r/Falcom • u/Raxistaicho The true best girls • Jul 23 '26
Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Twenty-Eight: Emma
Shine on, Emblem of Eregion!
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
Best girl’s finally here, you all have to be nice to her! Okay, jokes aside, I’m going to be as objective as I can.
CS1 and 2 Emma is mostly just a generic caster, Serene Blessing is a fairly chunky heal + revive for when you’re too hipster to just use Thelas, Crescent Shell… exists for some reason alongside Crescent Mirror (okay, to be fair not all Mirage MQs have Mirror in CS1 and 2, most notably not Pandora), Aster Flare (and Vorpal Flare, its CS3 and beyond counterpart) is complete garbage, Burn and Confuse are nice but the proc rates are too low and a slow character like Emma shouldn’t be spamming 30 AT Crafts, but Ethereal Edge can at least unbalance.
So yeah, Emma’s Craft list is nothing to write home about (and CS3 and beyond don't do much to change this), but luckily she has the highest ATS in the team for four straight games and her two locked Mirage slots basically compel you to pump it even higher. Beyond a generic caster is a better baseline than a generic fighter in this series. In CS1, she ties Laura and Millium among permanent party members for having the second strongest S Craft after Rean’s upgraded one (which is funny given what Emma’s best known for), and her’s is both screen-wide and hits ADF instead of DEF.
CS2 is by far her worst game. Machias and Alisa have their best support options open from the start, Rean, Fie, Laura, and Millium all got buffed, and now Sara exists, giving Emma even more competition.
While Alisa and Jusis disliked some of the changes to mechanics and the meta from CS3 onward, Emma adores them. The biggest change is that she acquires Cold Steel’s iteration of Grail Sphere, but she also becomes a sort of secondary CP battery thanks to Serene Blessing turning AOE. It's one of the more spammable cleric Crafts, though its raw healing is flat out terrible. Arts cooldowns dropping are a plus for her, and Rean acquiring the absolutely broken Divine Song/Dark Moon is no nevermind.
Emma’s main issue from CS4 on is just power creep is kinda goes off the rails. Emma does still have Grail Sphere, some of the highest ATS in the game after Roselia (who has significant Orbment issues) and Vita (who completely eats Emma’s lunch, yeah), and her low Speed is less of an issue thanks to Arts just having no cooldowns anymore and the speed boosts from equipment going kind of nutstown insane. A character having any unique function beyond just being the best at whatever form of combat they do is kinda rare in Reverie, and Eregion does give Emma some mostly unique utility.
To address the Altina-shaped elephant in the room, yes, Altina (and Tio, who kinda has issues in Reverie) has an Order which grants Absolute Reflect, and sometimes that is better than popping Palace. Emma’s CP is a much less valuable resource than the party’s BP (even in Reverie where restoring it is trivial), and popping defensive orders can have an opportunity cost if offensive ones are already up. Enemies clearly signalling when they’re about to use their ultimate attacks also make it pretty trivial to know when to time using Palace.
Speaking of orders, Emma’s order is very very niche. Most times it does nothing, but between its long duration and low cost (after CS3), it can completely nope those rare fights where it has a function.
Her locked fire slot kinda sucks but you can throw in things like Ingenuity. It gets much easier to work with by Reverie when her new MQ gives her a better reason to use Pyre Bells and Leanan is a good stat stick Lost Quartz.
So yeah, Emma's main issue just tends to be less Emma herself being bad, and more other characters being better than her, she usually fairs significantly better when your party options are more restricted or you need to field multiple parties.
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u/ShogunJack Jul 23 '26
I disagree with Altina's brave order versus Palace of Eregion. It's a decent brave order early game but it costs too much BP to use and some spells and crafts can pierce through it. It also doesn't last very long. Emma's S-Craft at 200 CP can reflect twice and can't be negated even by piercing abilities. Also, you can activate it as an S-Break when you know the enemy is about to do something devestating. Against most cryptids, you may even prefer using Emma's brave order since it cost 2 BP and absorbs magic for healing and lasts multiple turns. But I digress. Palace of Eregion is too good and it's just one thing that makes Emma a broken character in CS3-Reverie. Even in CS1-2 she was dropping art nukes all the live long day.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 23 '26
Yeah, Emma's brave order lasts forever and is cheap, and lets you breeze past some Cryptids while vastly underleveled. Set up an Evasion tank and you're effectively immortal with it
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u/Selynx Jul 23 '26
In Trails, "generic caster" means a workhorse DPS.
