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Waifu Wars #1 Part 1: We Fielding Waifus in Ranking?

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Article by RealSheele Adamasturia
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Table of Contents

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to our first interaction with Waifu Wars (name courtesy of yours truly Sheele-chan).
So, what’s this Waifu Wars about? Should I bring Lee and StG here? And what's with the gif?
This gif is a courtesy from Kawa, and our official banner :heh:.

As for what Waifu Wars is, I'm glad you asked. I’m sure most of you heard of ranking at some point, and how much team preparation it needs, and about optimal dolls for it and what not. BUT, have you ever thought “what if I want to field my waifu Garand? Or my waifu Springfield?-

S-Springfield?! LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO
As I was saying, “what if I want to field my favourite waifu in ranking?” Sadly not all of our waifus are meta, and most don’t even get the chance to shine even once. So we decided to come up with this panel to answer these questions! For this we brought up two senseis, one a veteran, and one a recent player that have been blitzkrieging toward the elusive end game dalaos sit on: Sheele-chan and Varz! Arikiramod3 is also joining us as our consultant regarding PL shenanigans. Look forward to her guide for PL!
"I am RealSheele, or Sheelounet, but just call me Sheele or Frenchman if you're retarded. I started playing the game back in September 2019 and played like a madman back then to catch up with some veterans. I don’t know if I can be considered as one, though. Now that I'm in a good state in the game, I try to finally bring my strategies and experience with other strategy games, such as Advance War, to GFL."
I'm xVarz, I mostly go around helping people on GFC's Discord server and making an occasional spreadsheet or translation for miscellaneous GFL materials. I also consistently seek optimized gaming, such as by placing top 1% in Shattered Connexion despite joining the game at the end of Theatre 1 (late April 2020).
Fun fact: Varz was filtered by Reece Centres (a.k.a. barns) on Theatre 3 and earned the affectionate nickname of Barz since then.

And on the other side, we have yours truly, Adamasturia, bringing up the apex of waifu in ranking by duping an LWMMG mod for PL, along with a few other faces you might have seen around here: Redarrix, Destination, Crallyl and Kawa. We’ll be asking questions we think you guys would like to ask.

I'm Destination, I've been playing since Deep Dive, placed in 84 in Shattered Connexxion ranking, and I guide others to fairies I cannot possess (looking at you Taunt). The only reason I'm still playing GFL is because of cute girls and writing stories about them (especially Springfield).
Hello, I'm Red. At Gamepress, I am the Fire Emblem Heroes Site Lead, and a writer for the Girls' Frontline team. You may know me from my Neural Upgrade Priority Guide and Matt's Theatre Betting Panel. I simp for Lee a lot.
Hello, I'm CrallyLystia, usually called Crally by others. I'm your usual EN GFL player, I don't make guides, but usually make memes and chibi memes. I joined the game back in September 2019, by the end of the Valhalla Collab, because of UMP45, but I oathed G36
Sup, the name's Kawa (pronounced Kava). I'm the CEO of eating and sleeping. I do guides and community stuff in AK and PNC, but recently Aru dragged me back into GFL. So now I'm here. :)
Alright, now that you Commanders and Shikikans got to know the crew, let's get rolling! Varz will give us a peak at what sort of teams we would typically see in Polarized Light ranking. As we discuss our dolls of choice, we'll go into further detail.
So for PL, we have the following team comps:

- 2 deathstack team

- 1 paradrop

- 2 deathstack support

- 1-2 elid

- 1 paradeus team

- 2-3 KCCO campers

Some of these teams are interchangeable and possess similar compositions or can perform more than one role. For example: ELID teams become KCCO camp around turn 7.

What are the AR & SMG roles in PL?

AR, just like SMGs, are rarely seen in PL, mainly because the map has so many needs for armor piercing that there’s not much room for them. But they find some usefulness on the left side of the map, where a team goes to escort a M4A1 NPC and protect her from ELID/Smasher enemies. But that’s not their only utility in this ranking. Later on, around turn 5, Doggos compositions start spawning, and RFHG aren’t that good at handling them.
However, those are Doggo/Ceryns, you’ll still use RFHG to deal with them. But at turn 7, doggo/archer comps will start to appear, and it’ll be AR/SMGs’ time to shine.

