#archdemon's shadow

Another fanservice-y design, albeit an expected one. Still, a bit unfortunate. Wish she looked older, tbh, to fit her her voice more. Feels like she should be a lady in her 50s or 60s rather than someone who looks late teens/early twenties at most.

But that’s design stuff and not really important.

Well, her kit seems pretty big. The biggest and most important piece seems to be her S1 with the new debuff seal which it seems to exist in order to make a few chars irrelevant. There are more than a few chars whose identity and purpose comes entirely from their S2 passives and seal disables that for 2 turns on a single target. Now, things like immunity or cleanse can deal with that, but still, if she is preceded by a stripper, that means that one core member of your team will not do the one thing they need to do, Couple their with her two aoe skills and burns, and well, in longer fights that means she is a constant threat who can shut down your heroes.

Because she doesn’t seem to be a turn one unit. She is not a cleaver. She is not really a dmg dealer although you do want some atk on her in order to make her burns do some dmg. She is not even an opener. True, you want her fast, tanky and with effectiveness so she can survive enemy attacks, apply her debuffs and cycler her turns fast. Guess she would pair well with General Purgiss since he provides an atk buff and faster turn cycling. But you don’t need her to be someone who goes first. She needs to be able to survive and go reasonably often. If anything, if she goes soonish, she might run into the problem of her preferred target to still have the immunity from immunity set. In a way, unless they have a unit who can provide an immunity buff like ML Krau, she could benefit from her slow-ish speed. You still want her to be as fast as she can reasonably be without sacrificing the tankiness and effectiveness stats but she doesn’t need to be super fast.

She is a mage, so, she has access to some really good artifacts. Extra souls with Tagahel is good, Chatty which grants her a shield is good. Two aoe attacks means two chances to stun multiple people with Abyssal Crown. Aoe is also good for Sira-Ren to apply more debuffs. The new Tenebria artifact Crimson Moon could be useful since she seems to be a unit who could also be build with counter-set. So there is definitely a few options.

On a more personal issue, I really want Silver Blade Aramintha back. Not only would she work well with my way of fighting, I now have the teams and equipment to make good use of her. But is she better than Archdemon’s Shadow? Because she seems good, even if I do not love her design. I am 30 summons or so close to mystic pity so i can definitely get either one of them. Silver Blade will be close but she is pretty much guaranteed if I do not go for Aramintha.

Then there seems to be maybe another option though. I think I am one of the few non whales who actually has the option to get a unit from the coin shop, because I kept pulling dupes. So, if I understand the imprint situation correctly, I can get Aramintha from mystics and her from the coin shop. After which I will no longer have the coins to get a ML5 from the coin shop for another few years, if ever. And I am hesitant to do that, because while she seems good, i do not love her. What if there is a ML Cermia in the works who is to be released soonish and blew my coins on Archdemon’s Shadow? It could be that she is like ML Iseria who is super meh, so I dunno but I also feel like I wouldn’t regret ML Cermia but then, having a good unit now seems wiser than speculating on a unit who may not come for months or even years.

That said, I do think that the coin shop in general is really bad. I can benefit from this due to having some luck by pulling dupes rather than no ML 5s like some people and while I do not have more ML 5 units than most people, I do have 40 coins, but in general, it really is for those whales who have purchased all the packs and summoned a lot more than people like me. Really hope they rework it. Still think ML 4 star dupes should also grant coins.

Will have to think about this some more. I dunno if Archdemon’s Shadow is worth pulling per se, but her S1 and seal seems really useful on paper. Imagine in longer fights, that units who live and die by their S2 passives, who are big threats because of them suddenly cease to be. Arby, T.Surin, ML Ken, Alencia, Celine, Elena, F. ceci, Kayron, Last Rider Krau, LQC a bit, Maid Chloe, Mort, Riolet if you can hit him, C.Dom, Champ Zerato, Assassin Cartuja (also if you can hit him), BBK, Crimson Armin, F. Maya, G. Purgiss and Singelica. Technically Specter Tenebria as well but let’s be real, she will never hit her with her S1 unless Specter is the last unit standing in which case it doesn’t matter any more.

Granted, some of those S2s are better/more important/more impactful than others, but Archdemon’s Shadow can either inconvenience or outright completely nullify all of these characters here. Quite a few of those are rather important and common to see heroes.

Most of this is still speculation, of course. She is not yet out, and I have no idea how she will play out. She could mean that you might have to use more units who cleans or provide immunity. She is a good target for LQC to hit though since even with tanky stats she will not be able to survive a good LQC smash which means some decent splash dmg on her team. If ML Krau maintains the immunity buff, he seems to pretty much to be a perfect counter to her debuff and aoe dmg.

"i desire your flesh"

really i can think of like two other unfortunate ways that can be interpreted and um