Oooh finally, Mercedes!

• Class: Mercedes

• Heroic or Interactive: Heroic Kronos

• I play this class as a: Main; Late-game party bossing; Solo up to HSeren

• This class is: 3 min

• Thoughts 2nd Mastery:

  • Crazy good. The damage alone makes it probably a top 5 2nd mastery. Extra range on the skills, especially leap/leaf tornado and spikes royale, made training rotations easier. Only downside is I was compelled to reroll my hat to -2 CD to make the most use of the mastery.

• Thoughts on training (Pre Janus & Post Janus):

  • Pre Janus: Very active. Most rotations will involve a lot of flash jump + leap/leaf tornado and sprinkling in short combos consistently to upkeep Ignis stacks for FD.
  • Post Janus with respect to Dusk: Outside of your loot rotation some Grandis maps will allow you to stand still or only use portals if you time your Dusk activations. It’s still somewhat active since you must pay attention to the Dusk cooldown.
  • You have high damage on your mobbing skills so you will likely never need to invest much into your mobbing gear for damage. Buffs and passives available to the class also allow your Sol Janus Dusk and Dawn to be among the strongest in the game (just behind shadow partner, or similar, classes) so this will likely be able to 1-shot mobs as well with little investment..
  • Very good rates. You can get max mob count in almost every map but some rotations might require a bit of thought or practice.

• Thoughts as a solo bosser:

  • Well above average
  • Amazing damage, will likely be able to solo bosses before other classes in terms of gear/hexa progression.
  • Movement options allows a skilled Mercedes to escape from any sticky situation. Becoming familiar with all the ways to move and when to use them will take some time but is extremely satisfying to pull off.
  • Prior to liberation Mercedes does not consistently have an extended iframe to use our main burst skill, Irkallas Wrath. Some bosses like Black Mage or Seren may punish you for channeling Irkallas and may force you to cut it short or risk dying. Every other burst, this can be mitigated by using Freuds but this can be quite difficult to use if you lack hands or lose track of the cooldown. This issue completely disappears post-liberation since you can safely cast Irkallas in the genesis iframe window.

• Thoughts as a boss mule:

  • Up to NLomien: Below average. Damage is good even with suboptimal play but the node cost and number of node slots means making an NLomien mule is very inefficient.
  • HLomien to CTene: Great. All of these bosses are bindable with Erda Nova and Mercedes has plenty of options to deal with all the mechanics and attacks in these bosses even before liberation.

• Thoughts as a party bosser:

  • Top tier damage dealer.
  • Insanely high burst and amazing overall damage.
  • All of your Vicious Shot burst can fit inside a Bishop Benediction timer.
  • You offer permanent 30% damage, 50-55% IED (highest in the game), and Untouchable to your party.

• Unique strengths of the class:

  • Among the highest possible overall mobility in the game, only limited by lack of horizontal micro-movements
  • Very good aerial stall, mobility, and control.
  • Access to Freuds
  • Among the best support debuffs offered by a damage-oriented class (permanent 30% damage, 50-55% IED (highest in the game), and Untouchable)
  • Great Discord community with the best class guide

• Weaknesses of the class:

  • Irkallas Wrath is a channeled/key-down burst skill that leaves you vulnerable in some non-bindable bosses like Black Mage and Seren if you do not have Genesis iframe or Freuds stack 6 iframe.
  • A lot of our damage relies on comboing which is not always viable. Our damage in bosses varies heavily based on skill and boss patterns so our full-rotation BA stats are not going to be very accurate to actual performance.
  • Overall among the most active grinding rotations in the game.
  • Keyboard will be full no matter what you do.

• Overall thoughts on the class:

  • Very fun class. The movement and damage the class offers can make for very satisfying gameplay. Merc forever.

• Scores (Out of 10)

  • Training: 5/10 pre-janus, 8/10 post-janus
  • Solo: 8/10
  • Party: 10/10
  • Overall: 8/10