Melissa Review [Post Buff] – The Vampire Mage

Introduction –

A Vampire who dreams of revenge after losing everything. Originally, the eldest daughter of a noble family, she fell in love with a vampire she met at a ball and soon became a vampire herself. After a long separation following an ambush, she was enraged to discover her love and had betrayed her. Though he had since died, that won’t stop her from exacting her revenge on his son.

Class – Mage

Element – Fire

Awakened Stats:

Pros – Incredibly high attack stats, Ignores element on her skill 3, Reset cooldown on skill 2 when killing an enemy, strips buffs, take’s extra turns, and has immortality. Being a mage… (Lol)

Cons – Very squishy… this is standard for most mages. 

Skills:

1. 75% chance to inflict unhealable.
2. Grants immortality to the caster, resets cooldown on kill.
3. Ignores elemental disadvantage, dispels all buffs from a single target,
     if this skill crits, the caster gets an extra turn.

Analysis:

Melissa is a high damage mage who has a lot of utility for herself. She can strip all buffs from a single target and she performs well in the face of ice units because her skill 3 ignores elemental disadvantage. 

This effect is very different from Luna, who always hits elemental advantage. Meaning, Melissa does not get bonus critical rate, but will never miss on ice units when using her skill 3. So excluding debuffs, Melissa can utilize her extra turn as long as she has 100% critical rate. 

Additionally, Melissa grants herself immortality on her skill 2, which resets if she kills someone with it, and will always have an opportunity to use it because she takes an extra turn from criting with her skill 3 (assuming no counter or triggered abilities kill her prior to using it or she’s not afflicted with a debilitating debuff i.e. stun, sleep, silence, or unbuffable). 

This setup, coupled with Melissa’s staggering 1412 base attack allows her to absolutely decimate the opposition. The fact that she’s a mage also means she has access to the most powerful artifacts in the game. 

Lastly, Melissa introduces a new debuff to the game called “Curse”. A cursed target will take a portion of the damage received by other heroes, making it a reverse “Aurius” so to speak. You can indirectly overload an opponent with damage and pop multiple units at the same time. 

This debuff allows Melissa to act as both a primary damage dealer, or a high utility mage by stripping a single target and marking them for death with curse. 

So without further ado, let’s look at some of Melissa’s options.

Recommended builds:

Utility build: Speed set + Immunity set

As with many characters this is going to be a powerful combination in PvP. Melissa absolutely must have 100% crit chance, as this is the key to her primary mechanic. So whatever means you can use to reach this is acceptable. Use a critical chance main stat necklace if needed. 

The ring main stat will be Attack to facilitate her high base attack and the boots are flexible depending on what you want Melissa to do. If you want to be faster, giving her better uptime on her skill 2 and ensuring you get your turn soon enough to strip, then opt for speed boots. 

However, if you have a team who can help her get her turn, then do attack as the main stat on the boots as well. This will improve Melissa’s ability to both strip her target and take them out.

Any extra effectiveness is welcome.

Full damage build:  Attack/Destruction + Crit/Hit

These setups for Melissa really harness her ability to dish out large amounts of damage. As with her primary build, You’ll want to make sure you have 100% crit with Melissa. Both the destruction and attack variants work fine because of her high base attack.

With a bit of support, Melissa can outright KO two high priority targets. Challenger Dominiel and Tywin pair very nicely with Melissa if you wish to focus on her offensive capability and just double tap one or two targets. 

Crit buffers will enable her to reach 100% critical rate without much investment, so these builds should focus on Crit damage as the main stat for Neck, with Attack main stat for both the ring and the boots. 

Recommended Artifacts:

Kal’ Adra:

This artifact really turns up the heat for Melissa, especially if she has other debuffers who go before her, but doing an additional 30% damage to a debuffed target almost ensures she will successfully double tap a cursed target, or erase two targets who already have debuffs. 

Time Matter:

This artifact is a mix of utility and damage, which makes it a good middle ground option for Melissa. If you successfully kill an opponent, you’ll reduce one of her skills cooldowns, giving her less down time between skills.

Alternatively, You can use Etica’s Scepter, which doesn’t have the requirement of securing kills, but also doesn’t provide bonus damage. Etica’s will take effect as soon as Melissa takes her extra turn from her Skill 3, which will then reduce her skill 3 by another turn. 

Both of these options are better in Arena than they are in GW, as less downtime for Melissa is important for her to do her job if other heroes remain on the field after her assault. But It’s worth noting that these are both particularly helpful for dealing with soulweavers who have heavy self sustain like Angelica, or Shooting Star Achates. 

