t quite hit the mark yet - they continually buff Baal & Sezan, but the dynamic duo continue to see little use. The latest round of buffs gives them the following:

  • Like the Sage version, S1 now strikes two targets instead of one
  • S2’s cooldown was lowered yet again, to 2 turns at max

What this basically means is the following:

S1 is now considered an AoE attack and more efficiently spreads Sira-Ren, but will trigger things such as Elena’s passive.

S2’s low cooldown makes it fairly spammable with something like Etica’s Scepter.

Ultimately, however, this seems to be another small incremental buff which is unlikely to change their overall usage. Despite their high ATK, they still have middling modifiers, middling speed, and an unreliable poison on S1. A pity, especially since Fire Tenebria is so strong when compared to them.

Aramintha

Aramintha

Aramintha

Female Roy Mustang also received a decent buff which removes her requirement that an enemy be burned, and also gave her higher damage modifiers:

  • S2 no longer requires the enemy to be burned to inflict Unhealable and do damage
  • S2 gainsed a higher damage modifier
  • S3 gained a higher damage modifier as well

Aramintha’s skill rotation is no longer shoehorned into the awkward S3 -> S2 or S1 -> S2 skill order, since S2 will always do damage to enemies and inflict unhealable now. This is a pretty major change to her kit.

In addition, she will also receive higher damage modifiers - how high exactly, we’re unsure of. But given her high base ATK values and how low her modifier was on S2 before (a measly 70% of ATK on S2, and 85% on S3), this will be a significant benefit.

Explosions coming soon to theatres near you!

4⭐ Heroes

BRomann

Benevolent Romann

Actually does things now. /thread

...I’m not allowed to do that? Ok, well, here are the changes to his kit:

  • S1 soulburn removed
  • S3 Soulburn grants the coveted Extra Turn
  • S3 removes TWO buffs instead of 1
  • S1’s CR reduction floor was increased from 10% to 15%

Benevolent Romann is now a significant threat. He can’t be reasoned with, he can’t be bargained with, and he will absolutely silence you for two turns. Probably. Well, he can unfortunately still be stunned, but it’s ok.

S1 soulburn removal hurts his max proc chance a little (70% at max instead of 100%). However, since it’s easier to trigger the S3’s silence on enemies, I’d say that this allows him to break even, if not come out ahead, in terms of consistency.

S3’s removal of 2 buffs is major, since he can now be used to remove the ever-present FCeci shield and immunity set, instead of being stymied by an unbreakable shield.

The addition of the Extra Turn soulburn also makes him much more consistent in sticking the S3 -> S1 -> Passive combo that he needs, and it technically shortens his CD on S3 by 1 turn as well, giving him much stronger uptime on his 2-turn silence.

Overall, he’s looking in much better shape than before, so expect to see more of him in an RTA near you soon.

Of course, if RTA isn’t your gig, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Roaming Warrior Leo

Roaming Warrior Leo

Roaming Warrior Leo

Continuing the trend of working on little-used ML4’s, we also have buffs to Leo and his trash panda.

  • S2 detonates bomb on the target, instantly stunning/dealing damage
  • S2 reduces the CD of S3 by 1 turn
  • S3 inflicts Speed Down

Everyone has been asking for Leo to gain the ability to detonate his own bombs. Well, SG finally delivered. S2 doesn’t simply detonate his bombs - it also reduces the CD of his S3 and allows him to prepare bombs quicker.

The S3 -> S2 combo that everyone has been asking for is finally here. ML Leo can set bombs on enemies and choose one to stun at the low cost of 20 souls.

He unfortunately doesn’t have 100% proc rate on bombs, and they can still be cleansed, but this buff gives him the much needed ability to have at least one bomb explode.

Finally, his S3 inflicting AoE speed down is a fairly strong buff, giving him much-needed utility and improving his odds of getting another bomb stun off

3⭐ Heroes

Azalea

Azalea

Azalea

Our energetic fire tank gets some good utility and damage upgrades from this update:

  • S3 gains DEF break at 65% (up to 75% at max)
  • S3 deals more damage

These are pretty significant changes for Azalea. She’s now quite useful, since a combination Speed Down/DEF Break is shared with no one (except Baal and Sezan).

The cooldown on this skill is also quite low for such impactful debuffs, at only 3 turns.

Notably, Azalea is now also the only 3* with an AoE DEF break

Chadlay

Adlay

Adlay

Adlay is now a lite version of Judge Kise, even more so than before. He received the following changes:

  • S3 cooldown decreased by 1 turn
  • S3 dispels 1 buff from all enemies BEFORE attempting to increase skill cooldown
  • S3 gains 20 Soul Burn option to ignore effect resistance, and loses the ‘extra damage’ on Soul burn.

These are some nice buffs for Tenebria’s potential pet. The ability to dispel a buff before increasing skill cooldown in one single move makes Adlay quite useful, as he is no longer blocked by the ever-present Immunity set. Losing the extra damage on Soulburn isn’t a big deal, since his main job is to provide utility. The ability to ignore the enemy’s effect resistance also makes him much more consistent at his job, and the cooldown reduction makes it fairly reliable.

Unfortunately, he still doesn’t have 100% proc chance for either the dispel or the cooldown increase, making him still mildly crapshoot-ey.

Chaos Inquisitor

Chaos Inquisitor

Chaos Inquisitor

Chaos Inquisitor got some fresh information from Chaos (maybe). He’s now stronger, and his specialty change buffs were improved as follows:

  • S1 gets 7% more damage
  • S1 gives 25% CR (up from 20%) when buffs are dispelled from the enemy
  • S3 gains a higher base chance - up to 50% - to chain into S1 (increased to 100% on buffed targets)
  • S1 will always dispel when triggered by S3

These changes improve Chaos Inquisitor’s overall disruption capabilities, and allow him to be very consistent in dispelling enemy buffs. It will also be slightly easier for him to sustain himself via the Lifesteal set, due to gaining a little  more turn meter and damage each time he gets a turn. His maximum damage is surprisingly high, at ~3.3x ATK (burdened, of course, by his fairly low base ATK values).

Pyllis

Pyllis

Pyllis

Lastly, we have the changes to Pyllis. Pyllis has been in a bit of an odd spot and has received a few targeted buffs, but those have fallen short of making her usable.

The current round of buffs includes the following:

  • S2 ramps up faster and caps out at higher values than before (3 attacks to cap out vs. 5 prior)
  • S3 provokes the enemy for 1 turn
  • S1 and S3 receive higher DEF-scaling damage against enemies

These make Pyllis stronger as she takes less time to ramp up, and the Provoke (despite its short duration) is a good way for her to draw fire.

Ultimately, she still suffers from very low SPD, but she can provoke on every turn that she moves now, making her much easier to use, now that she doesn’t have to choose between provoking and shielding allies.

Wrap-up and Conclusion

It's been a while, but that ends the current review. I'll try to do these more often, so please look forward to it.

If you've got any questions for me, feel free to reach out! You can always find me on the subreddit or on Discord at Burtgang#9627. I look forward to reading/hearing all your feedback!

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About the Author(s)

Video game and gacha enthusiast who majored in U̶n̶d̶e̶r̶w̶a̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶B̶a̶s̶k̶e̶t̶ ̶W̶e̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶, er, English.

Find me on Reddit at /u/Burtgang or check out my small community Discord at https://discord.gg/bBZEfhB