Coppélia – Prydwen Pre-Release Review
Good morning and happy 3rd anniversary! With the beast (haha get it) named Rhiannon out of the way, it is time to look at our first new character to bring an entirely new Archetype with her: Coppélia! She is the protagonist of Syndrome of Silence, so you might’ve seen her around before.
The translations are from u/Meru_9, I doubt they bear any introduction.
The usual disclaimers apply: we don’t have modifiers just yet, nor specific details regarding some parts of their kit, so we can’t say for sure if Coppélia is good. ALWAYS take preliminary kit reviews with a grain of salt, no matter from what source it is (even ours).
Explanation of [Instrument]
I think first in order is an explanation of the Instrument Archetype, which will be spearheaded by Coppélia. I have tried to summarize the mechanics of this archetype in the following graphic, but I will also explain it in text. Here is how I understand it:
You can find the proper image on the Prydwen Discord (the scaling on the blog makes it go wonky).
What it comes down to is the following:
- [Instrument] Characters have and Instrument and an Energy Deck.
- The Energy Deck is what draws into your hand. Energy Cards, when cast, generate Energy corresponding to the Afflatus described.
- The Instrument has what players would consider “normal Incantations”. At the start of the round, you can pick per Instrument what Incantation they will cast that round.
- Every Instrument Incantation has an Energy Cost that is displayed on its card.
- In the example above, you have access to Coppélia and Regulus(E2), these generate Mineral and Star Energy respectively.
- Coppélia’s Instrument has selected an Incantation that costs 2 Mineral Energy.
- Regulus’ Instrument has selected an Incantation that costs 1 Star Energy.
- During the turn, Regulus casts two Energy Cards that each generate 1 Star Energy, thus you have a pool of 2 Star Energy.
- When Instruments Resolve you can use Regulus’ Instrument twice. Instruments can be activated so long as you have Energy to fuel them. Coppélia’s Instrument cannot be used as you don’t have any Mineral Energy available.
- The Energy pools are ‘general’, meaning that if you use two Instruments of the same Afflatus, you can spend that Energy on either Instrument.
- If Coppélia’s Instrument were Star, you could either use Coppélia’s Instrument once or Regulus’ twice as you have 2 Star Energy available and the former’s Incantation costs 2 whereas the latter costs 1.
I hope that kind of covers the idea behind this archetype. If you’re looking for similar mechanics, it is pretty similar to how the Pokemon TCG works with Energy and paying Energy Costs. I am also told it kind of looks like the Genshin TCG’s Elemental Dice system.
Let’s continue to Coppélia.
Afflatus: Mineral
Role: Damage Dealer(?)
Archetype: Instrument
Insight: Auditory Memory
Precognition | Does not obtain regular Incantations or Ultimate. Uses Energy to trigger an [Instrument] to cast Incantations. Moxie is replaced by Harmonization. At the start of the round, Coppélia gains Harmonization
- When any ally triggers an [Instrument], based on Energy consumed, Coppélia gains stacks of [Scale Steps].
- Upon entering combat, increase Critical DMG.
- Upon entering combat, increase all allies’ Instrument Might. Gain Harmonization.
- [Scale Steps]: Increases Ultimate Might.
- ‘Instrument Might’: Increases DMG Dealt by Incantations cast by an Instrument.
- ‘Instrument Invocation’: The total times an Instrument was triggered during a round.
Energy Card 1 (Coppélia)
Gain 1 Mineral Energy.
Energy Card 2 (Coppélia)
Gain 2 Mineral Energy.
Energy Card 3: Interval Leap (Coppélia)
Gain 2 Mineral Energy and stacks of [Scale Steps].
Incantation 1: Fingering Mastery (Coppélia’s Instrument)
Cost: 2 Energy
1-target attack. Deals Reality DMG. For every point of ‘Energy Consumption’, deals additional Reality DMG (up to a maximum). Gain Harmonization.
- ‘Energy Consumption’: The total Energy consumed by Instruments during a round.
Incantation 2: Vowel Fundamentals (Coppélia’s Instrument)
Cost: 0 Energy
Mass buff. Grants all allies [Ensemble]. Gain Harmonization. Then [Deplete].
- [Ensemble]: Increase Critical Rate. Increase Critical DMG based on Coppélia’s Critical DMG.
- [Deplete]: After the Instrument casts this Incantation, it cannot cast again during the current round.
