Hatari Karla

Weapon: Dryblade Lance

Assist: Reposition / Draw Back / Flexible

Special: Draconic Aura / Luna / AOE Special 

Passive A: Atk/Spd Boosting A-slot (Life and Death, Swift Sparrow preferred)

Passive B: Special Spiral

Passive C: Odd Tempest / Joint Drive Atk / Atk/Def Menace / Atk/Spd Menace / Time's Pulse / Flexible

Sacred Seal: Atk/Spd Solo / Life and Death / Blade Session / Swift Sparrow 

• Karla's default skills are an entirely viably skillset on their own as the developers had an obvious vision in mind for her: a one-shotting, Special-spamming killing machine. This only requires her to inherit some sort of high-quality, initiation-friendly Atk/Spd A-slot skill, and for the uninitiated, that pretty much boils down to Swift or Surge Sparrow, Atk/Spd Solo or Ideal, or Life and Death. All these recommendations apply to the Sacred Seal slot as well to maximize Karla's offensive earnings.  
• As for how the build plays out, it actually pretty much does so automatically on its own: 
  1. Dryblade Lance instantly charges Karla's chosen Special by -2 on Turn 1.
  2. Combined with the other cooldown acceleration effect, absolutely no prior fighting is necessary for Karla to charge up a 3 CD Special of your choice, boiling down to Draconic Aura (solid consistent damage) or Luna (halves Defense on highly physically tough enemies).
  3. After said Special(s) fire off and Karla completes her combat in most likely good standing, Special Spiral kicks in and charges it fully yet again for instant firing on any other enemy of your choice. And thus, the cycle of death and war continues.   
• Karla's C slot plays a pretty minor role in the scheme of things, so you're completely free to outfit it with something that fits your needs. Her default Odd Tempest, however, addresses her pretty so-so threat range despite functioning only on odd turns. For optimal but expensive damage-increasing options, you may also consider Joint Drive Atk or an applicable Menace skill.
• As an honorable mention, an Area of Effect spamming build is certainly on the table.
  1. Despite the weapon's wording (that being Karla's HP being above 25% at the start of combat and thus only applying to on-hit Specials), Dryblade Lance's additional true damage effect will still kick in as your chosen AOE Special triggers.
  2. Dryblade Lance also makes this sort of build easily accomplished by basically charging Karla's AOE by 3/4, meaning she only needs one more Pulse effect like Time's Pulse, Quickened Pulse, or Infantry Pulse to fully charge it Turn 1. 
  3. On such a build, Life and Death is a preferred A-slot and Sacred Seal to maximize the visible Atk-Def subtraction-based damage of Karla's chosen Blazing Special as well as the visible Speed-based true damage from Dryblade Lance.

Weapon: Dryblade Lance

Assist: Reposition / Draw Back / Flexible

Special: Aether / Sol

Passive A: Atk/Spd Enemy Phase A-slot (Solo, Unity, Ideal, Kestrel Stance preferred) / Distant Counter / Distant Stance / Distant Pressure

Passive B: Special Spiral

Passive C: Joint Drive Atk / Atk Smoke / Def Smoke

Sacred Seal: Darting Breath / Steady Breath / Mystic Boost / Atk or Spd-based Soloes or Stances

