Character Spot - Ari Ferreux, Angel

This week's character spot is about the GTL patron saint herself, Ari. Let's get down to business about Miss No-Pain-No-Gain.


Ari knows what she's about, and wouldn't dare pretend otherwise, mostly because it wouldn't be a very convincing act. She praises what she likes and denounces what she doesn't, without a care in the world for who she's talking to and how they might feel on the matter. Of course, she doesn't think her opinions hold any more weight than anyone else's, but it hasn't stopped her from getting into more than a few spats online. She does have her fair share of unconventional interests for someone who is in no uncertain terms a jock - she almost always has a comic or game loaded on a personal device for any downtime on the go - but this usually results in her earning the cold shoulder from both communities.

Her athletic friends generally have little common interest since she doesn't even bother keeping up with sports or other athletic current events. For Ari, exercise is simply a thing she knows how to do well, and is something she's constantly trying to improve on; the only time she cares about what other people are doing in the athletic world is when she's looking for a record to break.

It's a similar story with the gaming community as well: she plays too casually and cares too little about any game's underlying story and current events regarding the industry to hold much conversation with her peers. Due to this, Ari is often incredibly quick to latch onto anyone who even vaguely enjoys her company, and this attachment can be very difficult to shake, sometimes regretfully so to the recipient.

In combat, Ari is mostly just as straightforward as her personality would suggest, however she did have to introduce a slight complication to her class. See, she wanted to have high attack stats all around to effectively damage any type of enemy, however she also wanted to avoid being a complete glass cannon, so her defense and stamina allows her to take as much damage as she deals out. Of course, even after sacrificing speed and evasion this still felt entirely too powerful, so her attack and defense stats were scaled back in exchange for her [Form Change] passive ability.

Since [Form Change] is so integeral to Ari's class, [Angel], it's Ari's first affection bonus unlocked instead of the usual set of base stat boosts that the other characters gain at first. This ability increases the ATK and DEF stats related to whatever Act Ari used last, and only one set of stats will be boosted at a time: if she uses a melee-based attack for example, any following melee attacks will gain a significant damage boost, and Ari will take significantly less damage from enemy melee attacks.

This makes Ari a surprisingly technical character to use, especially when tanking, as her unbuffed defenses are largely unimpressive, so it's important to keep an eye out for what enemy will be ready to attack next, and adjust her defense accordingly.

However, this also makes her by far the most versatile DPS character of the entire roster. Her perfectly even spread of ATK stats and built-in damage buffs means she can pick up any class and make its damage viable, or turn already damage-focused classes into true powerhouses.

Don't let her modest stats on paper fool you, this one is guaranteed to be a force to be reckoned with.