Maria/Strategy

(This page is for Maria's strategy guide. For the standard Maria page, click here.)

Overview

Maria is an interesting variant on your typical healing-focused character. She has great AOE burst-healing potential, but she can only utilize it by taking damage from enemies, and she can only heal herself at phase start. Though she has a pretty sizable HP pool, it can still be burned down quickly, especially when there are Aether units on the enemy side of the field.

Fortunately, Maria further penalizes enemies that hit her by inflicting the Branded status on them, increasing the damage they take and causing damage to them over time. At max skill level, she is guaranteed to cause Branded to any enemy that attacks her, and she can also apply Branded over a wide area with her CS. Even if she goes down later in the fight, her Gardener skill's Regeneration buff will remain, keeping her allies in fighting shape although she is no longer there to watch over them.

Highlights

Role: Healer and debuffer

Pros

+ Can heal all adjacent allies for large amounts of HP.

+ Can apply Regeneration to her allies, stacking with her burst healing to recover huge chunks of HP quickly.

+ Applies Branded to enemies that hit her, making them very easy to burst down.

Cons

- Very limited ability to heal herself.

- Needs to take damage from enemies to utilize her full potential.

Team Synergy

Other healers: Since Maria is certain to be taking damage in order to contribute to the team, having another character present who can heal her wounds is much appreciated. You can bring another strong healer like Choji or Ryota, but a character who simply applies Blessing or Regeneration can be sufficient to keep her going as well, such as Tangaroa or Azazel. It can also be useful to have a character who can cure status ailments, such as Taurus Mask or the generic Mage -- Maria's CS causes Branded to herself as well as to her enemies, so a character that can cure Branded off her while leaving it on her enemies is bound to come in useful.

Defense buffers: Units that can mitigate damage for Maria by applying Protection or Evasion can go a long way in keeping her alive and functional. Units such as the generic Valkyrie (who can cast Protection) are perfect for this. On the flip side, units that can reduce the enemy's damage output are similarly helpful, such as Shuichi (who can cause Dazzle).

Zabaniyya: Maria works exceptionally well with Zabaniyya. He can apply Blessing to her to help her recover from enemy attacks, and she returns the favor by Branding enemies so he can trigger his Enforcer passive for massively increased damage.

Star Level Differences

Maria's skills are the same between her 3-Star and 4-Star versions, but her HP is considerably higher as a 4-Star. For some characters, this doesn't really make a big difference, but considering how Maria needs to take damage in order to heal her allies, this can actually seriously impact her performance. A 3-Star Maria is probably not going to be able to survive high-level stages, while a 4-Star Maria might be able to.

Seed Usage

Since Maria's survivability is much more important to her team than how much damage she can do -- especially since her survivability also translates into more application of Branded and thus more damage to the enemy team -- it's best to give Maria HP and Level Seeds. Skill Seeds increase the power and probability of her healing skills, which is naturally going to be useful. ATK Seeds, while a nice bonus for her, are probably better spent on other characters instead.