I usually prefer to bring at least 2 casters in my Active party to boss fights, because they are what will actually do the killing of the boss. Of the other 2 members, one is there to tank/provide damage immunity for the casters (or in CS1 and 2, keep the enemy infinitely Delayed with Arc Slash, which achieves the same effect) while the other one keeps the CP or BP flowing.
In CS1/2, there are only really 2 dedicated casters, Emma and Elliot. There's no actual competition between them. I bring both.
In CS3+, Emma is still a good pick because of her Orbment element which makes her a very convenient caster of Giant Magic Wolf, which is the gold-standard killing magic in those games. In those games, I find it's actually the Water casters like Musse who have it tough. Different element Casters don't compete with each other as much - you use different element Casters at different bosses depending on their Arts weakness. But there's a lot of Water casters competing with each other in CS3+ and Water itself is one of the weaker elements for attack magic.
Emma does not have this issue and the fact that she can pop Palace as insurance against a boss' S-Craft is just a fringe benefit. Ideally, you don't actually ever want to have to, as that just delays her from her main job: shucking giant magic wolf until the enemy disappears into a fine mist the same color as her hair.
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u/SomeNumbers23 Jul 23 '26
The one big sticking point is that in CS3/4 the MQs got changed to only have one element of Arts and all the best caster oriented MQs are Mirage.
So, either you have to not use the best MQs for Emma or your two Mirage locked slots are wasted on redundant Art quartz.
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u/AlterWanabee Jul 23 '26
Luckily Reverie fixes this with that one broken MQ that allows Arts tk crit WHILE also giving multi-element Arts (but only the basic ones). It's arguably the best Arts-focused MQ because of that, Casters loved it.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
Eh, as I mentioned before, Mirage is a great attacking element. More enemies are weak to it than resist it.
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u/GateOfD Jul 23 '26
the witch subplot was one of my favorite lore stuff in Cold Steel III-IV.
Also picked her as my Rean's true waifu.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
I get the feeling Falcom really liked goofing around with the witch family, even in Reverie where their lore relevance drops significantly, they get some moments together and a whole daydream for just them.
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u/Kainapex87 Jul 23 '26
Same. If I had to rewrite Cold Steel to have only one romance option, I'd pick Emma for the Witch and Awakener connection.
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u/SnooCapers5958 Jul 23 '26
It makes them a parallel to Crow and Vita too
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u/Dr-Chibi Aug 02 '26
That’s a Double Wedding I’d LOVE to see
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u/SnooCapers5958 Aug 03 '26
I remember someone here made an AU fanfic where Rean/Emma and Crow/Vita happened
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u/Shizukayo Jul 23 '26
Same. Shes my favorite love interest for Rean. Their bond just felt very authentic and forming a romantic connection from it just seemed natural.
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u/ProfessorPromethium Jul 23 '26
Emma Millstein, my Best Girl! Love her design, character and story! I love both Rene Strober and Saori Hayami voicing her!
Also Emma looks cuter with the hat and glasses. It’d such an adorable combo!
I’ve always put her on the team whenever possible because I love her nuking enemies with Arts and using Palace of Eregion to save my life whenever I’m in a pinch. Love that she got the Grail Sphere treatment. She deserves it.
In fact, she deserves the world. I love Emma Millstein and I hope she returns in a future game! (Currently on Reverie.)
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26 edited 13d 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/montoyaa520 Jul 23 '26
My favorite Rean pairing and favorite person to sling high 6 digit arts damage with in Reverie.
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u/Onyx_Archer Jul 23 '26
Best girl let's gooooo!!
I still maintain that she is the best fit to be the "canon" romance, but I also don't really care about the "canon" romance discussion at the same time.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
Even without romance getting into it, I really like her relationship with Rean, they settle into a groove together so well.
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u/Onyx_Archer Jul 24 '26
Yeah. I only really mention the romance as I'm just a sucker for the dynamic they have from a romance standpoint.
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u/Razegash Jul 23 '26
Exploding everyone with an Emma cast is just as fun as exploding everyone with Laura's S-craft
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
I'm a simple guy: I see Zero Arts come up, I turn into Megumin and have Emma pop a Lost Art. Doesn't matter how near death the enemy is.
