"So it has bloomed... I would like to capture this moment somewhere."
— Effloresced E.G.O :: Spicebush Yi Sang when he gets MVE on a stage. Get ready to hear this almost every time you use him.
As with any gacha game, there are going to be a few Identities, E.G.O., or tools that are considered to be quite overpowered.
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Standard Fare
Even units that are not limited to a certain season can be useful.
- [W Corp. Cleanup Agent] Don Quixote w/ Telepole E.G.O. – Doesn’t stand out in short battles but truly becomes a Game-Breaker in drawn-out battles such as the Refraction Railway or bosses with multiple phases to them where she has more turns to build up Charge and spam Rip Space, a 5-coin skill with a maximum power of 31. Her second skill is one of the most reliable charge-generation skills while also having very good clash power and Fragile infliction, while Telepole also helps her build Charge and can generate almost enough charge for an instant use of Rip Space. She was borderline essential in order to keep a low turn count on Refraction Railway 1, and remains one of the premium units for speed clearing due to Rip Space's almost unmatched damage output. She also gets a major power boost from Uptie 4, as it grants her S1 and already strong S2 bonus coin power at high Charge to boost her clashing power, while an Uptie 4 Telepole also becomes an AoE to let her do even more damage.
- [Chains of Others] Meursault - Bar none the best of the Sinners' starting E.G.O, Chains of Others is the debuff to end all debuffs, and especially comes in handy for Focused Encounters. On top of having good clashing power for a ZAYIN, successfully getting it off leads to Meursault inflicting a whopping 4 Attack Power Down and 5 Bind on the unfortunate target, meaning not only will their clashing power be severely gimped, their Speed will drop to a point that you essentially have total control of what skills are aimed where for a turn. And because it's a ZAYIN, its low resource and SP cost means that it's easily spammable to turn almost any boss fight into a cakewalk as long as you know where and when to fire it. The only downside is that Meursault will also gain Attack Power Down and Bind for a turn, but that hardly matters since you won't be needing to clash with him under optimal circumstances anyway. The debuffs also won't influence any tanking or countering Meursault does, which his Identities often favor anyways; in fact, it'll actually make his defenses stronger, as he'll gain 2 Protection on the turn where his offenses are dropped, and the E.G.O passive grants 3 Protection for free if he's being targeted by 3 or more enemies.
- [R Corp. 4th Pack Rabbit] Heathcliff – He is far and away the best clasher of Season 1 and one of the best damage-dealers, due to his skills all having many coins and good power, with his second and third skills gaining more coin power if he's fast enough. In particular, his third skill Quick Suppression is a rare 5-coin skill that inflicts up to 4 Fragile and 6 Rupture, instantly shredding anything that doesn't resist Pierce and leaving them a sitting duck if they do end up surviving. He is best used in battles that don’t have multiple waves or are drawn-out due to his Bullet mechanic restricting how much damage he can deal once he runs out of bullets; this doesn't downplay the amount of damage he can do early, nor his insane clash power since he retains that even without bullets.
- [R Corp. 4th Pack Reindeer] Ishmael w/ Uptie 4 – Formerly a hard-hitting but somewhat clunky damage dealer, Uptie 4 removes the "clunky" part from her kit and turns her into a force to be reckoned with. All of her skills now generate large amounts of Charge on use, and her signature Mind Whip has a lower Charge consumption and even more power, letting her practically spam it with just a few attacks to charge it up, vaporizing anything weak to Blunt and crippling the health and Stagger of anything that isn't. Even without Mind Whip, Ishmael's first and second skills boast unprecedented clashing power, and her upgraded passive allows her to gain extra power essentially for free in teams with Gloom, only backfiring if Ishmael somehow doesn't do damage in a turn, which you'd be hard pressed to let happen given how good of a clasher she is. She's also particularly good when fighting Abnormalities or exploring dungeons which require skill checks; unlike many other nuke skills, Mind Whip doesn't depend on conditional power buffs and actually keeps its full power for skill checks, which combined with a huge maximum power of 26 means that a full SP Ishmael can easily win checks that she has disadvantage on.
- [W Corp. L3 Cleanup Agent] Ryoshu - Boasts a similar skillset to the already powerful W Corp. Don Quixote, combining powerful clashes, efficient Charge generation, insanely damaging attacks that each have 3 coins at minimum and conditional damage multipliers, a bit of utility from the Charge Barriers she can set up for herself and allies, and an Uptie 4 that gives her major boosts to her already impressive clashing and damage. Her second skill at Uptie 4 can roll up to 23 (rivaling most third skills or weaker E.G.O.) at 15 Charge, and with 10+ Charge also inflicts 20% Slash Fragility on the first hit, making the next two hit even harder and setting up for any upcoming Slash attacks. Meanwhile, her third skill is a nearly unclashable nuke in the vein of Rip Space, albeit requiring a higher 15 Charge (to avoid harming herself) in exchange for comparable or even higher damage potential. But if Ryoshu has some HP to burn, she can fire her third skill as early as 7 Charge, and unlike Don will retain the full power of the skill if she can take the self damage.
- [Dieci South Section 4] Rodion - An extremely tanky bruiser whose ability to Discard her skills and turn them into large amounts of Shield means that she can soak up tremendous amounts of damage, while making her skill cycling incredibly fast. On the offensive side, her skills have above-average offense power for a tank, lots of coins (her S1 has 3 coins while her S2 and S3 have 4 each, putting her total coin count only below [R Corp. 4th Pack Rabbit] Heathcliff in comparison), inflict large amounts of Sinking (which also synergizes with her Rime Shank E.G.O., which this identity can fuel by itself), and can gain considerable power buffs from either her discards (S1) or enemy Sinking (S2 and S3 at Uptie 4), making sure that she packs as good of a punch as she can take. On top of that, her passive causes her to gain Blunt Damage Up scaling with the damage she takes in a turn (including damage to her Shields) while even letting her purge debuffs if she discards the right skills, making her offensive and defensive power even more terrifying.
