Mephistopheles/Strategy

(This page is for Mephistopheles strategy guide. For the standard Mephistopheles page, click here.)

Overview

Example description

Highlights

Class: Mixed Support

Gameplay role: Offensive Support, Defensive Support, Mover

Pros

+ Applies irremovable statuses Demonic PactWhile user has Contractual Dues: ATK Up by 6x, DEF Up by 0.3x, +20CP/turn for 2 turns (Irremovable Buff) and Contractual DuesWhile user does not have Demonic Pact: Enemies deal 10000 extra damage, decrease skill activation rate by 100% for 6 turns. (Irremovable Debuff) to boost ally damage/defense/CP

+ Good defensive capabilities due to having innate DEF UpDEF Up by 0.9x ~ 0.45x for 4 turns (Buff) and applying DazzleATK Down by 0.7x ~ 0.35x for 3 turns (Debuff) to enemies

+ Skill LockCannot activate skills for 5 turns. (Debuff) when struck helps shut down enemies' skills occasionally

+ Debuff prevention through Reflect DebuffReflect debuff once for 4 turns. Vanishes after use. (Buff) on Phase Start and CS

+ Board-wide Countdown-10000~-20000HP/turn for 2 turns (Debuff) when leaving

Cons

- Can only buff one ally per turn and needs to move to do so

- Price of Contract has certain side effects which are unavoidable

- No extended horizontal movement

- INFERNAL increases damage taken

- Blessing WeakeningWhile user has Blessing: -1200HP/turn for 999 turns (Irremovable Debuff) shuts down common healing source

- May severely weaken team through Countdown after leaving

Gameplay Role

Offensive/Defensive Buffer

The release of Mephistopheles introduces two new statuses: Demonic PactWhile user has Contractual Dues: ATK Up by 6x, DEF Up by 0.3x, +20CP/turn for 2 turns (Irremovable Buff) and Contractual DuesWhile user does not have Demonic Pact: Enemies deal 10000 extra damage, decrease skill activation rate by 100% for 6 turns. (Irremovable Debuff). After moving, Mephistopheles will apply both status effects to the ally directly in front of him, meaning that for two turns, this ally will obtain the positive effects of Demonic Pact: an increased attack by a 6x multiplier, increased defense by a 0.3x multiplier, and +20 CP. Demonic Pact negates the effect of Contractual Dues for these two turns as well, so there are no obvious negative consequences to contend with yet. After these two turns, Demonic Pact expires, but since the duration of Contractual Dues is six turns, this means that this ally will have Contractual Dues for another four turns. Since the negative effects of Contractual Dues are particularly detrimental (extra 10k flat damage received for each hit and nullified skill activation), what this means is that in order to avoid these effects, Mephistopheles should move every two turns for a particular ally to reapply Demonic Pact until the six turns of Contractual Dues are up. On these other turns, Mephistopheles can do the same to boost another ally, which for these reasons leads to comparisons between him and Leannan Sidhe.

There are many clear differences between these units with regards to their status effects bestowed to allies. Mephistopheles plays more defensively, since Demonic Pact has a rather large defensive multiplier, while Leanan Sidhe has more offensive power, with her three buffs given on move equating to a 11.52x offensive multiplier at full HP compared to Mephistopheles' 6x offensive multiplier. The detrimental effects from Mephistopheles are more pronounced with Contractual Dues, while Leanan Sidhe's HP decrease to allies is rather minor and even beneficial for increased damage through LimitATK Up by 1x~2x → 2x~4x as HP→0 for 1 turn (Buff). On the other hand, Mephistopheles' status effects are unique, which means that he will be able to boost units' damage more for those who already have Leanan Sidhe's offensive buffs. They are also irremovable, so these buffs can boost the damage of units who would typically remove buffs from themselves, notably Kalki (Christmas) and Shiva on his charge skill. Finally, Contractual Dues is a debuff, so Mephistopheles can activate an ally's After Debuff skill, which is a rare ability.

