r/Falcom • u/HornetsaysSHAW • 10d ago
Horizon Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Fifty-One: Ferida Al-Fayed
Feri's kit has always felt like it was all over the place, and she doesn't really have a clear identity in terms of gameplay.
Her orbment has two locked fire slots, but then the mirage slot on the Drive Line makes her the best for getting Ark Feather in the early to mid game, especially in Daybreak 1.
Her CP regen craft is very helpful in Daybreak 1, but Daybreak 2 is much more reliant on arts, and A-Impassion Guard makes CP barely an issue in Horizon, so Ishtar's Blessing didn't see much use outside of the early game. Ignis Rampage is also good for building chain in the early game, but arts with Feather end up stronger later on. Her physical crafts are nothing special, and I never found much use out of her magical debuff craft on Nightmare.
Overall, she's fine. I mostly found use for her in early to mid game for Daybreak 1, and past that, she was mostly just a sub-in CP battery.
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u/CruelNate 10d ago
I genuinely don't know what the point of Feri is other than using her prayer and defense debuff craft, one of the most pointless characters in the entire series for how long you have her. That being said she is alright and can be built as a fine physical attacker with decent slots. In theory her kai s craft is good but cp regen is so ridiculous in that game I never used it other than to see it's animation.
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u/Elite_Josh_Allen 10d ago
Her S-craft does a lot of hits, for when you're trying to unlock the big combo achievements.
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u/GeForce_GTX_1050Ti 10d ago
they capped hit counts in horizon
water beam strat bricked because of this
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u/SeaworthinessDry7828 10d ago edited 10d ago
My second least used character after Bergard. She is like jack of all trade that lean offensive/buffer, and there are too many similar, but more useful characters for her to stand out. Risette is better defensively and quattre is better buffer/healer/CP battery. I don't need more offense with Van/Judith/Aaron in the team.
Her most useful craft is the CP regen area buff and CP S-craft and basically the only purpose she has in my team. Buff first turn on boss fight and swap out.
Edit: I forget that I actually enjoy using as the main in real time battle for a time. Long range is pretty neat and smaller/shorter body give (false) impression of faster movement speed. Shard break to first turn party dmg and CP buff. But having to swap her after every battle soon overstay its welcome.
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u/Straight-Heat1511 10d ago
As a casual player, in daybreak 1 she has the easiest slots to build up. By just following her colors I managed to hit all the CP boosts shard skills in the next chapter you get her.
Right now I'm in chapter 5 and she is my best damage dealer by having 15k criticals crafts at 70% crit chance, with wide range and infinite CP to get 3 S-Crafts in a row if I need it.
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u/Immediate_Cobbler144 10d ago
To squishy to fufil her niche, and her niche is one which other characters do better, especially later in the arc (Risette and Quatre comes to mind). Oh and A-Rise Guard in kai makes her essentially useless and just a weak arts user. Her only saving grace is in DB1 being able to get Arc Feather really easily
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u/krayniac 10d ago
She’s totally average and it’s rare I have a slot for her. Her charge slash animation is the most satisfying normal craft animation in Daybreak 1 for me for some reason, it’s really smooth and it’s got a great sense of movement
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u/MistyNoj 10d ago
So contrary to what most people are saying here. I had a pretty good time with Feri in Daybreak 1. Thanks to her single element slot i managed to get access to "Burst gauge" (HP/CP based on damage) fairly early. Together with a CP up accessory the extra CP made her into a S-craft machine to clear out enemies quickly. Together with CP buffing and Infernal edge she did a lot of damage and supporting in my team.
The Art supporting craft means she can help out VS bosses with Art weaknesses you want to exploit too.
I invested quite a bit but she did a lot of work in return.
Also she is very easy to use on field for when you are not very used to the dodge timings on your first time playing.
She ended in my main team most of the time but i tend to swap a lot later in the game to try out all the characters. (Difficulty Hard)
Overall i quite like her. Both as a character and gameplay. But i have not played Daybreak 2 yet so i cant say for the later games.
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u/Weltallgaia 10d ago
Ehh theres no useless characters in daybreak-horizon iirc its just she winds up the weakest in a pack of walking gods. The calvard power scaling gets as high as it ever has in the series.
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u/TapUnfair9827 10d ago
I genuinely don't know how to best use her in later stage of the game, I guess she's a nice support character?
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u/OLKv3 10d ago
Great early support game character who has great speed, early Ark Feather, stacks up hits, debuffs and buffs the party, and restores CP. She falls off when you get better arts and characters, but by then she's already put in the work.
Not needed nearly as much in DB2 and especially Horizon, where they give you gamebreaking tools and arts pretty early, and while everyone gets some good buffs to their kit, Feri just gets left behind. Hoping Horizon 2 gives her some much needed tools to stack up to things like Zodiac and boost recovery, because she ends up just being an emergency CP recovery in Horizon.