- [Zwei Association South Section 4] Gregor - A super-tank in the vein of [K Corp. Class 3 Excision Staff] Hong Lu, but instead of the Life Drain of his already tenacious G. Corp identity, Zwei Gregor specializes in stacking ungodly amounts of Defense Level, with all his skills and passive granting large amounts of Defense Level Up, to the point where he can reduce most attacks to Scratch Damage provided he has a few skill slots under his belt. His S1 also gives him Shield when he loses a clash to mitigate whatever damage he's about to take, his block skill can soak way more damage than usual due to it scaling with how much Defense Level Up he has, and he can deal surprisingly high damage in return due to his skills having many coins and gaining conditional buffs also based on how much Defense Level Up he's stacked.
- [Cinq Association South Section 4 Director] Sinclair - While [The One Who Shall Grip] Sinclair is the Sinclair Identity most will be familiar with, Cinq Sinclair proves to be an immensely powerful alternative whenever Pierce damage is needed or if N Corp. Sinclair's negative-SP mechanics either work to his detriment or aren't worth the hassle. Cinq Sinclair is blisteringly fast, clashes amazingly, and is a superb damage dealer by merit of his kit's usage of Poise and Speed-based buffs. His already high Speed of 4-8 can increase its maximum the more Poise count he has, up to a whopping +6 Speed at 15 count, and his first and second skills grant him Haste and Poise Count respectively. This allows him to both outspeed enemies by a wide margin and grant all his skills a Coin Power boost based on the difference between his and the target's speeds, enhancing his clashing power and damage potential across the board, particularly in the case of his second skill, which can clash and then strike for a fantastic 22 power total if he's faster than the opponent by 4+ Speed. Of particular note, however is his third skill, which has three coins, a Declared Duel debuff that gives him Clash Power and Haste, and most notably can exchange his Poise count (which he'll have obtained through his second skill) for potency to deliver a incredible damage on a crit if he wins the clash. The amount of potency gained only increases if his target has Declared Duel, and when accounting for a potential Fragile debuff if Sinclair wins the clash and is the only one attacking that slot, AND the third coin doing +50% damage on a crit, Sinclair's damage potential skyrockets, especially since he's near-certain to win his clash to begin with due to it potentially hitting a maximum of 26 power.
Season 1: Orientation
- [The One Who Grips] Faust – An excellent unit that brings high speed, strong clashing, and great damage on top of her incredible support abilities. Like other N Corp. units, she specializes in stacking Nails and Bleed, which works great with other Identities like those from Kurokumo, her own N Corp., or as of Season 3, the Middle and Pequod. Faust is great at generating SP due to her passive giving 15 SP to two teammates (and a Fanatic buff if they're N Corp. Identites), letting her get the ball rolling for your party faster, and her support passive works in a similar manner. Her second and most important skill can roll high, has three coins, and applies both Paralyze and the Gaze debuff, which causes the target to take a fantastic +20% Blunt and Pierce damage. Finally, her third skill, on a kill, gives all party members 10 SP and boosts to their Pierce and Blunt damage, which is easy considering its three coins and the third dealing a whopping +70% damage to targets which have at least 5 Nails, which she can easily achieve herself at Uptie 4.
- [Fluid Sac] Faust - By far the best sustain/recovery E.G.O. in the game, healing up to 15% Max. HP and 25 SP to the entire team per pop, enough to effectively refund its Sanity cost with each use and rendering Representation Emitter all but obselete. It's also an AoE attack that hits five slots, meaning Faust can deal some serious pain to an entire group of enemies while also bringing herself and her team back to peak condition, not to mention its passive that gives the lowest health unit(s) on the field 2 Protection every turn for free. Its only real downside is that it costs quite a few resources to fire as an HE E.G.O., although not only is it easily worth the amount of benefits just a single cast can provide, it's also a non issue in modes where resources are plenty, such as Mirror Dungeons or the Refraction Railway.
- [Tingtang Gangleader] Hong Lu – A very powerful damage dealer and clasher that specializes in Double Tap and Chain Lethality Enabler mechanics to put out ludicrous amounts of damage. His second skill has an impressive three coins that all gain supplemental damage boost upon hitting heads and, in the event he drops an enemy to low enough HP without killing them, can reuse his last coin with another damage boost to deal even more damage or kill his target outright. His third and most notable skill, however, has high risk with a single coin but incredible reward with an immense 25 power on a heads, letting him delete or at least heavily damage whatever's crossing him if he makes the roll, and in the event he can score a kill with it, he can do it a second time with even more damage. Uptie 4 also adds synergy with Bleed teams by giving him even greater damage against enemies with enough Bleed stacked up, and even on the backline, he's an incredible support due to his support passive increasing damage on heads-hitting coins by a whopping 20%.
- [Rime Shank] Rodion w/ Uptie 4 - Already a fairly powerful AoE attack which can punch above its class due to having a fairly high roll and a hefty 30% bonus damage to targets above half health, Uptie 4 causes it to now inflict 5 Sinking and Sinking Count on hit instead of just 3 Sinking Count. Even for generalist teams, this translates to a guaranteed -25 SP or 25 Gloom damage over time on all three targets, weakening the rolls of human targets and doing appreciable damage to others. When Overclocked or Corroded, while the roll becomes slightly smaller, it instead inflicts 10 Sinking and 8 Sinking Count, increasing the guaranteed SP loss/damage to 80. This is already good on normal teams, but on Sinking teams becomes downright devastating, and it becomes one of the most reliable ways to trigger massive Sinking Deluges and sustain large amounts of Sinking. It helps that Rodion's Identities usually have some way to generate the resources to use it (with the cost being less than other powerful E.G.O. due to only being a TETH), with her Rosespanner and Dieci Identities (generally considered the strongest ones) being able to fuel them singlehandedly.