These compositions are usually composed of 3 ARs and 2 SMGs. Luckily, out of the 28 dolls we have to place in Waifu Wars’ ranking, 6 are Assault Rifles, so that means that instead of one ARSMG comp, we will have two. But that also means that we have the perfect amount to place them all in ELID teams.

Even if we are going to place all of the girls I’m going to talk about in ELID, we're going to try to separate them in two teams: Alpha and Bravo, and explain why we pair a doll with another.

G36

So for our first doll we’ll be looking at everyone’s favourite maid, the one and only G36. A self buffer AR, G36 buffs her own FP and becomes a hybrid buffer with her MOD!
G36 is probably the best AR we have in our list. She's a solid self-buffer, with decent 4* AR base DMG and ACC, while her RoF lags a bit behind other meta ARs. Her relatively short skill ICD and good skill uptime and multiplier make for consistent performance, which is... shall we say, more than we can say of most of the dolls.
Is her mod a big improvement? I understand not everyone might have her oathed on MOD 3 like our fellow meido lovers.
Okay, sure, but do you have her at lv120?
So, how do you think she'll fare on this ranking? Against ELID and against doggos/archers

G36's mod turns her from a solid 4* AR into a, well, solid 5* AR. Beyond the improved base stats and skill multiplier, she also gains access to some RoF self buffs dependent on the number of allies standing on her tiles at the time of skill activation. She doesn't do much new, but she does clean house better. Take a look at GamePress' Mod Recommendations guide for some more details.

I have her at MOD2, does that mean I can field her against doggos since she has ROF buffs?
While she is a good generalist, her FP buff will see better usage against ELID teams. Moreover, in PL ranking, we only see doggo+archers comps spawn on Turn 7-Turn 8, which are the hardest KCCO comps we have to face. So for those of you that got traumatized by the infamous doggos+archers comps on SC, this time we don’t have to worry about them as much as we had
Isn’t 21% ROF rather weak? AR-15 has 50% ROF
21% ROF is quite decent with an AR, even more considering she also gets an FP buff with it. She fulfills her role as an AR perfectly against ELIDs, especially because there are several fights with Smashers (those big boi zombies), which basically act as bosses which is where self-buffers shine. She also does great against doggos in general because of the aforementioned RoF buffs; remember, doggo shields reduce all incoming damage to 1 until their shields pop, which means multihit and RoF self-buffers fare much better.
So all things considered, G36 is not a complete meme on PL?
Correct
But I thought we were looking at dolls typically overlooked! If she isn’t a bad pick, then she won’t be overlooked!
G36’s case is more that the AR class is choke full of good ARs, and her performance pre-mod is somewhat lacking compared to newer ARs. So chances are that a lot of players that don’t have her levelled will never consider levelling her for PL.
So what team will we field her in?
Because she's the first AR, she goes in the Alpha ELID team.
Summary

There is nothing much to say about best maido, the 2nd cutest housewife in Griffon. I place her in the Alpha Team because she is the first that is presented, but it might be cool to remind her strengths and how to overcome some of her weaknesses.

Non-modded, she is kinda meh, just a simple burst AR, with a decent DPS, but nothing exceptional. 

But modded, this a complete other thing, mainly due to her 2nd skill giving her RoF, allowing her to deal with Doggos more easily alongside her FP buff. She might ask for some low RoF tile-buffs so she can cap herself and clean the battlefield like she cleans your filthy bedroom.

Zas M21

So our next doll, Zas M21, A.K.A biteable neck for the peeps following Shilling Panel and Kawa’s personal wife. Tell us more about her, and mince words, otherwise Kawa might finish you off.
Zas M21 is one of the less commonly used grenadiers in the game; she has a super low ICD, but also a very low grenade multiplier, meaning she usually is the best choice unless you're fighting something like dinergates or tarantulas. However, ELID enemies tend to come in huge packs, which means we want at least one grenadier per ELID team.
So, how does she perform among the grenadiers? She's famous from being the DPS for 8-1n farm after all (and for step on you vibes). Remember to be nice.
Outside of 8-1N, her super low multiplier makes her, well, not a great option for generalist fights, and even worse when the enemies are so tanky that her grenade will barely remove any links.
So much for being nice. How she gonna perform against ELID and Doggos?
ELID is a case of enemies that are really tanky, so she'll do okay, but just remember that better options do exist. As for doggos, her ICD is still too long for her grenade to hit the doggos before their shields come up, which means you're going to want to play around with her skill timing.
So, she'll likely underperform this time?
As with most of the dolls, yes.
So, what team will we be fielding her?
For reasons that will be explained later, we put her on the Bravo team.
Summary