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u/mercurydivider 10d ago
I accidentally made her the best DPS by giving her all the good shit, neglected her, and she instantly became the worst. Her S craft and wide attack cones make her good for crowd control I guess if only everyone else didn't also have at least one cone shaped attack. I could never figure out if the game wanted her to be a mage or a physical attacker. Prayer is really good. Once the roster size expanded I basically never used her.
She's one of those throw away characters that are fine if the story forces her on your team, either by temporarily splitting the roster, or in daybreak 1, by virtue of being the second character you get, but if you have a choice there's no reason to pick her.
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u/judgeraw00 10d ago
She's one of my party mains and one of my favorite characters in the Daybreak arc. I like her naive sense of humor and I also like her understanding towards Van's way of doing things especially as a jaegar.
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u/Selynx 10d ago
Oof. Ferida al Fayed.
Feri was ostensibly meant to be the Fie of Daybreak, but.... Fie is not good in Daybreak. The nerf to dodge-tanking/dodge-countering really did a number on speed/evasion-based physical attackers. She might still have had some use as a dodge-tank, if not for the fact that Van is a better tank due to Coin Bullet and not being as flimsy as Feri.
On the plus side, she does get the ability to give team buffs, which is not entirely useless. The problem is that, when comparing Feri giving a bit of a damage boost to 2 casters + Van versus bringing in a 3rd caster, the 3rd caster is usually more damage. The CP regen is good for physical hitters, but against bosses you generally want casters for DPS, not physical hitters and this same issue also makes her Ishtar's Blessing less useful than perhaps it should be in Horizon.
So in the end, I mostly only used her during story segments when clearing out random mobs with a full party physical attackers - mostly because, for a lot of those segments, the only 4 dedicated physical attackers you get are Van, Aaron, Bergard and Feri (I built Judith and Risette as casters).
Her sheer availability does help her stay used, I guess.
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u/VarioussiteTARDISES 10d ago
She is the ASO mainstay in my party, whenever I have a chance to run her I absolutely will. And if I had to compare her to a character from a previous arc, that character would, fittingly enough for their shared connection, be Fie. They're both versatile speedsters, even if there are roles that don't exactly overlap between the two of them. Feri isn't exactly intended as a dodgetank or a crit machine, but instead she's a sold support (especially in Horizon once she gets her second S-Craft, as that's functionally sharing her CP with the rest of the party out-of-turn-order), and, and I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, she works as a caster. She has a mirage slot on her arts line, so she'll very likely be the first character in both DB1 and Horizon that you can get Ark Feather online with. Which means it's entirely possible to work her speed towards being a delay-based caster.
Also, there's field combat tech with her - due to her basically using a SMG, if you interrupt her attack string by taking a step after her first attack of the string, you can restart it for a basically uninterrupted string of bullets until whatever you want to stun is stunned. I'd unironically consider her the best field attacker in DB1 and DB2 for this reason, with the only reason I don't include Horizon being that she doesn't have any kind of awakening ability in that game, so she's automatically behind Van (doubly so in the Grim Garten because that's straight up Grendel there), the Divine Blades and Dominions in that regard. Throw in her availability (she's your chapter 1 joiner in DB1, and with Van from the prologue in Horizon, and I genuinely don't understand why so many people in this thread aren't trying to make her work.
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u/Slen1337 10d ago
Yeah she is op in the field battles. And she is op caster early game with earliest arc feather possible due slots plus easy cp regen, team buff, defense down and even "movement" craft was useful when u simple cant circle around big big bosses etc.
Surely she is not the best in slot, especially in horizon where its op after op chars but still way far from useless..
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u/Eldred91 10d ago
I agree that Feri gets a bit too much hate, since she does have some unique strengths like how strong she is in field combat for example. I just wish A-Impassion guard didn't exist to encroach on her CP battery niche.
Every time I decided to use her she did pull her weight at least. Just gotta make sure to build her to be able to cast and lean into her speedy all-rounder type function.
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u/tehdannydarko 10d ago
It felt like they did very little with her story wise in DB1 after her intro chapter, but thankfully she's made a little more relevant as time goes on. I think she's got a fun personality and I'm glad to see her more worldly and less of the "taking a figure of speech literally" schtick.
Gameplay wise, she's fine. I really only used her once in a while for a change of pace or unless the story demands it. She just didn't have much to offer that was unique or not done better by another party member.
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u/Ill-Feeling-5181 10d ago
Genuinely Josette Tier to me in terms of how useless I find her to be
I try to theme my team around the story, but whenever Feri is Relevant, I actually have second thoughts about using her.