- [The One Who Shall Grip] Sinclair – The first negative-coin ID, N Corp. Sinclair can easily become one of the best clashers and damage dealers in the game with a little bit of Sanity management. His passive and attacks' On Use triggers make it simple to bring down his Sanity, letting him quickly turn on his massive damage numbers on Tails hits. His second skill has 4 coins to take advantage of its 16 base roll, and his third skill, Self-Destructive Purge, is one of the few skills that can roll up to 30 by default, outclashing and eviscserating any enemy that doesn't resist Blunt damage due to it effectively a 90 base power attack if all three hits connect. While some effort is needed to keep him from falling to -45 Sanity and triggering E.G.O Corrosion, several other units' Sanity-healing passives (such as N Corp. Faust) and his own defensive skill, which heals him for Sanity on use by itself, help to mitigate this negative.
- It is notable that due to this, Sinking does not affect him as much in the way it does with many other Identities due to his nature provided he doesn't fall too deep; this makes him able to take on bosses that emphasize on this like the Blubbering Toad. His blunt focus and him affecting the enemy stagger treshold directly has also helped many players in 5-30.
Season 2: Reminiscence
- [Effloresced E.G.O. - Spicebush] Yi Sang - Fast, boasts very good clashing power out of the gate, and can inflict tremendous amounts of damage with all of his skills having three coins and inflicting large amounts of Sinking. His second skill can turn into an AoE attack if he stacks enough Tremor with his first and third skills, aided by his passive significantly buffing the damage of multi-target attacks, and his third skill is a single-target nuke that also deals massive bonus damage if he has enough Tremor, as well as triggering Sinking Deluge to let him deal absurd burst with some Sinking backup, potentially even cheesing some fights by outright obliterating the target in a single blow. The ID also has heavy synergy with his Sunshower E.G.O., a very powerful AoE attack that can also stack up a ton of Sloth/Pierce damage buffs and amplification to make Spicebush's regular attacks even more devastating. During Walpurgisnacht 2 and the Dawn of Green Time Trial, he proved essential for many full clears of the event, as his second skill and Sunshower buffed by his passive could swiftly nuke entire waves of machines at once while most other Identities would struggle, while a Spicebush-boosted Sunshower was one of the few things that could reliably complete the side mission to kill 7 robots in a single attack.
- [Sunshower] Yi Sang sets a new standard for HE-level E.G.O. power. On top of being a massive 5-target attack (7 at Uptie 4), much like Outis's [Ebony Stem] before it, this E.G.O. also acts as group-wide support, giving all team members Sloth Power and Damage up as well as generalized Protection right before the attack itself hits and for the turn after - which means he's also boosting himself for that attack, putting its power at least on par with Ebony Stem. On top of that, should the coin for it land heads, it refunds 15 SP back to Yi Sang for each target hit, which in group fights can completely refund its cost and nullify the main risk of EGO spamming, that being the constant SP drain and the danger of Low Morale or Corrosion. If you have enough resources to trigger an Overclock, then an Overclocked Sunshower not has a higher potential roll with a minus coin that synergizes with its hefty SP cost, but also stacks Sloth and Pierce fragility onto all enemies it hits both this turn and next, making the attack hit even harder while buffing up the damage of your team further. And to make it even better, after you've used it, its passive effect kicks in - restoring 3 SP to everyone on the team, every turn, with zero drawbacks. The one drawback is that, as a HE-level E.G.O., it requires four different types of E.G.O. resources. That is, unless you're in a Mirror Dungeon with gifts to work against that, or are in a seven party member fight when resources are flooding in with every turn.
- This reached such a point that Sunshower was eventually reclassified to be a WAW instead of a HE and its resource cost increased accordingly, with the bycoming benefit that it no longer has to compete with Dimension Shredder in the HE slot, meaning Yi Sang can wear both of them at the same time.
- [K Corp. Class 3 Excision Staff] Hong Lu - A nigh-immortal tank of a unit with a boatload of HP and defense, a single low stagger threshold, and the ability to fully revive himself up to 3 times and stack a powerful Healing Factor with his unique passive, which gives him ungodly survivability once he loses his only stagger threshold. He also has decent clashing power and synergy with Rupture teams, and although his damage isn't as high as his infamous Kurokumo or Tingtang identities, in the right hands he can become an unkillable wall that can solo a good chunk of battles through sheer attrition, especially in dungeons where he can also stack E.G.O. Gifts. He's also particularly good during Abnormality fights where he can redirect attacks and soak damage for his teammates, especially since his Uptie 4 lets him Draw Aggro.
- [Molar Boatworks Fixer] Ishmael - A powerful Identity that makes a name for herself with great damage, strong clashing, and a slew of debilitating debuffs. Ishmael works by stacking Tremor on herself before spending it to augment her skills with incredible debuffs like Defense Level Down or Fragile, softening up an enemy for both her and her team to follow up on. In particular, she fits Sinking teams like a glove due to her applying both potency and count of the debuff across all of her skills, even more if she has enough Tremor stacked on herself, and even more than that if her passive is active when attacking a target with Tremor on them. She's also no slouch at dealing damage herself, with her skills having good amounts of coins and power across the board even before considering the coin power increases from having enough Tremor on herself, with her third skill in particular hitting a ceiling of 24 power at 10 Tremor, and a +40% damage boost to targets with at least 6 Sinking to boot. She's also notable for having a 10-14 Evade, which has a much higher minimum roll than usual and makes her extremely good at solos or just defending herself in a pinch.