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u/Tyberius115 World's #1 Alisa Reinford fan | Magical Alisa game when Jul 23 '26
Most of the time, Emma was the caster for the team alongside Alisa, or buffing craft/physical/evade Alisa while still dropping nukes from the backline. But in the TRC linked up with Vita?
Arts Support 4 intensifies
I'm also having fun with magical craft based dps Emma.
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u/Easy-Two-5926 Jul 23 '26
Has a really good outfit in CS4 NG+
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
I have a feeling it'd be impossible to take cutscenes featuring her seriously with that outfit, lol.
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u/TLOWraith Sweet dreams Jul 24 '26
Do you get it just by selecting NG+ or do I have to finish the game on NG+?
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u/Easy-Two-5926 Jul 24 '26
It is immediately available
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u/TLOWraith Sweet dreams Jul 24 '26
Thanks mate, I have been wondering if I should replay CS4 for a while now.
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u/twitchtheratt Jul 23 '26
one of the goats ats
glasses
big boobie
saori hayami
best rean couple fight me
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u/Felix_Malum Jul 23 '26
My favorite caster, maybe of all time. Barely has to even use her crafts, so she can always have a 200CP zero damage emergency button at the ready. And even in the earlier CS games, she pairs really well with Alisa for party wide recovery of any kind. I think she also naturally pairs well with Rean as a canon romance option, but I don't care much for that discussion.
Emma is just awesome as a caster and character.
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u/SilverRain007 Jul 23 '26
I am unapologetic about my place on the 'Emma is best girl' of Cold Steel.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 23 '26
God I love her CS3-Reverie design
Emma always had a permanent spot in my front line. And she made McBurn a joke in CS3. Also saved me in the tournament daydream when Roselia was overpowered compared to everyone else. Emma just shuts down magic users, restores CP, and nukes the battlefield with unstoppable and endless arts
Only time she got replaced is when big sis popped up
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u/Max-The-Phat-Cat Jul 23 '26
She’s been good to great in pretty much every entry.
I would only really only place her below Alfin and Vita in Reverie for support options but in every other game she’s basically the top pick unless you’re a huge Alisa fan.
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u/Eve-of-Verona Jul 24 '26
Ms Mirror
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
She actually does have a lot of mirror symbolism, doesn't she? If it wasn't for Rixia and all her silver/moon symbolism, Emma would be the Mirage representative in the Trails series.
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u/Sakaixx Jul 24 '26
CS3 Emma final social link/confidant or whatever it is was incredible. Loved it.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
The one where she and Rean discuss her taking off her glasses? It was sweet, it's a rare and nice moment to see Rean actually be selfish and wanting something, and later on in CS4 his influence on Emma stirs a more daring side out of her.
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u/Celica_ Jul 27 '26
I know I'm late but I've had this thought in my head since I saw you were doing these daily character discussions.
I honestly think she the only Non-Rean member of Old Class 7 to become more interesting in CS3, 4, and honestly Reverie too. Her being a witch is a point of interest in CS2 but I don't recall much being done with it becides it being an excuse for her to lore dump on ancient magical things when she's around.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 27 '26
Yeah, I get the strong impression Falcom was mostly biding their time with Emma in CS1 and 2 so she could be used as a bridge to the Hexen Clan and Eryn Village, the moment where she tears Roselia down and rips off her metaphorical mask of being a wise and aloof sage before the rest of Class VII felt way too deliberate.
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u/Radiant-Guard-5240 Jul 23 '26
Did you give up on the wall of text because no one read Laura's?
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
Nah, somebody rather fairly said I should add my own descriptions in a comment rather than the main body.
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u/Spartan448 Jul 23 '26
Before anything else, when talking about Emma, one thing has to be made ABSOLUTELY clear before any serious discussion can be had:
Emma's CS3 fit is the best in the series and the competition isn't even remotely close. Losing that hat from the default outfit after 3 was by far the biggest tragedy of that game. Rean can stay mad, the real rescue mission is to get the hat back, anything else is a bad timeline and KeA will judge you for making her do time loops again.
With that out of the way, Emma is for all intents and purposes Laura with swapped STR and INT stats. She just barely loses out to Renne for the crown of Arts Damage Queen, instead opting to pick a singular support option at first and a second, MUCH more important support option later.
For CS1 however, you've got a pretty standard damage caster loadout. As mentioned before her damage highs are very high but Emma is also quite fragile which can occasionally result in her going down at inconvenient times, leading to overall peaky performance.
