Ms Stranger – Prydwen Pre-Release Review

Good morning and… SHE’S 19 YEARS OLD? Bluepoch… Well, welcome to our multifaceted and deeply flawed (the more of the story releases the more upset I get with the Foundation, when is Vertin going to start her own revolution?) superspy: Ms Stranger, or Ms Grace, or Kayla, or Moth, or…

The translations are from u/Meru_9 on Reddit, 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 Ms Stranger is good. ALWAYS take preliminary kit reviews with a grain of salt, no matter from what source it is (even ours).

For the purpose of the review I’ll refer to her as “Stranger”.

Afflatus: Mineral
Role: Sub Carry(?)
Archetype: Move, Break

Insight: Mask of the Lady
Precognition | Upon entering combat, or at the start of the round after losing [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction], generate [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction] at the leftmost position of the Spelldock. [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction] is initially in a locked state (cannot be used, and cannot be moved). At the start of the round, if [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction] is at the rightmost position of the Spelldock, [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction] unlocks, and dispels [Control] effects on Ms Stranger.

1. Ultimate does not count toward the ally Spelldock Limit. When [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction] unlocks, Ms. Stranger increases self Moxie. Ms. Stranger’s Incantations are affected by both Incantation Might and Ultimate Might.
2. Upon entering combat, increase DMG Dealt.
3. When entering battle, the first [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction] obtained moves a number of positions to the right and gains a number of stacks of Amplification. When an enemy’s Afflatus Resistance is reduced to 0, Ms. Stranger gains [Self-Preservation].

Based on the type of Incantations/Ultimates actively used by allies in the AP Area, gains Amplification of the corresponding type.

• “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”: 1-target attack. Deals Mental DMG. This Incantation is a [Special Active Incantation], does not consume AP and is treated as an Ultimate.

When actively using [Fragile One’s Self-Destruction], based on the stack count of each type of Amplification, the attack gains additional effects.

• Type 1 // 1-target Attack or Debuff: Attack deals additional Mental DMG and deals additional Mental DMG against the primary target.
• Type 2 // Mass Attack or Debuff: Attack deals additional Mental DMG. Attack targets additional enemies.
• Type 3 // Buff or Counter: Increased Critical Rate and Ultimate Might.
• Type 4 // Heal or Channel: Increased Critical DMG and Incantation Might.

Incantation 1: One Within the Cocoon
1-target attack. Deals Mental DMG. If this Incantation is on the right side of “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” in the Spelldock, gain [Self-Preservation]. If this Incantation is to the left of “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” in the Spelldock, this deals additional Mental DMG.

• [Self-Preservation]: Consumed upon obtaining “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”. Each stack moves “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” to the right in the Spelldock and amplifies it.

Incantation 2: Phototaxis Instinct
Mass attack. Deals Mental DMG to all enemies. Inflicts [Self-Deception] on targets.

• [Self-Deception]: Reduces DMG Reduction. If struck by “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”, it gains additional Critical Rate and Critical DMG.

Ultimate: Involuntary Remembrance
Self buff. Dispels [Stats Down] and [Neg Status] effects. Enters [Emergence] and gains [Silent Flaps].

• [Emergence]: Increases DMG Reduction and DMG Bonus. “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” gains additional Penetration Rate.
• [Silent Flaps]: After Ms Stranger actively uses any Incantation to break through an enemy’s Afflatus Resistance, consumes [Silent Flaps] to cast an additional “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”. This attack is not treated as an Extra Action, and it possesses a number of all four Amplification types.

How Does She Work?

I think Stranger is among the most unique new characters we’ve had in a long while, and I myself am quite happy about that! Despite her odd kit, the descriptions are clear enough to where we can make an educated guess about her playstyle and viability.

With how often it is mentioned in her kit, I don’t think anyone needs me to tell them that “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” is the core of her rotation. It is also a pretty simple mechanic made more complicated by having the entire kit interact with it in different ways.

“Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” is generated at the start of the round if you don’t already have one. It starts at the very left of your hand, locked. Through casting other characters’ Incantations (and her own) it slowly moves to the right of your hand. Once it reaches the right, it becomes unlocked and you can cast it from there.

What does it do? Simple! It’s a Mental DMG nuke that doesn’t cost AP to cast, and it gains various different bonuses depending on what cards (attack, debuff, counter etc.) allies have cast over the course of the turns leading up to you casting “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”.

Her Skill 1 (“One Within the Cocoon”) is a lot of words for a very easy to understand effect. If this Incantation is to the right of your “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” before it leaves your hand, it grants Stranger [Self-Preservation]. If it is to the left, it deals additional DMG instead.

That’s a solid segway into the second-most-important part of her kit. [Self-Preservation] is a stack-based buff gained from her Insight 3 and Skill 1. When “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction” is generated, it consumes all stacks of [Self-Preservation] to move the Incantation a few places to the right in your hand. This allows you to unlock the Incantation quicker, and thus cycle faster.