Season 3: Bon Voyage
- [Blade Lineage Mentor] Meursault - Befitting of a unit released for an anniversary event, Meursault's own take on Bamboo-hatted Kim is not only a powerhouse in his own right, but is notable for having the potential to turn the rest of his team into absolute monsters at the same time, with the ability to buff the entire Blade Lineage faction to kingdom come with his passives and skills. To elaborate:
- His passive, which triggers on 3 Pride Resonance, causes him to give Poise Potency and Count to up to two Blade Lineage allies with the least Poise, which is doubled if the team has 6+ Blade Lineage members, allowing him to supercharge their Poise generation and get them rolling crits almost instantly. More importantly, it grants all Blade Lineage allies a Sword of the Homeland buff at the start of combat, which gives them massive buffs to their skills at certain levels of Poise: with 5+ poise, their first and second skills gain 3 Coin Power and 30% crit damage divided equally among their coins (with a minimum of 1 power), while at 7+ poise, their third skill gains 30% more damage and 50% more crit damage divided among their coins, which alone can lead to even the weaker B.L. members doing way more damage than they're supposed to along with being able to clash considerably more effectively.
- His passive also grants him a Last Chance Hitpoint once per encounter if triggered on the turn he took fatal damage, which can either help preserve his life just long enough to overcome the encounter, or set up for a vicious counterattack.
- His first and second skills apply a special Sword of the Homeland buff (Rending for S1, Penetrating for S2) to a number of Blade Lineage members equal to the highest A-Resonance, up to two times per member per use, and also applying two stacks if he has a full team of 6 Blade Lineage members. The buff increases the final power of their respective skill by its count, so if you have a full team of 6 Blade Lineage members and can line up enough Resonance (easier than it sounds since they share a lot of the same Sins), this can result in the entire team getting ridiculous power buffs that stack with his original Sword of the Homeland buff; this can lead to even B.L. Outis' notoriously weak first skill going from a 10 to a 17 or higher, much less any stronger skills.
- His first and second skills are powerful even without their team support, having good Poise generation and fairly high rolls which are augmented by their bonus Coin Power if Meursault has enough Poise (with his S2 in particular being able to roll a 21 without external buffs), and his second skill granting bonus Slash Power when winning a clash along with a hefty 60% bonus damage on crit. In case he doesn't want to actively clash, he also has a Counter that can roll up to 18 and takes full advantage of his significant health pool, which also gains more damage scaling with missing health and gives Slash Power on the next turn.
- His third skill is Kim's Signature Move, Yield My Flesh, and it doesn't disappoint. By itself, it's a relatively unremarkable minus-coin attack with one coin, which also gives Meursault aggro and has significant damage multipliers on crit, but won't be doing too much even with them. However, if he loses a clash with it, he'll immediately retaliate with To Claim Their Bones, a monstrous 4-coin counter skill that benefits from the damage buffs that the original skill did, giving him up to 25% more damage scaling with his missing health and up to 80% more crit damage if he has enough Poise. Needless to say, a single proper use of the attack has the potential to instantly stagger or kill all but the most Slash-resistant enemies, and at Uptie 4, To Claim Their Bones also gains +1 Weight per 7 Poise (up to 3 total), which allows Meursault to eviscerate an entire group of enemies at a time, or casually deal 4-digit damage to Abnormalities with multiple parts. He can't even be staggered out of it, as once he's used Yield My Flesh, he becomes immune to staggering until either it or To Claim Their Bones concludes, which combined with his Last Chance Hitpoint makes it nearly impossible for an enemy to avert the incoming nuke. The only difficulty is that Meursault will have to lose a clash and then take the incoming hit before retaliating, but this is mitigated by Meursault's beefy health pool and Yield My Flesh having an effective power of 12 which will lose to most reasonably powerful attacks, on top of it being able to have its power further lowered through unusual interactions with certain E.G.O. gifts or buffs.
- As the cherry on top, he has another passive which, in the event that three of his fellow Blade Lineage allies die, gives him increased Poise generation and apply Sword of the Homeland to himself, letting him benefit from his own power buffs to avenge them.
- [The Pequod Harpooner] Heathcliff - An extremely beefy bruiser with a unique passive that rewards taking damage, with him gaining Offense and Defense level every time he or his allies are attacked, and gaining +1% damage for every 1% of HP he's missing. Unlike many passives, neither of these has a limit besides Heathcliff's actual health bar, meaning that he'll start doing horrific damage if you just drop his health low enough or have ways to soak up lots of hits. All of his skills have fairly high rolls and coin counts while inflicting massive amounts of Bleed and potential Poise stacking; his third skill in particular is a 4-coin skill that can gain up to +3 coin power from Envy Absolute Resonance, turning him into an absolute monster in Envy teams (such as the Middle) since he notably has two Envy skills instead of one. He does have a much higher stagger threshold of 80% compared to most tanks, but if one can avoid him dying outright during the staggered turn, this only serves to set up his passive, upon which he'll retaliate with a vengeance.
