Arden

Weapon: Arden's Blade

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Ignis

Passive A: Fierce Breath / Sturdy Stance / Steady Breath / Distant Foil / Distant Counter / Warding Breath / Sturdy Stance

Passive B: Follow-Up Ring / Special Fighter

Passive C: Atk Smoke / Armor March / Def Smoke

Sacred Seal: Sturdy Stance / Atk/Def Bond / Atk/Def Solo

• Arden's signature dual-phase Brave weapon, when paired with a Breath effect, gives him the rare ability to activate Ignis immediately after tanking an attack in enemy phase. Assuming the correct skills and no Guard effects are in place, the timing is as follows:
  • Arden's Ignis starts at its regularly too-long value of 4, which then gets reduced to 2 after taking an enemy hit. When it's Arden's turn to counterattack in the same round, his Blade's first hit charges it fully in time for its second hit to fire off a preposterously powerful Ignis burst.
• As said before, a Breath effect in some form is required to fire Ignis off on Arden's counterattack. Here are his options:
  • A Breath skill in Arden's A-slot is the easiest and most self-sufficient way of doing so as he requires no ally support and Breath continues working regardless of Arden's HP. Any Breath version that isn't Darting is preferred for very obvious reasons.
  • Special Fighter can be run in the B slot as it also grants a similar Breath effect on Arden's hits. It runs into a slight redundancy issue, though; its "inflicts Special cooldown charge -1" effect is entirely wasted as it is already provided by Arden's Blade when refined. Additionally, and equally alarming, the cooldown acceleration also stops working once Arden gets below 50% HP.
  • An ally-provided support skill that grants Special cooldown +1, such as Geirskögul or Renewed Fang, allows Arden to free up his own skill slots for other options. This especially includes Distant Counter or Distant Foil to expand his counterattacking matchups, and Follow-Up Ring to allow for the possibility of activating Ignis TWICE and closing matchups more efficiently.
• Given this build's focus on ending it all in one Ignis-powered shot, Sacred Seals that help his damage output even more are obvious. Atk/Def Bond or Atk/Def Solo all help him out in this respect while furthering his physical bulk. While Sturdy Stance 3's redundancy with Arden's Blade's Guard effect may seem like an optimization issue, using it allows Arden to keep Guard active at all HP points.
• Atk Smoke is an easy-to-access C slot option that makes tanking incoming hits much easier. Alternatively, Def Smoke makes the likelihood of one-shots even better in subsequent battles, and Armor March is a good C slot for armors to improve their otherwise bad movement as always.

Weapon: Arden's Blade

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Ignis / Moonbow / Aether

Passive A: Atk/Def Solo / Death Blow

Passive B: Follow-Up Ring / Bold Fighter

Passive C: Armored Stride / Armor March

Sacred Seal: Atk/Def Solo / Death Blow / Armor March

• See that speck on the horizon? That's Arden coming at you with 99 Speed! …well, that's not quite right, but this build is the closest he can come to the idea. Thanks to the guaranteed follow-up attack granted by your choice of Follow-Up Ring or Bold Fighter as well as the utter blitz damage coming from Arden's Blade alone, an aggressive player-phase build is definitely on the table. The strategy thus is as simple as Arden: initiate combat and watch (a reasonable amount of) things explode.
• In both Arden's A slot and Sacred Seal, his best choices basically boil down to Death Blow or Atk/Def Solo. Keeping in mind that Arden's Blade and Follow-Up Ring works in both phases, Atk/Def Solo is definitely preferred for enhanced attacking and physical defending in both phases.
• The choice between Follow-Up Ring and Bold Fighter basically boils down to each skills' individual effects.
  •  Follow-Up Ring comes natively on Arden and generally does the job fine enough as it provides follow-up attacks in both phases, making it the preferred B slot for mixed phase attacking. It should be noted that it only works when Arden is above 50% HP, meaning ally-supported healing or Aether is required for consistent performance.
  • Bold Fighter keeps Arden's routine effectively locked to player phase only, but in exchange, it provides faster Special charging (Moonbow in particular activates immediately on Arden's Blade's second hit, while Ignis can activate on the third) and suffers from no HP condition like Follow-Up Ring.
• Given this build's focus on player phase aggressiveness, methods of improving Arden's mobility are appreciated. Arden can provide this for himself through his C slot through Armor March and Armored Stride—Armored Stride in particular synergizes particularly well with Atk/Def Solo.

Weapon: Arden's Blade

Assist: Positional Assist

Special: Moonbow / Ruptured Sky / Glimmer / Ignis

Passive A: Distant Counter / Distant Foil

Passive B: Vantage

Passive C: Def Smoke / Joint Drive Atk

Sacred Seal: Fierce Stance / Atk/Def Solo / Brazen Atk/Def

• He's strong and he's tough, and he can run Distant Counter + Vantage! …which is pretty much a completely expected and standard combination on all enemy-phase Brave weapon users at this point.
• Whereas Vantage allows Arden to counterattack immediately before enemies can hit him at lower health, Distant Counter (or Foil if you prefer simply going against physical enemies only) expands the number of enemies he can Vantage sweep against. So as long as you don't push it against healthy blue or physically bulky enemies, as well as Dazzling staff users or tomes with Sweep or Hardy Bearing effects, Arden can get the job done well.
• Besides its famed Brave effect in both phases, Arden's Blade provides a number of benefits if Arden's HP is above 50%. Notably, on a build as focused on pure damage as this, the Atk +4 provides appreciable power to both hits. There's a couple of contentions with this, however: Arden's HP must be in a sweetspot between 75% and 50% to make use of both Vantage and the refined effects of Arden's Blade. Though Arden's damage output can be good enough without the in-combat Atk boost, it's recommended to be careful of initial matchups so that Arden can soak enough damage to achieve the sweetspot.
• Moonbow, Ruptured Sky, and Glimmer are preferred Specials on this build due to its constant one-round KO nature; thanks to their short cooldown and Arden's Blade's double hitting effect, these Specials can activate very frequently. If paired with Geirskögul (or some similar Breath equivalent) support, they can even activate on the Blade's second hit on every Vantage counterattack. Given such support, Ignis is also a huge damage option that activates every other turn.
• To further supplement Arden's one-shot potential, appropriate C slot and Sacred Seals should be considered.
  • In the C slot, Def Smoke drastically deteriorates the Defense of surrounding enemies through a debuff of -7 and is typically pretty affordable. Joint Drive Atk has a few advantages in that Arden can support other allies with an Attack boost himself, while being able to benefit from increased damage without needing Smoke applied first.
  • Fierce Stance and Atk/Def Solo are solid Sacred Seal choices which both provide a meaty amount of Atk in Arden's enemy phase. Atk/Def Solo also provides some dual phase utility by providing more bulk and some initiation power if Arden must duke it out there. If those Seals are taken elsewhere, Brazen Atk/Def technically provides slightly better stat boosts but requires the same damage setup as Vantage.