Nothing much to say about one of the rarely used naders of the game, I just want to put at least one nader in each team to help them dealing with hordes. Kawa is probably going to say “TALK ABOUT ZASTAVA MOAR''. I’d like to, but there’s nothing much to say anymore beside the fact that she has the fastest ICD/Frame nade, and that she has one of the weakest multipliers out there, which is why she is only used against dinnergates/tarantulas.

AUG

Aight, next one is AUG. A rare doll that has been around only a few times to farm (I think twice?) For those who have been around since GSG collab, there was a lot of mentions about her because of Angelica, who is essentially a copy paste with her skill improved.
Anyway, AUG's also know to be chosen as the "third AR buffer" by some because of her tiles. Is that assumption true?
For anybody that's actually looked at how strong her tile buffs are, you would know that by any conventional measure, it's not strong enough of a buff to really call it a buff. However, they are nonzero buffs, and we will make do with whatever we can get our hands on.
Does she beat having a HG buffing, like Grizzy or SAA, though?
If it weren't for doggos, no. However, the fact that she raises her RoF to the max makes her invaluable for fighting doggos, so she's fine here.
How does she perform in general? I was always told she’s bad.
The biggest problem with her skill is that once she goes into max RoF mode, her targeting no longer locks onto a single target, and every single shot is aimed at a random enemy. This means she doesn't actually finish off the links she starts killing, resulting in her performance leaving much to be desired.
But with doggos archers, that can be a good thing?
In the case of doggo archers, it's actually okay, because she will either be depleting doggo shields, or hitting the super dangerous enemy DPS. So, while it's non-ideal, it's not as bad as it usually is.
so AUGGERs can finally rejoice, yorokobe shounen AUGGER. What team will we be fielding her?
In Alpha team, because we actually plan on fielding it against doggos.
Summary
Remember when I was talking about giving some low RoF buffs to G36? AUG can provide them. Besides that, she is just another high RoF DPS. Her random targeting might be a problem in some fights, but her partners should (hopefully) help her with that, not to mention that even if we count that as a weakness, her targeting MIGHT minimize damage on late Doggo/Archers comps.

Ribeyrolles

Alright, for our next doll we have, amusingly, the other contender for "third AR buffer" option, Ribeyrolles. How does she perform in general?
Ribey's performance is good, not the best in the world, but certainly no slouch. Unlike AUG, Ribey actually properly buffs her allies' DPS, with both stronger tiles and a powerful skill. However, she has fallen out of favour for most endgame content because her skill requires her allies to be on her tiles on skill activation, and in endgame content, ARSMGs are usually used to fight specific enemies or bosses that require kiting, making managing her skill more difficult than necessary.
So against ELID and doggos, how can we expect her to perform?
Ribey's skill provides much desired DMG and RoF buffs, which are just appreciated by everyone. We expect great things of her!
Wao, Varz is actually praising a doll. So she is actually meta in this ranking?
Well, she still doesn't fall into the meta category, because there are better options. We only expect great things of her in comparison to the other ARs we have been forced to work with. I'm also being threatened by the Frenchman to stay cool.
So much for praising a doll. So, for doggos, it's better to use 3AR teams rather than focusing on the traditional ARSMG teambuilding?
Against doggos specifically, more bullets = more better. HGs generally help with making bullets hit harder, not making more bullets.
So since Ribey buffs ROF, on top of being an AR herself, a team with her performs better than a team with just 3 ARs? or there are still better comps?
There are dolls that have multihit or RoF buffs of their own (such as ST AR-15, AN94, G11) who don't need external RoF buffs to shred doggo shields, and as such, can benefit from more traditional buffs for higher overall DPS. Remember, many SMGs also provide RoF tile buffs that can help as well.
What do you mean by traditional buffs? So with Ribey there is the possibility of capping ROF?

