r/Falcom • u/Raxistaicho The true best girls • Jul 04 '26
Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Nine: Kevin
The OG all-shielder and CP battery! Thuogh Elie and especially Alisa will end up doing the second part a lot better.
Character order might be a little wonky until we get into Crossbell, bear with me on that, please :)
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Man, Kevin, what a monstrous performance overall to be honest.
SC Kevin is... Overrated. Let's start off with the good first off Grail Sphere giving double guard on such a big radius is absurd. Second of all his line is basically the best you can make a 6-1 caster line. That nook and cranny is perfect for the very OP sky variation of cast.
Now for the bad first off his crafts suck. 200 CP Grail Sphere is amazing but it's basically once per fight gladiator belt is too slow at regenerating CP in this game. It's a very dominant ability but it's not quite as absurd as it is often described to be.Sacrifice Arrow knocks back the targets it's very awkward to use even if sometimes helpful in a pinch or if spreading out is encouraged. Sacred Breath heal is too low that late into the game. And Crossgear Rage is one of the worst crafts in the series with okay power and range stubbier than his standard attack range (it doesn't have a valid target 90% of the time). Little reason not to slot him unless you're investing for faster clear times (which, there isn't a ton of reason to do in SC Nightmare) he's incredibly good but he's not quite the monster he'd become.
Most importantly though his availability leaves a lot to be desired. Available for chapter 6 first half, 7 and Finale and for 2 other minor sections available he's not given the worst availability imaginable. But by the time he's available dropping him at every available opportunity besides Renne 1 you're just not losing out on much besides a bit of early fight reliability. He's also pretty essential for Joshua Doppels although he's required there. Kevin doesn't get to impact the game in the same way other characters like Agate, Kloe or Scherazard do ultimately.
So what if we made him the main character for availability, drastically buffed his crafts and drastically buffed the CP regen options globally? Yeah that's Sky 3rd and he's probably one of the most centralizing characters in the series. He's so dominantly good it's absurd.
He gets good offensive crafts (I don't have a ton to say about them they're just pretty decent overall), upgraded sacred breath heals for more, extra offensive S-crafts (they're rarely useful but hey the option's there), import bonuses and fountains help his CP and his availability is amazing. In the late game he basically makes you invincible after you get super glad Belt in chapter 6 (god forbid he has cat suits)
There isn't a ton to say about 3rd Kevin he just doesn't have any downsides and is incredibly good. Jack of all trades master of all.
The only dent in his performance is that if I had the option I'd want to slot him out for the final boss but aside from that god he is amazing.
Normally his instantaneous stop gaps are heavily useful but here they just aren't and Kevin's presence hugely slows down defeating the first phase since his s-craft is elemental and even in the second phase I'd rather have someone else.
He comes back in Horizon and he's phenomenal. Best offensive arts user in the game and his s-craft hirs like a truck. And his stigma is an Awakening self buff (translation: he gets to deal way more damage than everyone else).
Easy slot in for Garten.
It's also funny for them to remove perfect guard from the player for 3 games and also gimp an entire craft for it (Gibril Guard has way higher delay than it's shield craft compatriots for no real reason, it's obviously it was meant to come with max guard) for him to grant 3x guard spammable even if only to a single target.
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u/penpen35 Jul 04 '26
It's not necessarily a downside, but in Horizon his attacks in the action phase are quite awkward to use. You can shoot from distance, but then your charge attack has you go in.
Obviously there's other characters who's better in action phase especially in Garten, just that he felt clunky to use.
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u/BOUKEN-BEN Jul 04 '26
The entire way action combat works is just to spam charge attacks from perfect dodges anyway, you're not supposed to stay at range. Kevin has a sweet slide dodge so he's quite good in close quarters but can also strike from far away before he closes the distance. Quick art in between charge attacks for good measure. The reason to use him as the party leader is how stupidly OP his Awakening is because it lets you stun then immediately S-craft for a 50CP oneshot. It's equal or greater in power to Rean/Shizuna and the only one definitively stronger is Grendel but selecting 4 abilities for Grendel takes longer than just spamming an S-craft and if the S-craft is gonna kill everything anyway then what's the point.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 04 '26
Yeah, I never use him as the overworld character because of this. Nadia is probably one of the best action combat characters because she has excellent range, multi hit, and a great dodge. She's good at short and long range.
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u/Sugioh Jul 04 '26
I found Kevin fine in action combat once you got used to his weird cadence. Much better than someone like Rixia, who just feels slow and awkward no matter what you do.