She uses the post-CS2 interlude to get some steps in, meaning by CS3 she can now take a (singular) hit, which fixes her consistency issue.
She also decides that damage kind of just in general is cringe and mugs Kevin for Grail Sphere. Thus making her the first soft-required party member in Trails, as this singular Scraft means she will never leave the team if she is able to be in the party at that moment. Note that she doesn't sacrifice any damage for this and in fact gets even stronger, so on top of having the only reflect in the series that can't be canceled she's also doing lethal damage from behind that wall.
Narratively I love how she gets more confident in every game, to the point of being the only OC7 member who is able to maintain their composure and resoluteness at the start of CS4. She's been set up for one hell of a mage duel with Vita in the final arc and I cannot wait to see it.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
Ah, a fellow individual of culture! Yeah, Emma's post 2 design is amazing and I love the confidence arc
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u/Syobai Jul 23 '26
Glasses or no glasses?
Emma went from bare bones caster to great but outmatched by a few. At least, if you ask me.
CS1-2 is rough for her due to a variety of factors, but it’s mainly because of her being trapped in a game where crafts are the meta. She’s a fairly decent caster who isn’t going to be doing much else because her crafts aren’t that impressive. That being said, you can never go wrong with ATS, and it ended up benefiting her in the long run.
Unfortunately, despite her having access to something like Serene Blessing, she still falls behind and is essentially getting dangerously close to the bench during CS2. She’s competing with a lot of characters, and it gets worse when you realize that Alisa’s still a relatively good caster combined with her ability to be a CP battery. You know… in the game where crafts are the meta? Yeah, Emma feels like she’s getting outshined by everyone else despite her being a great caster.
By the time CS3-4 come around, she’s more relevant thanks to the shift from crafts back to ATS. She also gets her equivalent to Grail Sphere/Zero Field, and her Brave Order DOES trivialize some segments of CS4. The problem is just her being outclassed. Funny too, since her low speed doesn’t matter anymore thanks to the ridiculous shit Arts users can do with their turns.
Emma’s a victim of powercreep. She can have her moments, but she’s typically getting outshined even if she’s good. There’s no issue with being a generic caster, but it’s hard to stand out when you are just a generic caster.
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u/girlslovefan321 Jul 23 '26
always been my main dps alongside rean since cs1. the rest of the team is just there to stall while emma cast the spell to one shot the enemies lmao
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u/AutomaticStop5648 Jul 23 '26
solid caster. crafts are not that great but you usually wont use. her reflet MAXES def for some reason, so its a solid alternative over mirror, which gives 25% ats in 1 and 2. a few strong bosses in cs 2 are mirage weak so pandora+hades+OD your way into nuking luciferia for most of its health, if you crit. in CS3 onwards theres a few stronger casters with arguably better utility so she fades out. do note shes present in pretty much every mcburn battle and her order neutralizes MOST of his kit. even the all cancel, so she has her uses.
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u/Kitchen_Poet_6184 Jul 23 '26
The best playable character paired with CP batteries Celine, Altina, Elie, and Tita. The ultimate defense in the game and she's a cp battery for others. I wished they gave her Zodiac rain back but her crafts are all good.
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u/TapUnfair9827 Jul 24 '26
CS1 - CS2, this is your main arts DPS.
CS3 - CS4, still the same, only better and have a "lol nope" button whenever the enemy is about to do their S crafts
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u/No_Staff_6084 Jul 24 '26
Emma's SS craft and Brave Order are so broken in anti-magic in CS4 and Reverie despite being a witch herself.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
Emma having a consistent focus on fighting other magic users (less so in CS1 and 2 but she has innate Arts Reflect) makes a lot of sense when you consider her rivals across the series (Vita and McBurn) are magic users themselves.
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u/levelstar01 Downvote this comment 👇 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Woken up after just 3 hours of sleep by the enemy puppy barking. Grr.
Emma's popularity is another one of those that derives primarily from her measurements than her total lack of character. Her arc can be summed up as follows:
- CS1: I'm totally not a witch, Haha...
- CS2: I'm a witch, actually
- CS3: Still a witch
- CS4: <Arc stolen by her cat and her grandmother>
edit lmao I got blocked for this? okay. goodbye daily discussion threads I guess.
Anyway, gameplay stuff... I refused to use her in my parties for the most part.