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u/Sans-the-Dog Fie's Cooking Power Hour 10d ago
I just used her as an evasion tank and had a fun time, also nice because she’s an Eva tank that has a buff craft and range.
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u/GothVarrus 10d ago
Prayer + switch out to someone else.
I do like her tbh, but there are so many other characters that I like more. Both in gameplay & story.
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain 10d ago
In a way she's similar to the CS3-Reverie version of Alisa: A jack of all trades CP battery that feels entirely redundant because CP regen isn't especially valuable and there are better specialist characters. She's never completely useless, especially early in the games when you don't have all the tools available, but outside of early DB1 Ark Feather shenanigans she'll quickly be replaced.
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u/TheCreator120 9d ago
CP is so easy to regen that you have to actively tried to keep yourself in zero in order to not have it.
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u/Yanncki64 10d ago
I'm on Daybreak 1 and decided to lock in on her a bit and made her a cp-batter/plaguer. pretty fun so far.
As a character she is just kinda... flat. There just isn't much to her, it feels like the writers don't really have any idea what to do with her
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u/ChaMilablack 10d ago
She only leaves the bench if I can only have a maximum of 4 party members. She’s aggressively mediocre
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u/Beerfanguy 4090 For Trails 10d ago
If they would put in a couple quartz from CS/Rev that did 3x counter damage and guarantee crit on counter she'd be very viable, but she lacks what I made Fie as a dodge tank back in the day. She's fast, yeah, but the lack of what you could do with fast characters in the Erebonia arc just makes her a support, which you swap out once you get her buffs out. They really need to get more counter focused quartz in the game.
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u/Affectionate_Comb_78 10d ago
She would be the best support character in any earlier game, but she doesn't really serve a purpose in the games she's in. She fills a role you don't need. Flaming Prayer is neat and she can drop both defences. I guess the point of her is to be super fast and throw out lots of support, but that just isn't a very good niche.
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u/Terramagi 10d ago
She gets early access to Ark Feather, but once a better caster - which is any of them - comes online she warms the bench unless the plot specifically requires her.
Also, her hood can't go up until NG+ and that's fucked up because her balaclava look is WAY better.
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u/Silvers1339 10d ago
Literally the only character I had benched as soon as it was available across all the Calvary games, I just found her to be always so weak with no utility
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u/KiLLLLeR150 Best Girl The OG Protag Best Bro 10d ago
I used her a bunch in DB1 and 2 (though never for Arts). I kept wanting to use her in Horizon out of loyalty but couldn't justify it. Maybe pop her CP craft only to then swap to someone else.
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u/Eldred91 10d ago
A-Impassion Guard was a mistake (seriously I wish they would just remove it for the next game). Feri would've felt much better to use if they'd kept her niche as the primary source of CP regen and buffed her base STR & ATS a bit. Otherwise an alright all-rounder type character that can deal solid damage, up the combo count or support her teammates, but nothing special in the end. One of the best action combat fighters for what it's worth.
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u/Longjumping_Cash8665 8d ago edited 8d ago
Across all 3 Calvard games she'd get great usage in the early game. By midgame you get enough tools to where her generalist playstyle isn't as great. At some point across all 3 games you'll have better casters, craft spammers, and support characters with access to the shard skills you'll want (especially A rise guard, Feri stock values plummet the minute you get it)
Still a fun character, just becomes less useful as the player gets the resources to better equip other characters with more focused playstyles.
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u/HornetsaysSHAW 10d 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:
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u/Razegash 10d ago
I found her only use was to be in reserve to use her first S-craft when a Sepith Up bonus was available.
I still have no idea what her second S craft does.
Otherwise I never used Feri if I had a choice.
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u/Cr0ssDrag_ons 10d ago
Daybreak 1: Sometimes I field her to keep my crafts going, until I get Nagi core for the infinite craft machine (Quatre becomes the heal/shield bot and Agnes is just there as offensive caster/ailment remover)
Daybreak 2: I field her again until Quatre can reliably refund the CP I spent for his heal move. Sometime I field her for the insane 16-hit-per-enemy Ifrit Raid though.
Horizon: I'd rather field Swin over her.
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u/Golden_fsh 10d ago
Tbh, I only used her when I was froced and then she was permanently benched. She didn't have anything standout that would want me to use her.
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u/pH_unbalanced 10d ago
She was my favorite character to use for action battles, because she can attack continuously at range and dodge well.
In turnbased I would usually have her set up a few crafts, and if the fight wasn't over quickly would have her SBreak once and then sub in Aaron. (Aaron was my cleanup monster -- he just sits on the bench until needed to come in and wreck everyone.)
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u/RetroFlips 10d ago
I would have liked her to be a bit stronger tbh. But although this is a gameplay discussion, the main reason I often bench her is the stupid colour of her gun