• Special Spiral's cycling Special charging and Dryblade Lance's fantastic additional damage and acceleration effects yet again star in a disgustingly effective Special spamming build. This time, we focus on tanking enemy hits and providing sustainability on Karla's behalf. With the provided skills, she can recover almost all health lost by retaliating with what's essentially a healing Special on steroids.
• To achieve these goals, we make one pretty obvious main switch: a healing Special. Because of the acceleration effects of Dryblade Lance, we come down to two options: 
  • Aether provides both great additional damage (cuts the enemy's Defense by 50%) and an appreciable amount of recovered health (50% of what enemy health lost), making one-shot kills and full recovery gains a very near-certainty. Additionally, the fact that it comes at an effective 4 CD means that Dryblade Lance's true damage returns increases to a more deafening 60% of Karla's Speed — under casual, unoptimal conditions (such as no Speed Asset, Blessings, and particular forms of support), we're looking at additional true damage around the 30-40 benchmark. And that's not even including the natural damage dealt from Karla's Attack or Aether's own burst damage, OR the sheer amount of scaled healing Karla earns out of this. 
    • If you choose this, Dryblade Lance and Special Spiral consistently leave Aether charged at 2 out of 4, meaning that a Breath acceleration effect of some kind is necessary to have it ready on retaliation. For this, you can run Darting or Steady Breath as Karla's Sacred Seal for self-sufficiency, or run outsourced forms of it like Brave Lucina's Geirskögul or Thorr's Worldbreaker. 
  • Sol is a more low-key option that provides healing only in exchange for lower cooldown. Because Sol is consistently and fully charged by the CD -2 effects from Dryblade Lance and Special Spiral, it's ready to fire whether Karla initiates or awaits incoming combat, making her more phase-flexible than she is with Aether. Despite lacking burst damage like Luna or Aether, for every Sol trigger, Karla also still deals an impressive amount of Speed-based true damage (this time, 40% of Karla's Speed since Sol is 3 → 2CD) as well. Without particularly dedicated Speed swings, we're potentially looking at 20-25 damage per Sol. 
• With the essentials of the build covered, we fill in the rest of Karla's slots with skills that improve her damage, tankability, or both. 
  • If the Sacred Seal isn't being occupied by a Breath out of necessity, Mystic Boost provides an additional dollop of +7 HP after every combat. This helps Karla recover more fully in situations where her Special healing somehow isn't enough to sustain future matchups. You may alternative consider a number of Solo or Stance seals which preferably should fortify her Speed (for better true damage returns and follow-up prevention), Attack, or all of the above. For more reliable damage soaking at a slight cost of damage, you may opt for more dedicated defensive skills and Seals like Close Def or Def-based Stances.
  • The C slot can be taken up simply by a Smoke skill — on the affordable side of things, for example, Atk Smoke softens hits from surrounding matchups whenever Karla's tanking multiple enemies in one go, while Def Smoke improves damage (meaning more healing!) and makes one-hit KOes more possible. 
  • Finally, Karla's A-slot should be filled in with an enemy phase-friendly skill, preferably Atk/Spd-based to improve offensive competency all-around. For a more well-rounded enemy phase unit, running one of the Distant Counter skills listed allows Karla to counterattack and easily recover from ranged onslaughts.
    • Note, however, that while Distant Pressure does exactly what Dryblade Lance wants by further increasing Karla's Speed, its recoil somewhat hinders full recovery and increases the likelihood of somehow reaching below 25% HP, the minimum HP required to trigger the offensive effects of Dryblade Lance in the first place.

Weapon: Dryblade Lance

Assist: Reposition / Draw Back / Flexible

Special: Galeforce

Passive A: Atk/Spd Initiation A-slot (Swift Sparrow, Life and Death, Push, Blade Session preferred) / Flashing Blade 

Passive B: Wings of Mercy / Lull Spd/Def / Lull Atk/Spd / Null Follow-Up

Passive C: Joint Drive Atk / Time's Pulse / Odd Tempest / Even Tempest

Sacred Seal: Flashing Blade / Heavy Blade / Blade Session / Quickened Pulse / Life and Death