For an ARSMG, since most ARs naturally already have very high RoFs, they are at danger of overcapping their RoF (the game puts a limit of 120 RoF, plus frame shenanigans, the GamePress article "How Frames Affect RoF" has more details). This means that they tend to appreciate DMG buffs more, since they are unlikely to "waste" the buffs. With Ribey alone, the 25% RoF buff isn't quite enough to cap any AR's RoF. There is the possibility of overcapping when SMGs enter the scene, however.

So, where are we going to field her?
Besides the fact that we already have an AR buffer in the Alpha team, we want Ribey in the Bravo team because we want to give Zas more FP buffs to make up for her low grenade multiplier.

So Ribey is going to Bravo because 

A) AUGs retargeting is actually beneficial in this ranking, instead of detrimental 

B) Zas greatly benefits from the FP buff and crit buffs

Crit?
didn't her skill buff ROF and Crit?
Imagine reading. FP, Acc, ROF. Also, Zas wouldn't benefit much from crit. For skills that do something other than affecting the bullets typically being fired (i.e. not a self-buff), it is safe to assume that the skill cannot crit unless stated otherwise
Summary

Obviously, since AUG is in Alpha Team, Ribey goes to Bravo, but there’s also a real reason behind this:

  • First, she provides FP buffs with both her tiles and skill, which will be helpful for Zas and her 2nd partner. 
  • Second, she herself has a pretty decent DPS, which will help the team deal with enemies. 
  • Third, she only needs a few buffs from a SMG to really do something.

AS Val

we have AS Val now to field
Fielding AS Val in a daytime ranking map is the epitome of Bad Ideas 101.
But why are we fielding her? You chose her! Is it because she's cute, she has lewd default art, she has a cute voice, powerful thighs on mod screen, so she's a perfect waifu for many out there?

Purely to meme. Her base stats are atrocious, her daytime skill multiplier is awful, and her skill uptime is terrible. Even her Mod skill 2 is rendered more or less useless, because it's a daytime map, so having perfect accuracy is hardly a DPS boost, and doesn't allow her to equip a VFL when other ARs cannot.

Meanwhile, her Mod 3 SPEQ only partially patches up her bad base DMG, which simply isn't enough to justify fielding her. Alas, here we are in Waifu Wars, where non-meta dolls are everywhere.

“and doesn't allow her to equip a VFL when other ARs cannot.” what do you mean here?

The reason why there was so much excitement over AS Val when she was first released was because her skill 2, Faith, gives her a short duration of perfect accuracy after receiving an FP buff. With the right setup, that means that she can achieve near 100% skill 2 uptime. This is huge for an AR at night: since her shots always hit, she doesn't need to equip a PEQ to avoid the night accuracy penalty. She can equip a VFL instead, which gives her vastly superior DPS compared to most ARs at night that are forced to wear PEQs to hit the broad side of a barn.

However, this advantage disappears during the day, because, well, ARs basically don't miss much during the day, and every AR equips a VFL.

So, despite all her bad sides, waifu > meta in the end, and I want to field my 120 oathed 10/10 AS Val (except I don't have her like this kekw). So how do we expect her to perform?
To suffer is quite accurate. Especially on doggos because she doesn't have any RoF or multi hit self buffs.
Her FP buff is severely lower during the day, so she can't face on armoured units like she does at night?
That as well. Also, note that her uptime is an issue for the KCCO fights, since some of those fights get very long, courtesy of doggos.
That said, what team are we leaving her on?
Bravo Team. She needs as many buffs as she can get.
Summary

Nothing much to say about AS Val, since she will probably be the AR with the worst performance at the end of the run, mainly because of her skill being a night one and her base Firepower being really bad. Even Ribey’s buffs and tiles won’t really save her, they’ll just mitigate the problem of that huge lack of impact in a day fight.