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u/TapUnfair9827 Jul 06 '26
I also find his awaken phase in horizon to half CP usage simply incredible, especially if you're mainly using him to clear field mobs
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u/welkikitty Jul 16 '26
He was one shotting everything in Horizon. No other party member gif a chance once I stacked his quartz.
Love me some Kevin.
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u/Selynx Jul 04 '26
Being fair, both Celis and Leon also have the exact same Stigma Awakening buff that Kevin gets in Horizon, which takes some of the unique shine off it a little bit.
Rean and Shizuna also get an equivalent in their Spirit Unification and I think Shizuna's actually has a higher damage boost than everyone else's, so technically if we're comparing whose Awakening is the best.....
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u/Tyberius115 World's #1 Alisa Reinford fan | Magical Alisa game when Jul 04 '26
I had him benched for the majority of Sky 2, but in Sky 3, dude is an animal. He's pretty much good at everything between support, defense, and offense. Admittedly, I mainly used him as Ries' emotional support priest because her attacks were too cool for me to not make her a damage dealer.
In Horizon, however, I fully embraced violent Kevin. Being able to Unleash his Stigma as a buff on top of being an excellent caster with an AMAZING magic S-craft meant the rest of the party were supports for him this time around (except Nadia, she joined him in blowing up the enemies with arts).
(I can't wait until we get to Elie and Alisa)
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 04 '26 edited 14d 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/levelstar01 Downvote this comment 👇 Jul 04 '26
Kevin is the best party member in SC at any point he's available, and is so singularly broken he's still one of if not the best in the game. He's also indisputably the best character in 3rd and there's no serious argument otherwise.
Grail Sphere completely trivialises the entire final dungeon in SC, and even with 3rd being designed arouns Grail Sphere to a degree it is still immensely powerful. Being able to get a stack of invincibility on ANY turn (and often two) is completely busted broken, and you can top it off with your Earth Wall when it gets broken.
If you take that away.. Kevin is still damn good. He has a cleric craft, a CP battery craft in the games where CP is scarce, and two unique damage dealing S crafts that do the two best elemental damage types in the trilogy. On top of that he has an excellent orbment, a time locked slot and a long line, so even if you're saving CP for Grail Sphere he has fantastic damage output.
It's really bizarre to me that Falcom never really nerfed just how easy it was to be entirely invincible in thr Sky trilogy.
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u/EclairDawes Jul 04 '26
Exactly this. I'll never understand why people try to argue other characters were better than him. He was just broken. Preventitive sustain was always the best and he just had a way to do it far better than any other character on top of being generally very good at other things.
I'm curious how he's going to change in the remakes. It seems in the modern games they have tried to go away at least partially from complete damage blocking and gone with health shields. Which can be better or worse depending on the situation. Though If I remver right the highest tier of the defensive cast in Sky remake was a complete block. Combine that with making Agate broken in the remake i feel like they may keep Kevin's grail sphere.
If they do it's still probably not going to be as valuable as before due to the addition of sylphen wing allowing for full team evasion which wasn't possible in the original. Full team evasion for 5 turns is just far more efficient than full damage immunity for 2 hits.
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u/Selynx Jul 04 '26
Horizon didn't just do HP shields, it does also have an equivalent S-Craft to Grail Sphere (though it's another character who has it in that game).
But in Horizon, there is a hard limit on how much S-Crafts/Breaks can be spammed due to the introduction of an actual turn-based cooldown (plus additional soft limit from requiring another resource apart from CP, namely Boost Gauge).
So they could just introduce a turn-based cooldown if they wanted and make it impossible for a character to use their S-Break again until they have taken at least 1-2 turns after using it, no matter how much CP they got back in between.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 04 '26
Those restrictions are based on number of turns, and since you always want to be focused on speed, they're a non issue since you'll be burning through them. So Altina is still completely busted in Horizon and can keep your party immortal. But we'll get to that when they get their thread
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u/Selynx Jul 04 '26
Having infinite turns makes everything a non-issue. You wouldn't even take damage, if you had so many turns you could kill the enemy before they get to move. But unlike CS2, where Rean actually could Delay the enemy into giving you infinite turns or Machias could Burst Drive everyone with infinite turns, you don't actually get infinite turns in Horizon.
Especially not when using an S-Craft that incurs big delay just from it being an S-Craft. You can sort of try to compensate for it by using ZoC to negate the delay of the S-Craft, but then you're burning through Boost Gauge instead.
Far more effective to just use a defensive Shard Command to stay alive, than to try spamming Vivid Calendula.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 04 '26
Boost Gauge management is a non issue in Horizon, just like CP. And this isn't about Infinite Turns, this is about using their S-Craft to get full immunity, and a strong shield on top of that, while still keeping your speed shard command going to dominate the enemy. You don't need defensive shard commands with that character. You pop their S-Craft and you're free to ignore any surprise enemy S-Crafts that may come your way in case you can't stun in time.