- [Blind Obsession] Ishmael - The first WAW E.G.O. in the gamenote certainly lives up to its rank, being a devastating AoE attack that hits up to 7 targets at Uptie 4, and can simultaneously apply Charge to Ishmael, Poise to a random ally, and a combination of 2 Damage Up, 2 Pierce Power Up, and 25 SP to four allies at once, giving it holistic team support value to go along with its sheer damage. Once the attack is fired, Ishmael will also start reaping the benefits of the support passive, gaining 1 Haste and 3 Offense Level per turn to make her hit faster and harder, at the cost of giving her lowest HP ally 5 Sinking each turn (which can easily be worked around, and is also irrelevant if Ishmael is going solo). However, the Overclock/Corrosion is where things get crazier, as it loses out on the team support besides the Damage Up buff, but will grant Ishmael Poise and healing on hit while inflicting 3 Pride Fragility both that turn and the next, buffing your team's Pride damage or even subsequent casts of Blind Obsession. All of this leads to an E.G.O. so powerful that it becomes a genuine strategy to have Ishmael Corrode as fast as possible just so she can fire off two or three Blind Obsessions consecutively, teammates be damned, especially since the Poise and Pride Fragility stacking make it so each one will hit much harder than the last, while the Life Drain from the Corrosions keeps Ishmael healthy even if she ends up taking attacks during her rampage. The downside of course is the massive resource cost required to fire it, but like other E.G.O., this can easily be worked around.
- [The Pequod Captain] Ishmael - Identities that are tied to a Sinner's Canto storyline have always had a trend of being Game Breakers, such as [The One Who Shall Grip] Sinclair, [Effloresced E.G.O - Spicebush] Yi Sang and even former cases like [G Corp. Manager Corporal] Gregor still have relevance. However, Captain Ishmael is the first of the lot that might truly constitute the word "overloaded" due to just how many incredible tools are packed into her skillset.
- To start, her passive — if she scores a kill, she gains Poise potency and count as well as a buff that allows her to apply Burn on-hit the next turn, along with giving SP and poise to two allies with the least SP, and if they're Pequod Identities, they get extra SP and Pierce Damage Up, making her a great support for her team and especially for [The Pequod First Mate] Yi Sang and fellow Game-Breaker [The Pequod Harpooner] Heathcliff. She also deals an extra 10% damage to <Lake Entity> enemies like Mermaids.
- Her first skill applies Bleed, grants adjacent allies 2 Defense Level Up, and grants Aggro scaling with the turn's highest Resonance to the ally with the highest max health on the next turn, as well as Protection at 4+ Absolute Resonance, allowing her team and especially tanks to soak damage far better and giving her even more synergy with Pequod Heathcliff.
- Her second skill has a great three coins and rolls for a good 16 final power, inflicts Bleed and Burn, grants adjacent allies 3 Offense Level Up, and with each Resonance in the longest chain that turn, the ally on her right has a 20% to deal an unopposed attack with their first skill that is guaranteed at 5+ Resonance, and potentially granting them Damage Up at 4+ Absolute Resonance and 2 Pride Power Up if that Absolute Resonance was Pride.
- Finally, her last skill has a whopping four coins, inflicts Bleed potency and count and Burn count, deals more damage the lower the target's HP is, has greater coin power the more Bleed the target has, which can let the skill go from a modest 16 final power up to an amazing 24 final power, and if the attack Staggers or kills, she gives SP, Poise potency and count to allies with the lowest SP, with that number of allies increasing the higher that turn's Absolute Resonance is, up to max of 4 teammates.
- Captain Ishmael isn't just strong in a vacuum, either, as her Sin Affinities line up perfectly with Season 3's Pequod and Middle Identities who also focus on Resonance, Bleed, and Poise, and she has fantastic synergy with her equally-Game Breaking [Blind Obsession] E.G.O, which she can battery almost entirely by herself and use for its Poise and Pierce Power Up to bolster both herself and her party.
- There are, however, a number of factors that rein her in; she relies heavily on Resonance and Absolute Resonance to bring out her kit's full potential, which can limit her teambuilding options to a smaller selection of Identities that share her Sin Affinities, and requires some extra effort to line up those Affinities each turn in combat. More importantly, though, she absolutely has to score some kills herself rather than leave everything to her teammates, since not only is this how she can activate her passive and to a lesser extent her third skill's buffs, she'll actually lose SP if her allies kill higher-level enemies instead of gaining it, which can tank her performance and possibly even make her Corrode if you aren't letting her land finishing blows, though this is balanced out by her actually gaining more SP upon killing such higher-level enemies compared to your usual Identity.
Season 4: Clear All Cathy
- [Edgar Family Chief Butler] Ryoshu - Maid Ryoshu is what you would functionally get if Cinq Sinclair gave up some of his sheer single-target damage to instead spread it among multiple targets the way Spicebush Yi Sang and Tingtang Hong Lu do. Much like Cinq Sinclair, this Ryoshu is focused on gaining clashing ability and damage increases across the board by out-Speeding opponents, which she can reliably accomplish through her passive's Haste generation. Of note is her unique debuff, B.M., which she can inflict across all her skills and are consumed on crit to increase that crit's damage by 10% for each 1-Speed difference between Ryoshu and the target if she's faster — if she's 6 Speed faster or more, this crit damage increase goes up to 60%, improving her damage enormously. Her second skill can, like Spicebush Yi Sang, consume Poise count on herself (and fortunately unlike Spicebush Yi Sang, not some troublesome debuff like Tremor count) to become a Herd-Hitting Attack, allowing her to apply B.M. to multiple enemies, and can notably apply it on both its coins, so she can use it and reapply it afterwards on both hits. This is important for last skill, which is functionally Tingtang Hong Lu's Mutilate on roids by nature of having two coins that gain Coin Power based on her speed advantage and if the target has B.M., with each coin having incredible effects: the first grants her Poise on use to help her crit, inflicts Bind to maintain her advantage, raises the Stagger threshold on-hit to help her Stagger, and applies a B.M. on crit that can be used by her second coin; this second coin will deal 40% more damage on crit to Staggered targets (which can be facilitated with the previous coin and will stack with B.M.'s damage increase), apply more B.M. on hit, and if the coin kills, allows her to reuse the skill once against another target with B.M., letting her potentially take out or at least heavily damage a second enemy. She even fits very with her Red Eyes E.G.Os' gimmicks of Bind and Speed differences to boot. Overall, Maid Ryoshu is very fast, clashes well, and can unload massive damage across crowds of enemies, all of which makes her a truly incredible unit. She's also tailor-made for clearing Mirror Dungeons quickly and effectively since she scales unbelievably well with E.G.O Gifts, as they can vastly increase her Poise generation, damage output, allow her to immediately achieve the condition of her second skill's extra Attack Weight (with Nebulizer+Ornamental Horseshoe), or raise her third skill's power to incredible heights (with Lucky Pouch). She's reliable even outside the Mirror Dungeon as well, as she still has strong clashing, damage against multiple enemies or Abnormality Parts at once with her second skill, and high damage and Stagger potential with her third skill even if the reuse function might be unavailable. And as the cherry on top, her dodge grants her both Poise count and SP on each successful dodge, allowing her to dodge attacks with increasing reliability even if targeted several times and having the means to retaliate with the Poise she's accrued immediately after.