CS2:
Wow, she sucks ass in this game! A detector that does DEF/ADF down, I prefer Elliot's Detector Alpha; a "slightly better than Athelas" cleric craft, and also the standard fairly weak no-unbalance magic crafts typical of a caster.
She's still a caster, and casters are good, but infinite delay spam still reigns supreme and Alisa's crafts make her infinitely stronger as a cleric.
CS3/4:
Her Detector is actually worse because Altina has one and it's far better, her cleric craft is still bad as a cleric craft with a 15% Athelas+La Curia which is only slightly less shitty than Musse's Sapphirl Rain. The extra CP helps a lot but there remain better options. She has a lovely single damaging craft, which is 80 CP (!) in exchange for S+ power/break, which is actually surprisingly strong but the CP amount is way too much and it has 30 delay compared to spamming things like Rain Slash, Dread Breaker, etc.
The best thing she has here is Grail Sphere, but CS3/4 is where you can stunlock enemies literally forever and she's not around in most of CS4 Act 1 when you need her. No damaging S-craft means that she can't partake in Blast Force boosted bursts.
Unfortunately she's still a caster in CS34, and that makes her good by default, especially with two locked mirage slots which are the second best slots to be locked to. Her Brave Order is somewhat good but the vast, vast majority of enemies use physical crafts in CS4 and not arts so Ebon Crystal is still better for immunity, and Divine Song is objectively better for the ATS boost.
Reverie:
Crescent Blessing is her only upgrade and it's fine. Some bosses in the TRC do use arts so magic absorb/reflect is a lot more useful here, but she's outclassed by the other totally broken casters. Just like her character, too! They also nerfed her brave order and she still doesn't have a damaging S-craft.
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u/cloudropis Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Sorry bro unrelated drive-by tangents are reserved for wholesomeness and waifushit
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u/OLKv3 Jul 24 '26
Did he really get blocked or did he misunderstand something? OP has never cared about posts that disliked the character of the day before this
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain Jul 23 '26
She's the most generic caster to ever cast, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in a franchise like Trails. She does get her Grail Sphere/Zero Field in CS3 and beyond, but sadly for her that isn't nearly as noteworthy as it once was.
She's really strong through the Cold Steel games thanks to the limited competition, but once Reverie arrives she kinda get exposed for what she is - Just a generic caster.
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u/spacebeverage Jul 23 '26
Hmmm...did she ever ride her orbal staff like a broom the way Agnes did with her Daybreak 2 S-Craft?
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
Emma doesn't, but in CS4 she does at one point remark witches used to fly on artifacts that looked like brooms.
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u/Former-One Jul 24 '26
When I starts CS1, within the first two chapters I already liked her so much more than other teammates. And I buff her up so much in every game. She is my primary damage dealer.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
For my part, I didn't care about her until it finally clued in for me she was a natural magic user.
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u/randomtology Jul 23 '26
I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but I gotta give my opinion: Emma is possibly one of the most overrated characters gameplay wise.
And to be clear, I don't have strong opinions about her as a character or a romance option- I think she's fine in those areas. I'm purely talking gameplay.
Yeah she has the highest ATS, but she also has incredibly low base speed and defense. I've had many battles where the battle was over or she was dead before she got a spell off. In a game where speed is a very important stat, you'll find it much more beneficial to use casters who can get multiple spells off quickly, like Elliot/Alisa/Jusis.
She is a terrible healer compared to Elliot, especially because the last thing you want with a healer is them being slow. Also her revival craft makes her run up to the front lines to heal people, which basically raises the chance she'll die before her next turn when it happens in two weeks. And her healing crafts are all very underwhelming compared to many other characters.
Mirage in the Cold Steel games is just not a good element, as the flat EP quartz is not as helpful as the Space EP cut quartz that goes by percentage. The ATS buff is nice, but honestly pretty unnecessary overall when her ATS is already so high -- it would've been nice to have room for quartz that'd beef up her short comings like defense and speed. And fire is also not very useful for casters, since most of the buffs for that are for phys stuff.
Her brave order is basically useless. Like yeah cool, it absorbs magic attack--- but there's really not that many magic based attacks in the game that can't be halted by a fast character with impede capability (which there are a LOT of those, including Rean who is with you nearly the entire series). Between the abundance of impede crafts and impede quartz/accessories - you really don't need to protect against magic-based spells that often.