The operation of Demonic PactWhile user has Contractual Dues: ATK Up by 6x, DEF Up by 0.3x, +20CP/turn for 2 turns (Irremovable Buff) and Contractual DuesWhile user does not have Demonic Pact: Enemies deal 10000 extra damage, decrease skill activation rate by 100% for 6 turns. (Irremovable Debuff) is more nuanced than this however. When Demonic Pact first expires, there is a small gap in time when only Contractual Dues is on an ally before the reapplication of Demonic Pact, and that is the start of the third turn (of Contractual Dues's duration). What this means is that any Turn Start (or Phase Start if the turn is the beginning of a phase) effects will not activate for this ally on this turn, so careful attention needs to be paid here when using Mephistopheles. Likewise, After Buff and After Debuff effects which would have activated during this timing will not activate as well. Given the six turn duration of Contractual Dues, when using Mephistopheles to continually reapply Demonic Pact, this means that turns 3 and 5 are susceptible to this effect. For example, Krampus (Jiangshi) applies StigmaDEF Down by 1.15x ~ 2.3x, -150~-300HP/turn for 3 turns (Debuff) every five turns and has a Turn Start LimitATK Up by 1x~2x → 2x~4x as HP→0 for 1 turn (Buff), so using Mephistopheles with Jiangshi Krampus has a bit of anti-synergy due to occasionally removing his access to Limit and restricting the player in order to have Stigma activate.

However, this skill locking can play in favor for a few units. One such example is Kalki (Christmas) who removes all his buffs at Turn Start. Using Mephistopheles as described above, the buffs which Christmas Kalki obtained from turn 2 can now carry over to turn 3, which can include AdamantineDEF Up by 0.9x ~ 0.45x for 4 turns (Buff) if he is moved, and gives him the rare chance to use his CS with all his offensive buffs present.

A rather interesting interaction however occurs with the concurrently released unit, Babe Bunyan. The nullification of skill activation on Turn Start actually helps Babe Bunyan, since it allows him to avoid receiving the irremovable debuffs Attack Power Reduction (Stackable 3)ATK Down by 0.7x for 6 turns (Irremovable Debuff) and Attack Power Reduction (Stackable 5)ATK Down by 0.7x for 6 turns (Irremovable Debuff) if using Mephistopheles as described before. More generally, Contractual Dues can be used to recover Babe Bunyan's damage despite his Attack Reduction being irremovable. For example, if he somehow survives throughout Contractual Dues without reapplying Demonic Pact, he will end out with only two Attack Reductions since the others will have expired and not have been reapplied due to the effect of Contractual Dues. While this might not be too impressive in the case of Babe Bunyan, it indicates that Mephistopheles can be used to avoid irremovable/detrimental effects in the future.

Continuing from the usage of Contractual DuesWhile user does not have Demonic Pact: Enemies deal 10000 extra damage, decrease skill activation rate by 100% for 6 turns. (Irremovable Debuff) by itself, there are some things of note. While its effects are severe, it does not directly affect damage or prohibit using charge skills, so a unit may still do substantial damage especially with preexisting offensive buffs such as in the case of Babe Bunyan's charge skill. Survival from the flat damage taken by direct hits can be performed using Guts+1HP when HP is at 0 at the end of the turn for 5 turns. Removed once activated. (Buff) which can come either innately or from skills such as Survivor. Finally, since Contractual Dues is an irremovable debuff, it does not trigger conditional status effects related to debuffs such as Debuff StrengtheningWhen holding removable debuffs: DEF Up by 0.1x for 999 turns (Irremovable Buff).

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
	7200	9345	2671	4098	748	1147	2404	3688
	8213	10392	2979	4361	834	1221	4022	5887

Team Synergy

Example synergy

Example description

AR Equipment

Example AR equipment

Example description

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)
Mephistopheles 【Debuffer】	Mephistopheles 【Moveslut, CP Battery】	Mephistopheles 【Healer, Tank】	Mephistopheles 【Support unit】	Licht 【example of variant call】	Anyone / no one 【Flexible】
Cost: ≥X

Example team function description.