- [Binds] Heathcliff - Much like [Blind Obsession] Ishmael and [Sunshower] Yi Sang before it, this is a very powerful WAW-tier E.G.O present at the end of the Limbus Pass. While it has a number of excellent traits, namely its 7 Attack Weight, 33 max power for strong clashing, and some handy debuffs like Bind, Sinking, and Tremor Burst, this E.G.O's main strengths lie in its SP mechanics and excellent buffs for both Heathcliff and his allies. Binds' functions very differently to the WAW E.G.Os before it in that, rather than have a steep 35 SP cost which can be patched up after the attack goes off, Binds instead has a very small SP cost of 10 in return for dropping SP by 10 each turn for the next three turns. This is actually a massive difference, as the E.G.O now has a better chance of hitting heads, and the constant SP drop can be easily fixed through winning clashes for the next three turns, which is still quite reliable assuming your SP was already high before you used the E.G.O. Furthermore, along with 2 Attack Up, Binds has a unique buff known as "Before the King in Binds", which allows Heathcliff to hit two other damageable enemies for the full damage (or half damage if used under Corrosion/Overclock) and affinity of his next 1-Weight attack, which can be devastating when used with some of his IDs' most powerful skills like Sever Knot. Its passive, "Chains of Binding", is also simply incredible, giving Heathcliff and his allies 3 Offense and Defense Level Up if there is a 4+ Reson. with Heathcliff taking part that turn, and 5 Offense and Defense Level Up if it was an A. Reson. This all comes at the cost of Heathcliff's speed being dropped to an absolute crawl the turn after he uses the E.G.O due to an unholy 20 Bind, but everything Binds has going for it makes it well worth it regardless.
- [Edgar Family Heir] Gregor - The new centerpiece of Sinking comps, Gregor shows just how deadly Heathcliff's rival Linton could be in better health. The main selling point of this ID is that every skill it has, even his Evade, gains Coin Power the more Sinking the target is inflicted with, with his passive also increasing his damage to targets the more Sinking they have. His passive also has the effect of increasing the damage he both deals and takes based on how much SP he's gained or lost the previous turn. Putting everything together, once you can stack enough Sinking onto a target, Gregor can start snowballing very hard due to his Coin Power boosts helping him win clashes, which gives him a damage boost through his passive, which in turn lets him deal horrific levels of damage in tandem with his passive's Sinking-dependent damage increase. Special mention also goes to his third skill, which, against a target with 9+ Sinking count, will clash for a massive 28 power with four coins, can absorb 10 Sinking (or not, at a 50% chance) on the last coin for a Plus Coin boost and Damage Up for even more damage, and can inflict Sinking count to the target on a Stagger or to two other enemies on a kill. The obvious downside to this Gregor is that he can possibly eat 10 Sinking potency with his strongest attack, but this can be reliably fueled by other Sinking-based IDs and is a complete non-issue in Mirror Dungeon with the help of E.G.O gifts.
Walpurgis Night Identities and E.G.O.
Walpurgis Night-exclusive Identities and E.G.O. tend to be a step above the rest, where even 00-level Identities will be something worth having in your team because of how well they can pull their own weight. Even then, some go above and beyond in power.
- [Regret] Meursault - A TETH-class E.G.O. costing a cheap 3 Wrath and 2 Pride, at first it may just seem to be a pure Tremor Count applicator, but it has two additional effects that up its viability a ton - first, two debuffs are removed before the attack, potentially freeing Meursault himself from anything debilitating he took this turn or any turn before. Then, one of the parts of the E.G.O.'s passive trades 1 Base Power for 2 Coin Power for any of Meursault's leftmost skills (which is almost certainly the only skill he has if you do bother to run a full team), heavily amplifying both Meursault's damage and clash power. Even his Base Identity gets a big boost in clash power just for having multi-coin skills!
- [Lobotomy E.G.O. - Magic Bullet] Outis - A damage-based Identity that, for every skill, applies a special version of Burn onto enemies known as Dark Flame that lowers defense levels as well as does Pride damage based on the amount of Burn on the enemy. But where she really shines is when she begins using her second and third skill to increase her Magic Bullet counter, which increases both the attack weight and power of the third skill, Magic Bullet Fire. As demonstrated in the Dawn of Green event that's practically tailor-made for her, this translates to an Identity who has decent clashing potential and can eventually dish out one 40 power coin that can hit up to 7 enemies, all without using an actual E.G.O. skill! The only real downside is that Magic Bullet Fire becomes indiscriminate if Outis is at 15 SP or less, but that obstacle is easy enough for most players to get around anyway.
