Maria/Strategy
NOTE: This page currently under construction.
(This page is for Maria strategy guide. For the standard Maria page, click here.)
Overview
☆3/☆4 Maria
Maria is an interesting variant on your typical healing-focused character. She has great AOE burst-healing potential, but she can only utilize it by taking damage from enemies, and she can only heal herself at phase start. Though she has a pretty sizable HP pool, it can still be burned down quickly, especially when there are Aether units on the enemy side of the field.
Fortunately, Maria further penalizes enemies that hit her by inflicting the Branded status on them, increasing the damage they take and causing damage to them over time. At max skill level, she is guaranteed to cause Branded to any enemy that attacks her, and she can also apply Branded over a wide area with her CS. Even if she goes down later in the fight, her Gardener skill's Regeneration buff will remain, keeping her allies in fighting shape although she is no longer there to watch over them.
☆4 Summer Maria
Adapted with permission from the Housamo Gameplay-Based Tier List. Remove this disclaimer when Overview:☆4 Summer Maria is sufficiently modified.
Maria is a nice Water Slash user with small drawbacks, just like other Beach characters, she has the issue of applying Fervor to enemies who hit her besides her allies, and it can really screw you up if you don't kill them quick, she also relies on getting hit to have her damage increase considerably, which paired with LB3 becomes exponentially better while also healing her a bit. She retains the same Regen for allies besides her, which speaks for itself as a great passive heal and her Charge can boast of great damage if under her Fighting Spirit. Her glaring issues lie in having to be hit for half of her skills to work, with one of them possibly backfiring as previously mentioned, and having no way to reduce incoming damage makes her craving of defensive buffs if she wants to last through, especially against Grass.
Highlights
☆3/☆4 Maria
Class: Healer
Gameplay Role: Healer, Debuffer
Pros
+ Can heal all adjacent allies for large amounts of HP.
+ Can apply Regeneration to her allies, stacking with her burst healing to recover huge chunks of HP quickly.
+ Applies Branded to enemies that hit her, making them very easy to burst down.
Cons
- Very limited ability to heal herself.
- Needs to take damage from enemies to utilize her full potential.
☆4 Summer Maria
Adapted with permission from the Housamo Gameplay-Based Tier List. Remove this disclaimer when Highlights:☆4 Summer Maria is sufficiently modified.
Class: Glass Cannon, Healer
Gameplay Role:
Pros
+ Default is a great offensive+CP buff for her allies to approach.
+ LB1 Regen serves as a fantastic passive heal buff.
+ LB2, paired with LB3 tremendously boosts her damage, though the former needs her to be hit.
+ Charge can boast of considerable damage thanks to LB2.
Cons
- Default, like all other Beach-themed units, has the huge issue of applying to whatever hits her as well, which can potentially turn the battle against you.
- Half of her skills requires her to be hit, with Default already mentioned on how it can backfire, she has no viable way to reduce incoming damage, especially against Grass.
- Past damage, Charge isn’t particularly fantastic, the CP Up bit can be approached, but due to her range, it can be anywhere from great to mediocre.
Gameplay Role
Example gameplay role breakdown.
Stats and Seed Usage
| Unit | (Effective) HP | Base ATK | ATK per square | CS ATK per square (SALV1) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unseeded | Seeded | Unseeded | Seeded | Unseeded | Seeded | Unseeded | Seeded | |
   |
7699 | 9922 | 2510 | 3911 | 703 | 1095 | 1406 | 2190 |
  |
8823 | 11047 | 2789 | 4174 | 781 | 1169 | 2343 | 3506 |
   |
6468 | 8343 | 4858 | 6547 | 2186 | 2946 | 8745 | 11784 |
Since Maria's survivability is much more important to her team than how much damage she can do -- especially since her survivability also translates into more application of Branded and thus more damage to the enemy team -- it's best to give Maria HP and Level Seeds. Skill Seeds increase the power and probability of her healing skills, which is naturally going to be useful. ATK Seeds, while a nice bonus for her, are probably better spent on other characters instead.
Team Synergy
Other healers
Since Maria is certain to be taking damage in order to contribute to the team, having another character present who can heal her wounds is much appreciated. You can bring another strong healer like Choji or Ryota, but a character who simply applies Blessing or Regeneration can be sufficient to keep her going as well, such as Tangaroa or Azazel. It can also be useful to have a character who can cure status ailments, such as Taurus Mask or the generic Mage -- Maria's CS causes Branded to herself as well as to her enemies, so a character that can cure Branded off her while leaving it on her enemies is bound to come in useful.
Defense buffers
Units that can mitigate damage for Maria by applying Protection or Evasion can go a long way in keeping her alive and functional. Units such as the generic Valkyrie (who can cast Protection) are perfect for this. On the flip side, units that can reduce the enemy's damage output are similarly helpful, such as Shuichi (who can cause Dazzle).
Maria works exceptionally well with Zabaniyya. He can apply Blessing to her to help her recover from enemy attacks, and she returns the favor by Branding enemies so he can trigger his Enforcer passive for massively increased damage.
Checks and Counters
Example counter
Example description
Teambuilding Options
This section consists of user-submitted builds that may not necessarily be viable for high level quests.
Arbitrary Team Name
| Team Details (submitted by UserName) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Maria 【Debuffer】 |
Maria 【Moveslut, CP Battery】 |
Maria 【Healer, Tank】 |
Maria 【Support unit】 |
 Licht 【example of variant call】 |
 Anyone / no one 【Flexible】 |
| Cost: ≥X | |||||
Example team function description.