Medusa

Overview

Medusa is a support AR that notably has tiles that buff both SMGs and ARs. Her skill and base stats do not contribute much damage output on their own, but rather enable Medusa’s friends allies, making it preferable to set her up with other ARs.

Her allies gain more survivability through stuns and enemy accuracy debuffs, as well as damage output against evasive enemies and a 10% boost damage on top.

While her ability to support can seem flexible, her lack of a consistently strong DPS that support alternatives such as handguns can offer, and the situational nature of Medusa means that she is an option, but not a high priority to raise.

Strengths

Boosts tank survival

Due to her ability to lower enemy accuracy by significant amounts and provide an early stun that ranges from 1 to 5 seconds on enemies, Medusa can boost the frontline’s sustainability quite a lot. The marks last for 8 seconds too, which helps when she’s trying to stack on multiple targets

Low cooldown

Medusa’s initial cooldown and regular cooldown are both 3 seconds, meaning her petrification can make an impact early in the fight.

Tiles buff both ARs and SMGs

Shows that Medusa is a support AR.

Boosts Hit Rate and DPS

Against highly evasive enemies, the evasion debuffs will help the echelon hit them more consistently. Paired with the 10% damage increase on petrified targets and her AR buffing tiles, Medusa can make a decent impact.

High base FP

58 is slightly high for an AR.

Weaknesses

Low DPS contribution

Medusa herself has no skill that increases her own damage output directly, and so must rely on teammates to deal that damage for her.

Low base ROF

At 73, Medusa’s base rate of fire is lower than average for an AR, which is unfortunate due to her skill’s reliance on attacking targets often.

Less effective against large packs

The more enemies there are, the less of an impact Medusa has, as she cannot create a significant number of stacks on each one.

Falls off in extended fights or against certain targets

Medusa’s petrify skill only works once per enemy, so longer fights will eventually make her active skill useless, leaving only the debuffing stacks. The same can be said of stunnable enemies such as bosses and doppelsoldners, or ones that do not rely on evasion and accuracy.

Random targeting

Random targeting means Medusa will be able to spread out her debuffs properly, but it also means Medusa can fail to prioritize the most dangerous targets first.

Full Analysis

Medusa is pretty clearly a support AR, from her debuff-centered skill to her tiles. The first part of her skill that reduces enemy accuracy and evasion is a passive that stacks up to 5. Upon active skill, enemies with those stacks are stunned and take increased damage for the duration of the number of stacks they have. The stun will only work once on each unit, making things such as permanently stunning enemies not possible.

Medusa’s random targeting also makes her first prioritize attacking enemies she has not previously attacked, making sure she spreads out her stacks as well as possible. This can be both a benefit and a problem. It spreads out the debuffs more evenly, but due to rng, Medusa can fail to put enough stacks onto the most dangerous target in the fight. She also falls off harder with more enemies, as she will spread her stacks too thin to make a significant impact. This can lead to painful consequences for the tank.

Medusa also shares an issue with stun grenadiers, in that her ability to stun is entirely ignored by certain units and bosses. She still contributes by lowering their accuracy and evasion, but part of her skill becomes useless.

While highly evasive enemies are rather rare, against them Medusa can quickly reduce their main form of survival and let her teammates burn through those specific foes. But on the flip side, against enemies that ignore evasion entirely or don’t have evasion themselves render Medusa’s stacks worthless, making her role in teams specific and niche.

All in all Medusa is a support AR that seems uniquely focused on supporting evasion tanks more than anything. Support HGs and other support ARs are already able to provide far more DPS than Medusa can usually provide. However, those stacks of accuracy debuff can quickly cripple enemies’ damage in return.

For consistent performance, Medusa is not the answer, but she certainly can be considered for some interesting applications.

Team Options

TAR-21

UMP45

AK-12

Evasion focused tanks

C-MS

Sten MkII

Main tanks that rely on evasion to survive will appreciate the enemy attack being delayed and their accuracy being lowered by Medusa

Hitrate-hungry DPS

Sr-3mp

G41

While not necessarily ones that need to hit better, general DPS that can benefit from hitting harder and more consistently will benefit from Medusa’s buffs.

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