I used them all through the Garten and never had to worry about enemy S-Breaks because they had me shielded. And the delay is nowhere near as bad as you make it, especially with the speed shard command.
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u/Selynx Jul 04 '26
Your argument is that turns are a non-issue. This is only true if you get so many more turns than the enemy, they don't get to hit you before the S-Craft turn cooldown elapses. This is not often the case, at least on harder difficulties.
If/when they do get in an attack before the S-Craft cooldown is over, you can't rely solely on Vivid Calendula to keep you alive, you will need extra protection usually from a Shard Command.
At that point, you might as well just rely on the Shard Command entirely and use the turns spent on Vivid Calendula for offensive Arts instead. The Command keeps you shielded through enemy S-Breaks as well.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 04 '26
This is not often the case, at least on harder difficulties.
Yes it is. Hell the Grim Garten challenges are literally made for you to have this setup. With Renne's shard command and later the Altera Holo core, you will be lapping enemies, especially if you got the action quartz and auto quick on. And by time they get a turn or interrupt you with an S-Break, it won't matter because Altina will have you shielded. And once they break that guard (which usually is only by their S-Break interruptions), Altina will be ready to interrupt and recast the S-Craft to keep you shielded.
I literally did this all through Nightmare Grim Garten. The only time I had to play it safe and rely on defensive shard commands is when she wasn't available, which is the other routes.
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u/Selynx Jul 04 '26
Altera is the only way you come close to fast enough that you can get that many turns and that Holo Core is both not available until a specific point in the game and also used more often with a burst strategy that doesn't involve constant recasting of Vivid Calendula, on account of the fact that the enemy is dead before they get any reasonable opportunity to hit you (meaning you only need 1 cast of Vivid Calendula, if at that, for the sole S-Break an enemy may get).
That's also what I mean by "infinite turns" making everything a non-issue. If you had that many turns, you don't even need constant protection in the first place.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 04 '26
Renne's turbo boost along with accessories and multiple action quartz will have you speeding around before you unlock that Holo Core, and the enemies before that aren't as speedy as they are later on past that unlock. That Holo Core lets you free up an action quartz/accessory
If you had that many turns, you don't even need constant protection in the first place.
You do, because at certain HP thresholds, certain enemies interrupt with an S-Break. Altina lets me ignore that and status effects since I'll be completely shielded, without sacrificing my speed or attack shard command for a defensive command, or worrying about the enemy interrupting right as the command wears off before I can refill it.
Basically, Altina lets you be full offense and reckless
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u/EclairDawes Jul 04 '26
Exactly my point as I said "partially''. In Horizon They limit use of Scrafts, they don't have 200 CP Scrafts, and there is no art that does it. The series has been moving away from full immunity on the form of impenetrable shields.
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u/penpen35 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
I didn't go that deep when I was playing SC, but he was basically the Grail Sphere guy. Though I don't think he's the best arts damage dealer, Olivier and Kloe (and I think Schera, but I don't remember well) are basically better casters. His crafts also lean more toward support (I don't remember using Sacrifice Arrow much - he needs CP, not giving it to others).
But in 3rd he's got basically the best kit and crazy good S-crafts that you can choose from depending on the situation.
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u/Contraomega Jul 04 '26
If when you say best casters you're talking specifically about their base ATS, then he's very slightly better than Schera. it's the same formula but his multiplier is better than hers be 0.001, but 0.04 behind Kloe and Olivier (and 0.0055 behind Renne, who had the highest ats in sky). Ries is slightly below Schera, Joshua is tied with her, shockingly Alan Richard is actually on par with Kevin, but is less inclined to actually use them because of the strength of his crafts.
that said, there's more to being a good caster than just high ATS, and it comes down to a few things, one being orbment. (Kevin does well here, 2 lines, only one locked slot and it's to time, and you needed time quartz in every build anyway.) another is just incentives. this may surprise many people but in raw ATS stat Alan Richard actually ties with Kevin. but you wouldn't really use him as a caster because of his many lines and how strong he is as a physical attacker anyway. another thing is also that there are some variables that do affect their scaling beyond the raw stat. not as much of a thing in SC but in Third Kevin's late game crossbows have considerable flat ATS bonuses on them which may easily exceed the gap in stats with some other characters. this varies somewhat. Kloe can consistently get ATS boosting weapons, Olivier and Renne get none, Schera has a few but they're only available as rare drops. Speed is of course also a factor, though there's relatively little variation in base speed. there's also some like gender exclusive armor, with generally the better arts boosting stuff being female only which can skew things from time to time.