From a narrative standpoint, the Foundation’s complete erasure of who Ms Stranger is every time she is sent on a new mission and the way she has become effectively addicted to ‘tabula rasa’ as a way of coping with her sins and the abuse at the Foundation’s hands are kind of illustrated in how her sense of [Self-Preservation] leading to a quicker “Self Destruction”. Enjoy that food for thought.

That aside, what else does she have?

Skill 2 (“Phototaxis Instinct”) is a simple mass attack that inflicts a nice DMG Reduction shred and buffs “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”s damage.

Her Ultimate (“Involuntary Remembrance”) is an interesting one. As she can already self-cleanse [Control], she instead cleanses all other debuffs here and then gains a set of buffs. [Emergence] is basically there to buff the next few instances of “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”.

[Silent Flaps] supports this by allowing Stranger to recast “Fragile One’s Self Destruction” every time she breaks through an enemy’s Afflatus Resistance.

Review

This is the more complicated part. Because of the uniqueness of her kit, it is difficult to contextualize her in the realms of other characters. She is the first character to care about moving Incantations like this and the second character to mention Afflatus Resistance (SW.Eagle being the first) as a core part of her kit. Still, there’s enough here to make an estimation.

The most important part of her kit is “Self-Destruction”. Every single Incantation and even Insight interacts with it, so if it is mediocre then her entire kit collapses in on itself (funny, as she’d collapse under the weight of her sins and abuse without it as well). I don’t like this overreliance on a single Incantation to carry the kit, it is very reminiscent of Windsong (and to a lesser extent Jiu Niangzi and 37) who has a tendency to swing wildly high or low depending on the state of the game.

That said, she does have an incredibly varied arsenal of buffs to supplement this cast. Not only does it automatically benefit from both Incantation and Ultimate Might, through her Amplifications she can add additional Mental DMG, targets, Crit Rate, Crit DMG, Incantation Might and Ultimate Might to it.

Then through her active casts she adds additional Crit Rate, Crit DMG and Penetration Rate to it, the only thing she’s missing is a raw ATK buff and that would cover I think most of the offensive buffs we have in the game. This makes her very self-sufficient (though her Amplifications rely mostly on her allies), so I don’t think we necessarily have to worry about the damage.

The problem might be frequency. At most, you’ll have 1 “Self-Destruction” in hand, and it needs to move all the way to the right of your hand to even be cast. It can’t be moved manually, so you’ll have to use either casts or shufflers like Flutterpage, Cheng Heguang, Charon to pace her damage. As it’s not considered an Extra Action (not even the ones from her Ultimate effect), she won’t benefit much from the first two, but the latter one might be an option (with how good Dynamo is at buffing Ultimate Might I wouldn’t be surprised).

Another way of quickening your “Self-Destruction” casts is getting stacks of [Self-Preservation], which are consumed whenever you generate the card to move it to the right several slots. How many slots it is moved per stack we don’t know, but let’s see where we can get the buff.

It is generated from two sources: Breaking through enemy Afflatus Resistance and if her Skill 1 is cast while it is to the right side of “Fragile One’s Self-Destruction”. That worries me a bit. Unless it moves the cast a bunch of places, I don’t see how you can gather a whole lot of stacks of this.

Afflatus Resistance requiring somewhat specific teambuilding and having “Self-Destruction” specifically be left of her Skill 1 seems like incredibly inconsistent ways of generating a buff that is honestly pretty vital to her gameplan.

The devs seem to somewhat remedy this by allowing her to cast “Self-Destruction” several times with [Silent Flaps] from her Ultimate, but this too requires breaking through Afflatus Resistance (and specifically for Stranger to do it). In addition, she has no Moxie cycling on her own, meaning you need to active-cast all of her personal Incantations to get to it (something you were probably doing anyway but still, it seems a bit dubious).

What if we consider her from a Carry perspective maybe? But I also struggle to see her place there, as being locked to only potentially 1 strong Incantation per round (or worse if you don’t manage to move it all the way to the right immediately) seems extremely slow.

Predicted Tier: S or A+.

The actual result here can vary pretty dramatically. If “Self-Destruction is a 5000% modifier with even “just decent” percentages on all of those buffs, she might as well go straight to S or S+ tier.

However, from what I can read, it feels like her kit is lacking a consistent way of doing what she wants. It also looks like a lot of effort for a single Incantation, so unless it is stronger than most other Incantations by a wide margin, I can’t see this being overly powerful.

Her personal buffs are exceptional though, so I think she may end up being a “bitcoin pull” that gets stronger as we move into 4.X. If more units are released that can shuffle their own cards, or even units that care about moving their cards (to the left, for example) then Stranger’s viability will go up parallel to them.

At the moment, I struggle to see her place outside of a very “general Sub Carry” slot in the very archetypal meta of Reverse, and she isn’t a Rhiannon, so we’ll see how she ends up!