• While we're grossly ignoring the powerful true damage effect from Dryblade Lance, its other offensive and cooldown-cutting effects are precisely why Karla is such an amazing choice for Galeforce in many competitive settings. By essentially cutting down Karla's Galeforce cooldown count to 2 out of 4 by factoring in the Slaying and Turn 1 CD -2 effect, Karla can more reliably trigger her extra action without being concerned with potential one-hit overkill. The permanent CD -1 and extra Atk/Spd +6 is much appreciated, putting Karla a significant step above all other Galeforce lancers running It's Curtains...
• To fill in the remaining 2 cooldown necessary for Galeforce activation from Turn 1, we have quite a few options depending on your budget and confidence level:
  • Simply using Flashing or Heavy Blade in either the A or Sacred Seal slot can fulfill the remaining charges in one hit, assuming no Guard effects are in effect and Karla abides by the stat checks necessary for either skill. Flashing Blade is mostly preferred as Attack creep and swings are far more common, and it's typically easier to be choosier versus slower enemies.
    • Alternatively, you can simply rely on outsourced versions of these skills if you can get the relevant allies in proper proximity, including but not limited to Worldbreaker or Infantry Rush. 
  • Any Pulse effect is also a typically great choice, as it takes the pressure to fulfill Blade checks entirely off of Karla's shoulders and possibly opens a passive skill slot so she can improve her offensive play. A few examples include:
    • Time's Pulse in Karla's C slot.
    • Quickened Pulse as the Sacred Seal (a lower-priority recommendation as Karla passes up some high-quality offensive skills). 
    • Infantry Pulse from higher HP infantry allies.
    • Miscellaneous specialty options like Ostia's Pulse or Wolfpup Fang (which notably fully charges Galeforce since it reduces  CD by -2).
  • As a special note, running both a Pulse and Blade effect may seem redundant, but prepares Karla in worse-case scenarios where she must attack Special negation enemies (aka units with Guard effects).
• In the B-slot, Wings of Mercy is a fantastic all-purpose, low-investment skill that allows Karla to bypass her otherwise average movement and range by teleporting to other badly damaged allies — a common and effective strategy used with Fury / Wings of Mercy beacon units in Aether Raids Offense. If you want to improve Karla's combat performance instead, a Lull skill of choice improves stat-based matchups by cancelling enemy bonuses, and Null Follow-Up cancels out skills that would otherwise suppress Karla's follow-up or allow dangerous enemies to make second hits on Karla in emergencies. 
• As stated shortly before, Karla's initiation movement may sometimes fail to impress as she can move only two spaces and hit enemies adjacently. Odd Tempest will, of course, fix this on odd turns, though you may also be interested in running Even Tempest instead if you plan on initiating against the defending AR-D team after Safety Fence goes off Turn 1. Of course, if you're running Wings of Mercy or already have the C-slot taken by some other skill like Time's Pulse, feel free to toss these suggestions out the window. 

Weapon: Dryblade Lance

Assist: Reposition / Draw Back / Flexible

Special: Sol / Luna / Noontime 

Passive A: Atk/Spd Enemy Phase A-slot (Solo, Unity, Ideal, Kestrel Stance preferred) / Distant Counter / Distant Stance 

Passive B: Spurn / Frenzy / Close Call / Repel 

Passive C: Joint Drive Spd / Atk Smoke / Def Smoke

Sacred Seal: Darting Breath / Steady Breath / Mystic Boost / Atk or Spd-based Soloes or Stance

• Honestly, this is probably the most expensive and unnecessary build listed, but if you're determined to make Karla tank stray hits more reliably (as the Spiral builds are susceptible to powerful blunt hits), you can make a simple B-slot substitution to a Dodge effect skill of your choice.
• As such, it's preferred to invest in Speed in any slot you can in order to maximize the nasty, unlimited true damage returns from Dryblade Lance as well as the Speed-based damage reduction of Spurn, Frenzy, Close Call, or Repel. 
• Running a 3 CD Special — that is, either Sol for reliable sustain or Luna for pure damage — is still advised as Dryblade Lance's true damage comes out generally stronger the more CD Karla's Special has. Additionally, the precharging effects won't go to waste, and these Specials can be activated on retaliation afterward simply by running a Breath skill effect somewhere on the build or another ally. Noontime can still be run regardless without reliance on acceleration, but generally offers less returns on damage and healing. 
• Running this build properly blessed with the correct Mythic / Legendary units is advised as this bolster's Karla's HP — something that scales well with this build's damage reduction and is overall necessary for survival.