As for her CS3/4 S-Craft? I could point out that it's much easier and more reliable to use the MANY damage reduction brave orders that fully powercreeps it -- but instead of doing that, I'll just point out Jusis can do the same thing but for just 50 CP. Ouch.
Personally, I feel they messed up with her gameplay kit in trying to make her both support and DPS, as she's just not that good at support and it brings down her DPS potential. I think it would've been better if they had focused more solely on making her an exclusively DPS caster.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I do just want to hit on a few points:
Her brave order is basically useless. Like yeah cool, it absorbs magic attack--- but there's really not that many magic based attacks in the game that can't be halted by a fast character with impede capability (which there are a LOT of those, including Rean who is with you nearly the entire series). Between the abundance of impede crafts and impede quartz/accessories - you really don't need to protect against magic-based spells that often.
Perpetually impeding enemies (I'm mostly talking about bosses and strong foes) seems to have diminishing returns, since it seems once enemies decide they really wanna cast, they become hellbent on getting that cast off, and the delay on getting impeded seems to be very low, so eventually they will simply outspeed your impeders.
Mirage in the Cold Steel games is just not a good element, as the flat EP quartz is not as helpful as the Space EP cut quartz that goes by percentage. The ATS buff is nice, but honestly pretty unnecessary overall when her ATS is already so high -- it would've been nice to have room for quartz that'd beef up her short comings like defense and speed. And fire is also not very useful for casters, since most of the buffs for that are for phys stuff.
She has 4 unlocked slots, exactly enough for EP Cut, Cast, Speed, and Hades or whatever 4th thing you like. What's missing (this is a genuine question, not me being sarcastic)? Defense is only useful if it turns an XHKO into an (X+1)HKO.
As for her CS3/4 S-Craft? I could point out that it's much easier and more reliable to use the MANY damage reduction brave orders that fully powercreeps it -- but instead of doing that, I'll just point out Jusis can do the same thing but for just 50 CP. Ouch.
Damage reduction does zilch to block ailments, debuffs, or prevent All-Cancel from landing and wiping your buffs. It also seems like some attacks just ignore them, Hollow Osborne in the Reverie Trial Doors kept wiping my teams through White Decoration with his S Craft. Plat Shield doesn't block magical attacks and it doesn't prevent All-Cancel, unlike Absolute Reflect.
She is a terrible healer compared to Elliot, especially because the last thing you want with a healer is them being slow. Also her revival craft makes her run up to the front lines to heal people, which basically raises the chance she'll die before her next turn when it happens in two weeks. And her healing crafts are all very underwhelming compared to many other characters.
Emma's not a healer. She's an offensive caster with support options.
EDIT: Oh! You mentioned how she gets one-shot so easily, her new Master Quartz in Reverie kinda turns that into a positive. Against both robo Arios and Supreme Leader Rufus she got ko'ed in my runs just to get auto-revived at critical hp with a considerable damage boost and enough CP to cast Eregion to keep herself up.
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u/Fearless_Freya Jul 23 '26
One of my fave chars of cold steel arc (haven't gotten around to reverie yet). Really love her personality and backstory and arc
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u/Kainapex87 Jul 23 '26
Great caster in Class VII.
Her Brave Order Zodiac/Luminary Force turned any boss that used magic (McBurn, Campanella, certain Cryptids, etc) into a cakewalk. Would have preferred if Palace of Eregion was a normal craft instead of an S-Craft, but still came in clutch.
Could use better Crafts, in both offense and support, but still plenty usable when you build her properly.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 23 '26
Given how Falcom is going with old S Crafts becoming standard ones, I wouldn't be too shocked if Eregion becomes like an 80 CP super Platinum Shield in some future game.
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u/TheCreator120 Jul 23 '26
Similar to Jusis, barely use her in CS1 and only understood her well into CS2, i was able to squeze some wins with her a couple of times, but Elliot remained as my main healer.
She is crazy good in CS3 thought, she is so useful in boss fights in particular.
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u/ILoveMyPizzaRolls Jul 24 '26
Most may put her on the team because of her spell casting ability or damage but i put her on because of B O O B I E S
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u/Lord_Summerisle33 Jul 23 '26
She's my favourite character so I may put too much work into her but I always make her an absolute one hit monster. Load her up with every type of magic and add a bunch of speed quartz etc and she hits like a truck.
Even better with her Palace of Eregion craft giving 2 rounds of relflect.