STG44

Now, for our last team. One of our most recent dolls to get a mod. One of my favourite dolls and a personal waifu of Red. It's StG44. So, how well does she not perform?
As mentioned earlier, we want a grenadier on both ELID teams, and StG44 provides that. She's not a spectacular grenadier by any means, but she fulfils the role. Modding her improves her performance from "fairly decent" to "good," but again, better options exist.
"Better Options exist" is certainly right. How well do you think she performs as a grenadier?
A moment, I need to check her stats because I forgot she existed.
Several moments and war crimes later.
She has a relatively high base DMG stat for a 3*, which is a good start. Her grenade is an HE grenade, which has a higher multiplier closer to the center of the explosion and weaker multipliers further out from the center. The main thing holding her back is her really high ICD (8 seconds!) and her 3* grenade multipliers. Her skill 2 makes her grenade explode multiple times, which helps the latter problem by simply dealing more damage.
So, you think she's actually a good grenadier post MOD?
Her ICD is still quite long, and if you want large explosions, 416 Mod does a much better job on both fronts (6s ICD and better multipliers with bigger range and better DMG stat and a SPEQ that both buffs crit rate for gun DPS and DMG for grenade damage).
But 416 is too expensive for me!!!111!!
Well then save up for her. Or use SOPMOD, she's something similar to a budget 416 without the ICD buff.
But Soppo is not a cute german!!!11!
I'm trying to come up w/ a satisfactory answer and I can't find one.
Just accept waifu > meta. So, how well we expect her to perform against ELID and doggos?
As discussed before, grenadiers are there for the ELID fights, and are tricky to use against doggos. However, we already have a grenadier on Bravo Team, so StG44 goes on Alpha Team.
Because Zas needs more the FP buffs than StG?
Since StG44 doesn't need the DMG buffs as much, yes.
For this ranking, how many ARSMGs are advised to be fielded? Will those suffice?

Generally speaking, we only need 2 ARSMGs for the ranking. AR, just like SMGs, are rarely seen in PL, mainly because the map has so many needs for armor piercing that there’s not much room for them. But they find some usefulness on the left side of the map, where a team goes to escort a M4A1 NPC and protect her from ELID/Smasher enemies. But that’s not their only utility in this ranking. Later on, around turn 5, Orthrus compositions start spawning, and RFHG aren’t as good at handling them. Therefore, those are Doggo/Ceryns, you’ll still use RFHG to deal with them. But at turn 7, doggo/archer comps will start to appear, and it’ll be AR/SMGs’ time to shine.

These compositions are usually composed of 3 ARs and 2 SMGs.

Orthrus are archers? or doggos?
Orthrus are the doggos, Centaurus are the archers.
Summary

Here comes the nader of the Alpha team. StG will probably have more than decent performance, since she’s pretty good at reducing the threat of hordes due to her high radius damage. Outside of that, StG won’t be exceptional; modding he r would make her go from “fairly decent” to “good” though.

Vector

Let’s go with my older waifu first. Fun fact: Vivi nickname, which those who played the Division collab also saw being used in-game, comes from the forbidden Honkai collab we'll never get.

Also is hella cute, and makes Vector even cuter, on top of her cute look and soft voice, so it's omega win.

Also yes, Vivi despises men, so sorry, she only likes female Shikikans.

...That said, Vector is a molotov SMG who will help patch up the lack of an early ICD grenadier on Alpha team. She also has a powerful 25% RoF tile buff on the spot just behind her, which helps optimize G36's performance by bringing her close to the RoF cap. This makes the Alpha team very strong at burning through the trash mobs that ELID throws at you.
With or without her MOD?
G36 needs to be modded to buff her RoF in the first place, so modded.
So we know Mollies love to burn zombie trash, but what about doggos? Does the molly offer any help?
Not really. The grenade is better off being saved for after doggo shields come down.(in other words, the forbidden forced manual skill). However, as an SMG, her naturally high RoF will help the team deplete doggo shields.
Doesn't her Molotov also chip away at doggo shield?
3 HP every second out of 150 HP isn't much.
Doggo shield isn't exactly a shield, but a skill right?
It's a combination of a skill and a shield. The skill reduces all incoming damage to 1, while the shield is a typical HP shield. Or you could think of it as a 2 part skill, one that reduces the damage, and the other which grants self an HP shield.
Please explain a bit more how shields work in general.
AoE skills are great against enemies with multiple links because the skill counts each link as one "hit," so against a 5x linked enemy, they will take 5 instances of damage. However, HP shields "hide" the links underneath, so an AoE skill hitting an HP shield will only deal one instance of damage to the HP shield, so no AoE link shenanigans. In other words, shields act as a 1 link instance.
So that's why HS2000 throws her non-existent pants at Gundams in mockery?
Exactly. HP shields on the entire team means Gundam grenades are all absorbed.
Summary

Since we already discussed G36 when we entered Waifu Wars’s concept, we already talked about the fact that this one needed some bonus RoF to peak her performances. Well, Vector can provide that; with her 25% RoF tiles and AUG’s RoF Tiles (10%), G36 can overcap her RoF when her 2nd skill is active when she is modded, and would still be very high when she isn’t.

