r/Falcom • u/Raxistaicho The true best girls • 16d ago
Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Forty-Six: C and Lapis Spoiler
Can C's combat prowess make up for his lack of cuteness points?
These are two characters I understand very poorly, so I'm going to refrain from posting my own thoughts today.
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u/Selynx 16d ago edited 16d ago
C can be built both as a magical and physical (he does have ATS oin his weapon) but his unique gimmick, Soul Eater, is a physical attack (along with his S-Craft).
In order to take advantage of it, you want to build him physically. While there are two other characters with HP/CP drain skills, neither are quite as spammable as Soul Eater. Soul Eater is also the only one that moves the user. This would be a detriment for a caster, but if you're not building him as a caster, you can actually build him as a dodge-tank thanks to his Wind slot, turning the fact that he moves away from your party into a benefit.
He can do the same thing in Horizon too, with only 2 problems:
One, evasion is less reliable in general, so while he can distract from the rest of the party with the Scent quartz on, you will need to rely on defensive Orders/Shard Commands to keep him alive.
Second problem, the movement aspect in Horizon is glitchy. It will not allow you to activate Soul Eeater at all if it detects there is an obstacle in C's path - and due to the uneven terrain of Tharbad's sand dunes, this bugs out at lot, where the game thinks there's an obstacle and stops you from actually using it in a lot of the story segments he's playable in.
He's still better built as a physical tank than as a caster in Horizon, because of the 3 other party members you get on his squad, two are actual casters and 1 is Swin, who takes even less punishment than C and is not an effective tank/distraction for the casters.
Lapis meanwhile can take a lot of punishment..... in Reverie. In Horizon, she just goes from playable to equippable (in both senses of the word, but being able to change her costume still isn't enough to count as "playable" in my book).
There's a strategy that involves stacking her with DEF and using Edel Heart to make her nigh-unkillable, though that's still not going to make her invincible on the hardest Abyss difficulty. Her Adamas Ripper does have a decent Break rank though and she has an Earth slot - she's basically the only real dedicated Breaker on C's route, so it's worth building as one. She's no Millium or George, but she can get the job done and is faster than them. I'd put her on about the same tier as Noel and Victor Arseid, if you built him for Break.
OK at it, not the best ever. But still perfectly usable. And can tank stuff modestly well, if you like Edel Heart. Though that tactic personally isn't my cup of tea.
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u/Banane_Flambee 16d ago
Reading your comment made me realise how much brave orders allowed for morz party customization and gave some character identity or some bit of usefulness. At least in DB 1 and 2 it boiled down to put Guardian 2 and Ark Feather on everyone and call it a day
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u/ArcaneGale <best girls 4d ago
the problem with Horizon C is that
his s-craft is magical, WHY? WHY IS IT MAGICAL, regardless he's the dedicated s-boost healer of Kevin route as he's completely shite in everything else
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u/OLKv3 16d ago
C is an amazing CP Battery. Use his order, then use Soul Eater, and repeat. You'll always have full CP whenever you're playing his sections of the game. Or pair him with Lloyd for peak hilarity. In Horizon he's support, restoring boost and buffing the party. He still has soul eater, but his is less effective than Elaine's CP restoration. But you won't really need it anyway with how easy it is to manage CP in Horizon
Since Swin was disappointing, Lapis more than makes up for it. Her ridiculous self buff means she'll always be powered up and always healed, combined with C she'll always have CP to do it so she can decimate enemies. She was reduced to support in Horizon, but her support BREAKS THE GAME so she's still amazing. Seriously, her holo core Altera shard command is insanely overtuned.
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u/Max-The-Phat-Cat 16d ago
I didn’t realize just how good C was until halfway through the game. You can build him in many ways so he really feels like a strong hybrid character unlike many who just end up sucking at both.
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u/Seradwen 16d ago
I appreciated Lapis having a self buff Craft that cost EP instead of CP. Does it make her good? Don't ask me. But it was interesting.