Ultimate: Solfège Engraved Upon the Shell (Coppélia’s Instrument)
Mass attack. Deals Reality DMG to all enemies. Based on the number of [Scale Steps] stacks, deals additional Reality DMG to the primary target. After attacking, removes all stacks of [Scale Steps] and increases the ‘Energy Consumption’ level for the current round. Grants self and the character directly behind [Instrument Tuning I]. Then, [Transition: Fingering Mastery].
- [Transition]: After the Instrument casts this Incantation, automatically switches to the corresponding Incantation.
- [Instrument Tuning I]: When triggering an Instrument, Energy consumed is reduced.
Review
This archetype looks more complicated than it is. In essence, you are playing the character through a medium: their Instrument. Why or how this works exactly can be left up in the air, but due to the nature of this archetype it is kind of difficult to review. We have no other precedent for something like this.
Her Insights are really tame, basically the bare skeleton of what you’d expect any decent Carry to have. She seems set on having others use their Instruments and her own Instrument’s Skill 1 to generate [Scale Steps]. This can then be consumed by her Instrument’s Ultimate to optimize it’s damage.
What I suspect is that you’ll want to cast Instrument Incantation 1 as often as possible as it is your only player-initiative source of [Scale Steps]. Then, every X rounds you’ll switch to Instrument Incantation 2 to keep [Ensemble] running. Due to it’s [Deplete] effect, it will force you to give the rest of your Mineral Energy to other Instruments, which turns into extra Harmonization for Coppélia through Insight 1.
Whether or not excess Energy transitions over to the next round is something we’ll have to see, but I suspect that we will end up playing Coppélia very similarly to a standard Carry.
The idea here appears to be that you want to build through a solid pool of Mineral Energy before casting her Instrument Ultimate as it [Transition]s into her Instrument Incantation 1 right after. This Incantation scales its damage with the ‘Energy Consumption’ level, which the Ultimate raises.
So… build Mineral Energy -> Cast Instrument Ultimate -> Spam Instrument Incantation 1.
This is further supported by [Instrument Tuning 1], which will allow you to spam more of this Instrument Incantation 1s.
As the archetype is new… I can’t really say whether or not it will be good. Based on previous Free 6-stars from the 1st Anniversary (Semmelweis) and 2nd Anniversary (Ulrich), Coppélia isn’t likely to be bad. However, as her kit is very simple (once you understand the archetype), it is more prone to swinging either high or low on the rankings depending on her numbers. Though, I assume that to avoid a bad first impression they’ll give her some decent modifiers.
Personally, I think that she is missing another [Instrument] character. We have Regulus(E2), but I feel that to optimize her spam, you’ll want another unit that can generate Mineral Energy.
If I had to put my brain on for this, you’d want a unit that is okay with not using their Instrument too often that generate Mineral Energy. This will allow you to spam Regulus, who generates and consumes Star Energy, to trigger her Instrument often for Coppélia’s Insight while slowly building a big Mineral Energy pool for Coppélia to consume post-Ult.
That’s all rough conjecture, though.
Unfortunately this isn’t much of a review as it is an explanation and some basic theories about her usability. One of the nitpicks I have is that the Archetype can’t benefit from Moxie effects such as Moldir, Recoleta or [Passion Drain]. Moxie/Ultimate Supports are already in a pretty bad spot due to most high-tier units generating all the Moxie they need on their own, but if Instrument manages to take a spot among the high-ranking archetypes, those units will have even less of a place.
Lastly, and I didn’t include this in the explanation of the archetype (because it would just complicate everything) but it should be noted that when an [Instrument] character is in the team, beyond their personal Energy Cards, there are also “Generic Energy Cards”. What they do? Absolutely no idea, I imagine that it works similarly to Generic Mana from Magic the Gathering where it can be used to supplement the Cost of certain Instrument Incantations.
This makes the average [Instrument] character kind of degenerate on standard teams, as the hand space will slowly fill with Energy Cards that only that character can really utilize making it very hard for other team members to cast much. Keep this in mind when slotting them anywhere.
Predicted Tiering: S… This is mostly because while I do see the potential of this archetype and character (in a way she is kind of like a Mineral Windsong but less clunky). I do think her kit is very basic once you remove all the [Instrument] shenanigans, which will make her rely on raw numbers. As we’ve seen with characters like Centurion, Windsong and Jiu Niangzi this can give you a very high initial tiering but it makes you prone to getting out-gimmicked very quickly.
Note: This is all my personal understanding of the archetype based on what I can infer from the stream and from talking to CN players. Truly, this is a character I cannot ‘review’ until she launches.