Mirror Dungeon E.G.O Gifts
- Self-healing items, especially the Phlebotomy Pack, are an extremely good boon to have in general, as healing tends to be scarce and/or force you to give up a possibly more favorable option. These artifacts also stack, meaning you won't just heal for 12% max HP every time you start a new battle (Homeward), but also heal each of your Sinners passively for every first hit in each turn (Phlebotomy Pack) and when you stagger for the first time in a turn (Lithograph). If you manage to get a strong healing artifact, you can ignore healing nodes altogether, or spend your rests and shops buying more items or identities.
- The Rusty Commemorative Coin repeats the first one-coin skill used each turn on a random target if it did not kill, and also gives skill power when killing with a one-coin or Sloth skill. In terms of E.G.O, which often have a singular coin, this often means that you can get the E.G.O off and apply its effects twice provided it doesn't target low-HP stragglers, which saves Sin resources and can be especially devastating if it hits multiple targets, often leading to them ripping apart group fights in a single cast. It was slightly nerfed by the sanity system rework, due to the fact that it causes certain E.G.O to consume double the SP, potentially gimping the user for their upcoming skills or causing an outright Corrosion. On the other hand, however, this can be used to 'reroll' an E.G.O that needs a Tails hit (i.e Heathcliff's Telepole, Sinclair's Impending Day), bordering on Loophole Abuse, and has little to no downside on E.G.O. that can refund SP like Yi Sang's Sunshower, Hong Lu's Land of Illusion, or Faust's Fluid Sac.
- With the release of the second Mirror Dungeon came another extremely broken Gift: Lunar Memory. It turns all enemies' resistances to Fatal. That's it. It has no downsides unlike Dark Flame from Library of Ruina (who would also turn YOUR resistances to Fatal) and it's only balanced out by being very rare to find and extremely expensive to buy if found in a Shop. Get it, however, and you can laugh as every enemy encounter from then on is turned into mincemeat. Fittingly, it's the only Tier V gift in all three Mirror Dungeons to date, and is also not granted by any kind of Abnormality choice encounter.
- Grand Welcome. It has two effects, the first simply giving 5 Pride resources at the start of a battle. What makes it ridiculous is its other effect, giving 2 Pride resources and 1 resource of two other random Sins if an enemy dies. And since there are so many enemies in Mirror Dungeon 2 and resources do not go down between fights anymore, it basically throws resource economy out the window, letting you constantly spam E.G.O. and even Overclocks with no repercussions. The best part is that it's usually found in the first or second floor shops, meaning with a few Cost buffs from Starlight, you can easily get this absurd Gift.
- Faith, added in the second dungeon, is another Simple, yet Awesome buff, fully restoring the SP of any ally who used a Plus Coin skill last turn at the start of the turn. Consider that most skills in the game (and most E.G.O.) use plus coins, and this translates to most of your Sinners permanently being at full SP and rolling heads, and in particular completely counteracts the SP loss from E.G.O. spam unless you overdo it to the point of outright Corrosion.
- While Gifts that generate E.G.O resources were always generally useful, especially with the second Mirror Dungeon stressing more frequent E.G.O usage and resource economy, the Blue Zippo Lighter has always been a particular standout for its very simple effect of granting 1 Gloom resource and 1 resource of two other random Sins at the start of a turn. Despite its simplicity, the Gift is considered invaluable just because it generates Gloom. Many of the game's best E.G.Os, such as Faust's Fluid Sac or Yi Sang's Sunshower as a few examples, all need Gloom, and the Gift allows a player to gain access to these E.G.Os while being able to run stronger Identities that may not be able to generate the required Gloom. And this is before considering the generation of other random E.G.O resources, further easing the player's need to budget their resources as they continue their Mirror Dungeon run.
- The Lightning Rod. Charge users generally tend to have one rather powerful third skill and buffs with higher Charge count, but they...well, they take a while to charge up. The Lightning Rod turns this on its head, allowing all Sinners fielded to restore 3 Charge at the start of the battle, or 5 if you have two or more Envy users note . This essentially gives you a head start and cuts down the charge-up time by a significant amount, especially when later floors throw more dangerous enemies at you that you will want to get rid off as soon as you see them. A particularly noteworthy example would be R Corp. Heathcliff instantly charging his passive and R. Ishmael getting to use Mind Whip safely much more earlier on.
- Charge-type Gloves is a stronger version of the Lightning Rod, granting an unconditional 5 Charge at the start of the battle while also increasing the Charge cap from 20 to 30. This has all of the strength of the Lightning Rod along with the increase in Charge cap allowing Charge users to be much more liberal with their Charge consumption, such as by using a powerful Charge-consuming skill and still having enough left over to keep any conditional buffs granted at high Charge, if not just firing a second instance of that skill.
- The Employee Card blows both of the above items out of the water when it comes to Charge generation, granting +3 Charge to all Sinners at the start of the turn whenever any Sinner uses a Charge-generating skill (or triggers Wrath A-Res). Unlike the Lightning Rod of Charge-type Gloves, this can trigger every turn instead of just once at the start of combat, and it most likely will considering that Charge-based units will generally want to be using as many generation skills as possible, especially if you have multiple. If you're running an entire Charge team, the Employee Card will essentially turn Charge stacking into a non-issue, as every team member will be generating so much that they'll be able to consume as much as they want and still never run out.
- What the Charge-type Gloves are for a Charge ID, is Fiery Down for a Burn ID. Its one effect is relatively minor, only adding 3 Burn to the target whenever a Lust or Burn-effect skill is used. Its second effect doubles the current Burn if the target had 20+ Burn at the start of the turn, which can be achieved as soon as the second turn. Just employ a small team of reliable Burn identities like the Liu, and the amounts of Burn will skyrocket so much that you'll be quickly wishing Burn didn't cap at 99 stacks.
