Hong Meiling (Immovable Demon's Gate)

E1 Hong Meiling was released on July 29th in Ultra Festival: Immovable Demon’s Gate.

Hong Meiling is the youkai gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, whose only job is to…guard the gate. She is only really seen around or within the Scarlet Devil Mansion, either doing (or sleeping on…) her job or gardening around the mansion. While it is unclear what type of youkai she is, she is a proud master of Chinese martial arts and can manipulate qi to get an advantage while physically fighting. In the past, she has failed in her duties by either being defeated on the job or just being too laid-back and careless. Nevertheless, this E1 Meiling, one who appears to be from a very distinct universe, takes her job much more seriously and scores as an SS-Tier Friend.

For pure offense to ward off unwelcome guests, Meiling can easily clear them out. She comes with built-in Accuracy support thanks to her first spell, Flower Sign: Colorful Light Lotus Flower Palm, which raises her Accuracy by 3 levels (3T). Afterwards, she can go even further beyond with her first skill, Security Guard, which raises her and the team’s Yin ATK by 3 levels (3T), something that activating her Star-studded Last Word, Closing the Scarlet Devil Mansion Gate, does as well, with 4 levels of Yin ATK UP (2T) for herself. She also raises her CRIT ATK by 3 levels (2T), something that will come in handy toward Gensokyo intruders due to her Gensokyo-Killer bullets. As a beefy wall, all of the defensive buffs she builds up over battle will come into play for offense due to her Hard scaling, giving Meiling excellent setup damage.

People say that defense is the best offense, and Meiling would likely agree with them. As a Defense-Class Friend, she currently holds the highest Yang DEF and 2nd highest Yin DEF stats, giving her great defensive value as well as allowing her to buff her defenses even higher. A majority of her kit is defensive-based, as seen by her second spell, Colorful Chinese Flower: Rainbow Tai Chi Chuan, raising the party’s Yin DEF by 3 levels (3T). Her second skill, Blue Dragon, joins in as well by restoring 75% of her HP as well as buffing the team’s Yang DEF and Yin DEF by 3 levels (3T). Not only does she keep her guard up, but she assists in helping other Friends defend themselves, which can easily make threats less menacing. She can even use her third skill, Mysterious Qigong, to restore 2 layers of the party’s Barriers with only a 6-turn cooldown! Colorful Chinese Flower: Rainbow Tai Chi Chuan can’t stop being helpful as well, both healing Meiling by 40% of her HP and giving the party 1 extra Barrier layer.

While she has already fortified the rest of her allies, Meiling still uses a lot of Focus UP to prioritize damage onto her and keep the team safe. Security Guard raises her Focus by 4 levels (4T), making it very hard for foes to deal damage to other members of the team, even if using All-target attacks. Closing the Scarlet Devil Mansion Gate joins in the fun, both raising Meiling’s Yin DEF and Focus by 3 more levels (4T). In case you weren’t doing the math, Meiling can easily reach 9 levels of Yin DEF UP all by herself, making the Hard scaling on Closing the Scarlet Devil Mansion Gate ridiculously high. 

With Meiling doing such an incredible job on guard duty, it’s almost impossible to find a true flaw with her. Unfortunately, there is a minor issue with her elemental breaking. She does not lack any elements, as instead every single bullet line, including basic shots, has an element! This gives her 2 different 0P elemental breaks in Earth and Metal. While this sounds great, this means that all of her spells are very varied in her elemental coverage, only having a small bias toward Star, as 2/6 of the lines are Star on her spells and 4/6 are Star on her Last Word. This makes it somewhat difficult to be focused on elemental breaks with her. Keeping her guard up, Meiling still has another trick up her sleeve: Flower Sign: Colorful Light Lotus Flower Palm’s 2 layers of Burn anomaly inflicted upon activation. While already a great way to debuff Yin stats further, the spell can break these anomalies at 1P, giving Meiling a very easy way to immediately break barriers. Combine this with Friends that apply Burn as well, and it’s almost like Meiling didn’t need elements in the first place.

Meiling gives practically everything that is needed with a Friend. Aggressive offense, stalwart defense, supportive utility, and even some anomaly breaks on the side. She might not be the most apparent in offensive buffs, but with her plentiful defensive support skills and Security Guard’s partywide Yin ATK buff, she really doesn’t need it to be good. Security Guard even gives herself 1.25 Spirit Power in case she needs the boost at the start of a battle. Not that she will need to worry about staying in the battle, as she will be a force to be reckoned with, determined to prove herself as Immovable Meiling.