But that isn’t Vector’s only utility. After all, she also has an offensive molotov skill. So yeah, it will also help StG44 cleaning hordes of ELIDs. In the end, Alpha team becomes an efficient trash cleaning team just by adding dolls that complete themselves.

X95

Now for X95, who is a position 8 SMG that buffs the entire back row, and is overshadowed by JS9 because she got a kimono skin, got a very horny summer skin, a thicc design. Oh, and I suppose she also has better tiles.

However, we all know that in the end JS9 is for tile buffing and [REDACTED] while X95 is the one that'll prepare a warm bath for you after a long, tiring day, and let you rest your head on her lap. that said, X95's skill looks simple, but does it work in practice?

X95 mainly suffers from very low accuracy, meaning that you'll want to buff her accuracy if you want her to do any substantial amount of damage against even minimally evasive enemies, such as the ELIDs. However, with the right setup, she can still contribute a decent amount. We put her on Bravo team mostly because the whole team really wants good tile buffs, which she thankfully provides.
Does the Bravo team give her said acc buffs?
Nope! Best thing we can do for her is to stick a good fairy on and put on the correct equipment (ITI, or possibly EOT depending on the enemy's exact EVA).
Would Alpha team provide her with said buffs? Wouldn't we want Vivi on Bravo since Zas is suboptimal as a nader?
Only a minimal 20%. Vector and Zas have the same ICD, and since most grenadiers have the same targeting (highest HP enemy), their grenades would overlap and actually do much less overall damage. Also, Vector's tiles fit Bravo much worse. 25% RoF tiles on one of either AS Val or Zas M21 doesn't reach any special breakpoints. X95's tiles, at least, reach all three of the ARs.
Well, how do our ARSMGs look like then?

Alpha Team: G36, AUG, StG44, Vector, and one meta main tank

Bravo Team: AS Val, Ribeyrolles, Zas M21, X95, and one meta main tank

What would be a meta main tank? UMP9?
UMP45, C-MS and RO635 come to mind. The main criteria for main tanks are "how good are your tiles?" (UMP45) and "How much survivability do you have?" (C-MS for longer fights, RO635 for shorter fights). Stuns do help survivability, but they have been falling off since, well, a while ago. Lots of enemies aren't stunnable, like the Smashers.
Okay, how well can I expect our Alpha and Bravo to perform on Normal mode on Map 1? Will we suffer a lot? Do we need to do illegal things, like kiting? Can Zas and Vivi live to see the end of the day, and return to my office so I can nom their necks?
Normal mode? I thought we were talking about EX. They'll be... fine. Probably.
Varz, let's be realistic, how many players actually will bother with EX?
Summary
Well, as we said when we were talking about ARs, we admitted that the Bravo team would have huge issues clearing enemies over time. However, adding offensive SMGs with good tiles, such as X95 combined with another, like SR-3MP for example, would help the team perform slightly better and sustain way more than with a defensive comp.
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About the Author(s)

RealSheele

I, Sheele, of House Pepega, First of my name, Analyst and Savior of EN, Dead streamer and Compulsive memer, introduced myself to you and the world.

 

Twitter: @RealSheele

Discord: @Sheele-chan#8885

Adamasturia

Just your average EN mengxin looking to help the GFL community and spread the love for kawaii, hard worker LWMMG.

AUG is love, AUG is life.

Fielded 2 Neko23 on Isomer ranking.
Fielded 2 AN-94 on Shattered Connexion ranking.
Fielded 2 LWMMG MOD on Polarized Light ranking.
Fielded 2 Mosin-Nagants on Dual Randomness ranking.

Head of Roadmaps, Shilling Panel and Waifu Wars Panel. Frequently Soul's workslave.

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