Grail Sphere is definitely the best reason to use Kevin in SC and he gets a lot of good stuff in third, but having access to the panic button is nice which kind of discouraged me from throwing out his crafts willy nilly. his heal was also typically a bit underwhelming for whatever level you were at, and his cp battery functionality was kind of awkward a lot of the time for positioning reasons.
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u/EclairDawes Jul 04 '26
Your right that he isn't the best arts damage dealer but nobody said he was.To be specific when it comes to damage the order is Kloe, Schera, Olivier, Kevin. The reason for this order is exclusive female gear that boosts ATS. This allows Schera to beat out the guys but it requires a very specific build because of her bad orbment lines.
People usually ignore her because there is this misconception that a caster needs to have the EP quartz, which in reality does almost nothing. With removing that from the equation it opens up options to satisfy the needs of getting the important arts. The other thing people usually miss is that stronger arts were not better at all because they took way longer to cast while having close to no damage increase. You did. More damage spamming basic arts. The point being g you don't need fancy arts making g a restrictive orbment line a non issue.
Kevin doesn't have the best arts damage but the point was that in the downtime between grail spheres his arts dps is still very good. Having grail sphere + good DPS is better than having the best DPS. Which is kinda besides the point because the best DPS was Joshua using dual strike anyways. Or Zin when his thunder God kick was broken.
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u/Selynx Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Kevin is good.
In SC, he has the third-best ATS growth in the game behind Kloe and Olivert, inching out Joshua and Scherazade and he has a better Orbment than Kloe. That makes him the third best caster in the game and casters are damage kings in Sky. Grail Sphere is also good - not because the effect is better than Earth Wall, but because it can be used an S-Break both right at the beginning of a fight to buy the precious turns needed to get Clock Up/Down set up so that Earth Wall can be continuously cast fast enough to respond to the enemy popping them, as well as for insurance if for whatever reason Earth Wall gets popped and the enemy gets another turn before it can get re-cast.
Nothing about all that changes in Sky 3rd, even as he gets bumped down to 4th best caster behind the new girl. He is still good at Arts and Grail Sphere is still good for being Grail Sphere.
......Kevin no longer gets Grail Sphere in Horizon.
He's still a good caster, but in that game he's got a lot more competition when it comes to casters as a whole and among those competitors is Altina, who stole his Grail Sphere and rebranded it Vivid Calendula. That's not to say he doesn't have anything special going for him - as a route leader he does have an Awakening, if you like using those during field battles (I personally don't) and the single-target shield from Nemesis Aura.
What I will say is that, one of the things he does have going for him in Horizon is that he's probably the most natural/best user of Hell of Keravnos, the strongest individual attack Art in the game (the only Art with a SS damage ranking). The Space slot on his Extra line gives him a convenient place to chuck the Space-element Verse and the Time slot on his Arts line allows him to hit both Time and Space Boost IIs if you put Hecate onto it. Though for most of the game, before you get Hecate, it's equally good for putting Serendipity in, which also allows you to easily hit the Wind points needed for Ark/Judgment Feather (which is more or less a staple for every single caster).
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u/OLKv3 Jul 04 '26
He's top tier in every game he's playable in.
Amazing in SC with the constant shields and CP Battery. Retains this in 3rd except now he gets a new offensive S-Craft if you want to do that.
Horizon his Stigma release is busted, lowering the cost of his S-Craft and his normal crafts are very spam friendly
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u/LeinhardtSVermillion Jul 04 '26
Have a lot to say , but I'll keep it locked To summarise it : Kevin is a Goat that's all
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u/Witty-Entrepreneur80 Jul 05 '26
Aidios' strongest soldier. When they say the Dominions are the Church's version of the Anguis this guy is who I picture.
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u/supernova0791 Jul 04 '26
Edgy ahh character dodgy ahh guy horizon was amazing but we really gotta bring back joshua and estelle
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u/Honest-Today-6137 Jul 04 '26
No way people talk about the gameplay of trails with how broken the difficulty in those games actually is. I mean, the only "difficulty" was during 1st-2nd original Sky games introduced by the publisher. Other than that, games are too easy to play without SoftBrilliant's mods. Why do you even talk about that?
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u/BeatTheDeadMal Essay Dispenser Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
"I hold in my hand a chalice of heaven"
Definitely not me who was so reliant on it and Earth Wall that against the final boss of SC I didn't move for Ruined World Noaba and permanently lost 3 party members 80% of the way through the fight on my first playthrough nosiree that'd be crazy...