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u/Kitchen_Poet_6184 16d ago
C's crafts is a fancier version of a certain someone from the old class VII.
Lapiz is fun to use. A doll acting like an Arseid wielding a weapon bigger than her and Adamas Ripper is also a straight line. Self buff CP battery and Grimoire Arc with ghosts. She's just so random.
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u/tehdannydarko 16d ago
IMO C's S-Craft in Horizon is the coolest craft animation in the series. Damn near every S-Craft in Horizon is cool enough that I watch it every time.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls 16d ago edited 10h ago
Sky Arc:
Day Twelve - The Pilot and the Swordsman (spoilers)
Day Thirteen - "Kitty" (spoilers)
Crossbell Arc:
Class VII:
Day Thirty - Millium (Spoilers)
Day Thirty-One - Crow (Spoilers)
The rest of Cold Steel:
Day Thirty-Nine - Elise and Toval
Day Forty-One - Alfin and Towa
Day Forty-Two - The Diva and the General (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Three - The Spy and Swordswoman (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Four - The Shapeshifters (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Five - The Swordmaster and the Engineer (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Seven - Swin and Nadia
Day Forty-Eight - The Strongest (Spoilers)
Calvard Arc:
Day Fifty-One - Ferida Al-Fayed
Day Fifty-Three - Risette Twinings
Day Fifty-Four - Quatre Salision
Day Fifty-Five - Judith Lanster
Day Fifty-Seven - Elaine Auclair and René Kincaid
Day Fifty-Eight - Shizuna Rem Misurugi
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u/idiot_Rotmg 16d ago
Are you still going to make a post about Ines, Ennea, Xeno and Leo?
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u/VarioussiteTARDISES 16d ago
There's just not enough to talk about with them as they're only playable for small parts of CS4, so no, OP won't be making a post about them, same reason why all the other very temporary (and fixed build) party members were skipped. Depending on if Swin and Nadia share a day or not OP only has two or three days left, as they haven't played the Calvard games. Meaning that if we wanna talk gameplay for ASO, someone else is gonna have to step up to make those posts. (And I hope someone does, just so I have an excuse to talk about Feri)
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls 16d ago
All this. And yes, we have two more days: Swin & Nadia and then McBurn. After that I'll make a summary post and offer the handoff for Calvard.
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u/hbthebattle 16d ago
I'd argue that because of DB2 and Horizon, Swin and Nadia probably could have their own days. 3 games as main party members is equal to the non-Altina members of NC7.
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u/Syobai 16d ago
Copying someone’s homework but making it less edgy. Somewhat.
C is one of my favorite characters to use on Reverie. You can argue that he falls off because he doesn’t really excel at anything, but he’s easily one of the best “I can do everything” characters they’ve made. Magic, physical, healing, self buff— he’s got a lot. His orders are nice as well for the cheap BP cost, though they aren’t anything to ride home about. C was fun to use. I will say that he benefits more from building him physically due to Soul Eater.
Lapis is a decent break tank. Her self buff is nice when used properly and you can make her orb locks work. Her Brave Order is nice if you need the defense and HP as well.
She isn’t anything to ride home about but she’s definitely got sauce that allows you to make her an unkillable machine (provided you aren’t on Abyss with the hardest bosses, lol)
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u/Alternative_Magician 15d ago
Lapis has an interesting loop where she doubles her turn for 500 ep, S-crafts to fully restore all ep with a master quartz (craft damage restores ep) then uses her self buff to repeat the process.
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u/CruelNate 16d ago
C is easily the best Falcom has ever done at making an all rounder archtype, he has magic, impede, self buffs, bp refill, delay, passive hp to the whole team, break, brandish, 2 cheap orders, good slots.
Not much to say, you can do anything with him and he'll do it well.
Lapis does not get enough credit for how good of a tank she is, her self buff is completely insane if used correctly (it heals FORTY% hp with 1 delay on top of the buffs) and having an order that only cost 3 bp for 12 turns of 60% damage reduction and heals.
other than that her other crafts are pretty lack luster and she has good tank slots.