Recommendation: NO.

Sylas is powerful, but there is no demanding content for him at this time. Maribelle is really good, and potentially strong for High Mercury, but shares the banner with Sylas and we're not sure how the meta will shake out yet.



Sylas: Adept Aromatherapist

A new wind lance 5★, and just in time for High Mercury! Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell Sylas he should have brought Bog resistance, not Freeze! Still, Sylas has a few things going for him. First, he’s a powerful lance user that brings a LOT of buffs to the table, and synergizes well with adventurers like Louise who also rely on Poison for their kits. Sylas’ first skill deals line damage, reduces their strength by 10%, and inflicts Poison. That’s a pretty nifty ability, and his second is even better at support. First, he gives 20% skill haste for 15 seconds (which is a really nice long time for a buff) and he either increases strength or defense by 20% for 15 seconds, or HP for the rest of the quest. Now, obviously the strength is going to be the preferred buff, but the HP boost is nothing to sneeze at, especially with Lowen around also boosting HP.

Sylas also gets HP 70% = Strength +13%, which is a pretty monster boost when above that threshold. Unfortunately, his other two abilities are pretty poor in the current meta. Last Recovery IV might help him keep that strength up, but the fact that it triggers only once per quest means he’s probably going to still want a healer to support him to maintain his strength buff. The most crippling part of the kit though is the Freeze resistance. Currently, there is no hard content in the game that requires Freeze resistance. The hardest content would be an event master challenge that inflicts freeze, but that’s an if and when question. Water IO is generally considered to be one of the most painful to solo or auto, but it also doesn’t require an adventurer of Sylas’ strength to manage. Still, with the pattern Void Battles have been following with status afflictions, Freeze Res very well may be the thing to have against a Water boss. Perhaps Void Leviathan is on the way?

Forgive me, Sylas! Your fans will still love you, and are rejoicing now that you're finally playable.

Maribelle: Child of the Forest

Wow, I can’t believe it’s Maribelle's first banner! She’s a powerful wand user, who unlike Sylas has bog resistance, making her well suited for High Mercury. It’s too soon to say what builds Maribelle will use successfully in the new trial, or what level of investment she’ll need. What is known is that Maribelle has fantastic DPS and a powerfully offensive kit. She’s got two hard hitting skills, the first of which gives the enemy a defensive debuff. Both have good AOE utility as well.

Aside from her DPS, Maribelle doesn’t contribute a lot to the group support-wise, and her first ability requires her to have full HP to get her 40% skill damage buff, meaning she requires healer support and very skillful dodging to get the most out of her. Mercury looks to have several instances of unavoidable damage, meaning that Maribelle won’t be at peak performance the entire fight, and will need good timing to successfully maximize her damage. All that said, she’s still a really solid wind DPS that is worth pulling for. However, it would be wise hold off on pulling if you plan to use her to clear High Mercury until we understand what the meta for that fight will look like.

Yue: Wild Child

A girl with her priorities straight, Yue always has a bite to eat, and she’s never tired thanks to her Sleep resistance! As a 4★ Axe user, Yue shares a weapon type with Vanessa, but their play styles couldn't be more different. Whereas Vanessa is a hard hitting brawler, Yue is a defensive Adventurer with abundant self-sustain. Let’s take a look at Yue's kit: she’s got a basic melee damage skill in Knockout Blow that also stuns, but it’s her second skill, Wild Instinct, that’s interesting. This skill turns Yue from a tank to a berserker for 20 seconds with +20% crit who can also heal herself for 3% of her damage. However, it also lowers her defense by 40%, so it’s not really an emergency heal.

Yue’s other abilities are Last Defense +60%, which is risky to trigger but has incredible magnitude. Her second ability is recovery potency +8%, which is great for Staff users but sees less mileage on a self-heal.

In the end, while Yue may be great at parties, she’s not who you want to bring to current challenging content, which is a race against the clock, not a test of endurance and survival. Don’t pull for Yue now, as she’s not going anywhere.

Don’t worry Yue, you’re still invited over for snacks!