- Carmilla causes non-Abnormality enemies to take 20% of their Max. HP as damage at the start of combat, which is an appreciable bonus but nothing exceptional. However, once fully upgraded in the Mirror of the Lake, Carmilla will deal up to 30% of their HP instead, which doesn't sound like a big difference, but is often enough to trip the first stagger thresholds of many enemies, causing them to stagger the moment they enter the fight. More often than not, this instantly wins the encounter since your team can now tear into them and likely finish off the whole wave in one fell swoop, and in the case that it doesn't instantly stagger them, it'll generally leave them so close to staggering that one strong move will do the trick, especially an AoE. Pick non-Focused nodes as often as possible and watch as your team storms through even the toughest ones for free (or at least with a huge advantage), with the only downsides being that it won't affect the second wave of an encounter in Floor 5 of Hard Mode, and that it can't be used against most of the bosses due to them being Abnormalities.
- Thrill is a Rupture buff which initially inflicts 3 Rupture Potency and Count on all enemies at the start of each turn, before consuming 2 Count at the end of a turn to deal Gluttony damage to all enemies with 3+ Count, equal to Potency multiplied by Count. From the get-go, it can be a godsend for Rupture teams by gradually ramping up Rupture stacks without even having to do anything, with further stacking both maintaining the stack indefinitely and dealing tremendous damage at the end of each turn due to the multiplicative nature of the damage. Upgrading the item increases the Rupture Potency per turn and reduces the Count consumed, with the item not consuming any at max level, which will result in it doing so much damage that it can kill entire waves of enemies without any Sinners even lifting a finger, much less if you actually supplement it with a well-equipped Rupture team.
- Clear Mirror, Calm Water is a potential win condition for Poise teams, increasing the critical hit multiplier from 1.2x to a maximum of 2.5x at max. level, while also granting any ally that consumes Poise Count with a crit to gain up to 15 Offense Level at the start of the next turn. Grab a few items or Identities to maximize Poise generation and watch as all of your units start hitting like trains with all of their skills, along with the Offense Level buff allowing them to punch way above their weight class, even against the buffed enemies in Hard Mode. The buff also stacks with other crit multipliers commonly found on Poise-based units, which can result in teams like the Blade Lineage dealing downright nuclear damage.
- Mirror of the Lake added a set of Tier IV items that can only be obtained by fusing together specific (and often rare) gifts pertaining to their respective status effect, which only even take effect if at least five members of your team are using said status. While they tend to be situational due to only benefiting one specific status effect per artifact, it buffs them to an absurd degree, ramping up their strengths and mitigating or outright nullifying their weaknesses to exponentially increase their power. Naturally, considering the effort required to get them, these can be extremely powerful.
- Ashes to Ashes + Dust to Dust: Soothe the Dead inflicts 3 Burn Count and an evenly distributed 15 Burn Potency to all enemies at the start of each turn, essentially making it impossible for anything to stop burning. On top of that, it gives a beefy +1 Base and Coin power along with +1 Burn Count/Potency infliction to every skill that inflicts Burn Potency, which considering you're forced to bring a Burn team to activate it is effectively all of them, letting them win more often and literally douse enemies in Burn stacks.
- Rusted Muzzle + Smokes and Wire: Bloody Mist doubles the Bleed Potency and Count inflicted by all attacks, while giving all skills that inflict Bleed Potency a hefty +2 Coin Power and +100% damage. Even with the enemy buffs in the dungeon, the power buff is enough to make Bleed teams start handily winning clashes while decimating enemies in return, either from the direct damage or massive Bleeding afterwards.
- Nixie Divergence + Bell of Truth: Coupled Oscillation inflicts 5 Tremor Potency and 1 Fragile every time an ally procs Tremor Burst on a target, making it a lot easier to deliver crippling Tremors to enemies while softening them up for raw damage. On top of that, the first time in an encounter that a target suffers from three Tremor bursts, it instantly staggers them. The second effect alone can snap some fights in half, disabling foes way earlier than you're supposed to and outright skipping certain phases or mechanics.
- Talisman Bundle + Standard-duty Battery: Enrapturing Trance causes all skills to inflict an extra 5 Rupture Potency and adds the ability for Rupture stacks to consume 10 Potency instead of Count if the Count would have dropped to 0, which not only heavily increases the damage dealt by Rupture, but also makes it a lot easier to maintain a large stack without it falling off, which can snowball out of control pretty quickly.
- Headless Portrait + Midwinter Nightmare: Black Sheet Music causes all skills to inflict 5 Sinking Potency, while also re-inflicting half of Sinking stacks consumed to all enemies last turn at the start of each turn. The former is good for building up Sinking consistently, while the latter effect is extremely good for keeping the ball rolling, and can result in some seriously damaging Sinking procs or Deluges without even needing extra turns to build up Sinking again.
- Ornamental Horseshoe + Four-Leaf Clover: Lucky Pouch offers a random ally the ability to give the entire team 7 Poise Potency/Count on a crit, but what really makes it strong is its other effect - giving the third skills of Poise Identities +3 final power, +12 total Coin Power (divided evenly among the skill's coins), and 50% bonus damage (also divided among coins). Both buffs remain consistent no matter how many coins the skill has (although multi-coin skills tend to benefit more due to damage calculations), and considering how hard Poise identities can already hit once they get the ball rolling (which is subsequently easier with Lucky Pouch and other Poise items), anything that is hit by the third skill of a Poise user probably isn't living for much longer.