Tahagel’s book:

Due to the grossly overpowered state of this artifact, It’s a great catch all option if you don’t know what to put on Melissa. Need a burn for Tywin? Melissa can help him, help her. Aux lots, C.Dom or Basar getting banned in RTA? You could sneak it in on her.  You just can’t go wrong having 20 souls available for your team, even if it’s not the most optimal thing Melissa can hold. 

For PvE content:

Melissa doesn’t excel at PvE content since bosses can’t be cursed, but she doesn’t fail completely either. Since she just hits really hard, she’s perfectly suited for just dishing out a lot of damage and maybe stripping a few buffs if they happen to come up.

I wouldn’t recommend her for farming, but I do think she does just fine in Hunt Azimanak 11 and Golem 11. 

For Pvp Content:

This is where Melissa really shines, and especially in guild war. Since the restrictive nature of guild war only allows teams to be 3v3, this means Melissa can easily cripple defense teams in guild war. Deleting two of three available characters means almost assured victory. 

As previously mentioned, since Melissa is by default, the strongest “Double-tapping” unit in the game, she can be effectively used as a counter pick for the ever present Arbiter Vildred. Move over Lilibet, because you don’t need extinction if you just take another turn! 

Now of course, she’s susceptible to evasion setups, so carefully consider teams who provide evasion or have the ability to dodge. A missed critical on Melissa’s skill 3 could spell sudden death for her, as she won’t have a chance to put her immortality up without her extra turn. 

In the Arena, Melissa works just fine on offense, however, just keep in mind that oftentimes having one extra character can throw a wrench in her plans. Elbris-Knights, Sellona, and Revivers can make her job more taxing, but artifacts like Time matter will go further in Arena than GW. 

Alternatives:

Baiken

Baiken is a Guilty Gear collab unit who was released in May 2019. She too takes an extra turn when she crits, but instead on her skill 2. Baiken has great double tap potential and instead of stripping buffs, she provides bleed detonation and combat readiness push of 25% for her whole team. 

As a thief, Baiken has access to powerful artifacts like “Rhianna and Luciella” which allow her to consecutively take multiple turns at a 20% activation chance. She doesn’t have the explosive power that Melissa offers due to having 1400+ base attack, but brings other valuable utility if you’re looking for an earth element “double tap” unit. 

Karin

Karin is the water version of Baiken, but instead of bleed and combat readiness push, she breaks defense on her skill 2. This alone allows her to effectively delete one unit from the field however, Karin offers nothing else for her party.

Due to her rarity, she’s much more accessible than Melissa, and not she’s not time-limited like Baiken, but if you’re looking for a budget “double tap” unit, Karin can fill this role. 

Should you pull for this character?

First and foremost, if you like this character’s design, she’s waifu, or you have some other personal reason for pulling, you should just pull. Having fun is important!

But with that said, Melissa is an extremely potent mage who excels at GW above all else. If you are looking to improve your ability to siege defenses and increase your win rate, I strongly recommend this character. Her flexibility for strip, debuff, and damage dealing makes her an incredible asset to have in your roster!

Meta considerations and conclusions:

While I personally pulled Melissa just for her design, I immediately realized how quick people were overlooking her power. At a first glance, Melissa is very simple… use skill 3, hit anyone you want, then hit them again if they survived, and hit someone else if they didn’t. 

But as previously mentioned, in guild war this is incredibly powerful. Granted, you could use just about any character who cleaves, pair them with a defense break and attack buff, and you’ll get a similar result as Melissa, but the precision she’ll offer you is so much more valuable. 

Her “double tap” is the strongest in the game and since she’s using two single target attacks, she can avoid abilities that other cleavers can’t. For example, Melissa doesn’t have to swing at ML Ken until she uses her skill 2, she can easily delete Sellona with her skill 3, who is another ever-present threat in all forms of PvP, and gets around damage mitigation like Elena, who punishes AoE cleavers with AoE healing and reduced AoE damage. 

I do not think and I am not suggesting that Melissa is a meta-defining unit, but from much experience with using this character myself, I see she is an effective counter pick to the meta. Players who are seeking a character who can deal with multiple scenarios will want Melissa.

At the time of writing, Smilegate recently buffed Melissa where she previously didn’t have a reset on her skill 2 and no strip on her skill 3, but they STILL thought this character was too weak. However, I will not complain that Melissa’s quality of life has been improved. These changes just ensure she can run her game plan virtually unimpeded.