Aria Review – A Defense-Based Mage!

Aria is a rather interesting character when it comes to her skillset. She’s a defense-based Mage (one of the first in Epic 7), and similarly to Milim, her “flagship” skill – the skill that plays an animation – is attached to her passive. She’s managed to place a spot in the meta as a decent unit; she’s no Seven Disasters, mind you, but she’s not in immediate need of a buff.

I decided to take a closer look at her skillset, and see just what makes her tick. With that, let’s begin!

Introduction

“The leader of the Shadow Elves, a race that has cut all ties with the outside world and has chosen to live in Recluse’s Forest. She is hard to read and gives off a cold impression, and is extremely hostile to everyone other than her people.”

Class: Mage
Element: Ice

In a nutshell, Aria’s skillset is:

• S1: Hits two enemies, has a 50% chance when maxed to decrease Hit Chance for 2 turns. Damage is proportionate to her defense. (Gains 1 Focus)
• Passive: Increases her crit chance by 20% (30% when fully skilled up). As her HP decreases, her Crit Damage increases by up to 50%.Whenever she uses a skill, if she has 5 Focus, she’ll immediately use it all to use a special attack that removes 2 buffs off of all enemies and decrease their Combat Readiness by 30%. The damage on this attack is proportionate to her defense.
• S3: Increases her defense for 2 turns, planting a counterattack buff on her for two turns. Also grants stealth and a barrier to all of her allies except for herself for 2 turns. The barrier is proportionate to her Defense. (Gains 3 Focus) (4 turn cooldown when skilled up)

Analysis

Right off the bat, we can see that Aria has a pretty unique skill set, and the idea behind her is rather interesting. As I’ve mentioned earlier, Aria is a Mage who’s based off of Defense and counter attacking. Although she isn’t going to, say, create a new meta solely around stopping her, Aria is still a very good (and fun) unit for people to play around with in their Guild Wars.

Overall, Aria is a pretty good investment for people who want a new toy to play around with, but not something that will singlehandedly define a meta. She’s a bit of a niche choice, and a player will have to specifically build a team around her, but once you figure something out she can be really fun.

One downside to her kit, though, is that she doesn’t do so well against units with AoE attacks. All it takes is a well-timed Landy to pop everyone’s Stealth, and then Aria can’t be focused on.

Where to Use Aria?

Aria doesn’t really have a spot in PvE – apart from a large handful of units, there are a lot of characters in this game that are almost purely PvP oriented, and Aria is one of them. She’s most used in Guild Wars and regular Arena, though I have seen a few videos regarding her in World Arena.

Nevertheless, her role in PvP is to ensure that only she is targeted (due to the Stealth on everybody except for her). And, of course, she removes two buffs on her AoE attack, because a lot of units these days remove at least two buffs, if not more. Not that it’s bad; it does work pretty well with her kit, as the constant Focus buildup can ensure that she’s able to use it often.

Builds

There are a few builds to use on Aria.

Speed/Immunity: The tried-and-true Speed/Immunity build never fails, and Aria is just the same. Her right-side stats are going to look like Crit Damage%/DEF%/SPD.

Lifesteal/Immunity: This one is a bit of an unorthodox build, but it definitely sounds like it works on paper – after all, a lot of what she’s going to do will involve counterattacking. This means she’ll attack frequently, so she can constantly heal herself and mitigate some of the damage that she takes from being hit. Same as the Speed/Immunity build, right-side stats should be Crit Damage%/DEF%/SPD.

Her stats should look to be about:

• 14,000-15,000 HP
• 2,100+ DEF (More is always better)
• 1,600 ATK
• 170-250 Speed (Again, she needs to be speed-tuned a specific way to your team, and can’t just have a one-size-fits-all speed)
• 100% Crit Rate
• 250%+ Crit Damage

I’ve seen some people put Effect Resistance% on her, but not really any Effectiveness. I do think she needs Effectiveness% to be… well, effective.

Artifacts

There’s a few artifacts that can work on her.

Proof of Valor – [Acquired in Guild Shop] Pretty obvious choice for her. Proof of Valor decreases the damage she takes, which makes it a good choice for her, thanks to the constant counterattacking buff and forcing the enemy to target her. A player can get two maxed out Proofs of Valor from Guild Shop, so one can be on, say, General Purrgis and the other can stay on Aria.

Abyssal Crown – Abyssal Crown actually would have a bunch of really good uses on Aria; her Focus attack charges up pretty quickly, along with her counterattacks ensuring that they at least have a chance to stun her enemy.

Etica’s Scepter – Etica’s Scepter can help to decrease the cooltime of her s3 sometimes. This, of course, is really good, as it ensures that her Stealth and counterattack buff is almost permanently kept up.

Should You Build Her?

I’d say yes! There are many people who will build Aria solely for waifu reasons, but as it stands her skill set is actually pretty usable! Now, of course, she’s no Hwayoung, Conqueror Lilias, or Rimuru, but Aria does have her spot in the meta. I hope this article at least helped you a little bit, in deciding whether or not to build her o how she’s built.

With that said, I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!