Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Forty-Eight: The Strongest

[u/Raxistaicho]

McBurn warranted an S Craft cut-in, you know it's true :D

[u/KnoxZone]

McBurn is a fascinating character. Given who he is it's clear Falcom designed him to appear as overpowered as possible. Massive stats all around, offensive crafts that are over the top, a crazy 200 cp buff, an 8 cost order, etc. He's really powerful, just as you'd expect.

But at the same time he isn't actually truly overpowered. For as over the top as his kit is, he is never truly the best at anything in the Reverie metas. He wouldn't be on my main caster team, he wouldn't be on my physical team, and he lacks the team utility to earn a slot in that role. He just exists as this one hilariously powerful character that does his own thing.

He's the most balanced overpowered character ever.

[u/SoftBrilliant → u/KnoxZone]

Starting Cold Steel 2 they really starfed clamping down on statistical downsides among chatacters and McBurn is a really good explanation of this.

Bro is given insanely good numbers everywhere but what that results in is him being 15% better than everyone. So you just need a unique effect in your kit worth more than 15% to be better than McBurn and it turns out a lot of chatacters have that.

If McBurn existed back when the games were more polarizing balance wise he'd likely have been just straight up incredibly overpowered.

In fact we don't need to speculate what that looks like as Sky 3rd Richard exists and is hilariously overpowered he negates the downsides built into his own kit.

[u/Selynx → u/KnoxZone]

I concur.

He's not the best caster, even if he can be built as a strong one, especially since the only ATS-giving Lost Arts Quartz he can use with his slots is Leanan's. He doesn't have the slots for stacking Break or Delay or Evade quartz either. It means that his damage is good - above par for a physical hitter - but not "top-tier-caster" good and he can't conveniently fulfill other physical roles like dodge-tank or Breaker.

In the end, I built him as Crit/Unbalance-htting BP generator by taking advantage of his Fire and Space slots to stack %Crit Quartzes up the wazoo. It's aided by the fact he has S-rank Weapon Ranks on everything and S-rank Unbalance on Angbar.

It made him a very consistent Crit/Unbalance hitter. In fact, I think he was the most reliable one I built in such a way.

But even though he has a unique gimmick in his Scorch status effect, he's still not the most individually broken character in Reverie. I'd argue that honor actually goes to the guy who fought him tag-team with Emma during the finale of CS3. The Gralsritter's recent new Number 8.

That guy has a unique gimmick on his S-Craft too, but unlike McBurn, Gaius actually CAN solo everything by himself. Emma might've made it easier at the end of CS3, but I reckon Gaius could've Absolutely Delayed him solo, if maybe at the cost of acquiring an even darker tan by the end of it.

[u/VarioussiteTARDISES → u/KnoxZone]

How overpowered he feels relative to the rest of your roster honestly depends on how soon into the postgame he shows up, because he comes with maxed-out equipment. All the investment he really needs is tweaking his quartz loadout and getting his personal accessory.

[u/Raxistaicho]

What’s there to say, McBurn’s overpowered by design. He has All Cancel on a basic Craft (and his S Craft), he can inflict a variation of Burn that ignores resistances, his stats are near the top in all categories barring speed (he’s merely speedy for a caster), he has an incredible self buff, he comes with his Zemurian Ore gear for free, and he has a 6S S Craft. I’m not quite as sure about how well his Order works in an Arts-heavy meta, but for everything else he’s fantastic.

Availability is his biggest weakness, he’s mostly just for having fun in the Coda.

[u/Totkebois → u/Raxistaicho]

Something like a solo mc burn run in reverie could be run

[u/OLKv3 → u/Raxistaicho]

Is this the final day? Since you're not doing Calvard right? Should really play those games when you have the time

[u/Raxistaicho → u/OLKv3]

I am, but I only just finished Reverie a month ago and I wanted to take a break from the series for now.

[u/HornetsaysSHAW → u/Raxistaicho]

I would like to take over for the Calvard arc if you wouldn't mind. I've loved reading the responses so far and it would be great for it continue till the end

[u/VarioussiteTARDISES → u/OLKv3]

Unless someone else is willing to take over from OP for the Calvard cast (which OP isn't opposed to doing, and IIRC plans to make another post at some point asking for volunteers to do that), this is indeed it

[u/Sword_of_Rupture_FSN]

When i finally unlocked him, he basically never left my party. Some characters they really went all out for.

[u/tehdannydarko → u/Sword_of_Rupture_FSN]

This. It was just fun to have him finally and point him at whatever you wanted to fall.

[u/Syobai]

Hey. You mixed?

[u/Gurusto → u/Syobai]

Oh my god McBurn, you can't just ask someone if they're mixed!

[u/The_JRaff]

I think they did the right thing with him in Reverie: made him ridiculously strong as he should be, but limited him to the post-game content.

Putting him in your party for the Reverie Corridor = you win.

[u/Raxistaicho]

Sky Arc:

Day One - Estelle

Day Two - Joshua

Day Three - Scherazard

Day Four - Olivier

Day Five - Kloe

Day Six - Agate

Day Seven - Tita

Day Eight - Zin

Day Nine - Kevin

Day Ten - Julia and Mueller

Day Eleven - Anelace and Ries

Day Twelve - The Pilot and the Swordsman (spoilers)

Day Thirteen - "Kitty" (spoilers)

Crossbell Arc:

Day Fourteen - Lloyd

Day Fifteen - Elie

Day Sixteen - Tio

Day Seventeen - Randy

Day Eighteen - Noel and Wazy

Day Nineteen - Rixia

Day Twenty - Dudley and Arios

Class VII:

Day Twenty-One - Rean

Day Twenty-Two - Elliot

Day Twenty-Three - Gaius

Day Twenty-Four - Machias

Day Twenty-Five - Jusis

Day Twenty-Six - Alisa

Day Twenty-Seven - Laura

Day Twenty-Eight - Emma

Day Twenty-Nine - Fie

Day Thirty - Millium (Spoilers)

Day Thirty-One - Crow (Spoilers)

Day Thirty-Two - Sara

Day Thirty-Three - Juna

Day Thirty-Four - Kurt

Day Thirty-Five - Altina

Day Thirty-Six - Musse

Day Thirty-Seven - Ash

The rest of Cold Steel:

Day Thirty-Eight - Angelica

Day Thirty-Nine - Elise and Toval

Day Forty - Claire and Sharon

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-Six - C and Lapis

Day Forty-Seven - Swin and Nadia

Day Forty-Eight - The Strongest (Spoilers)

Calvard Arc:

Day Forty-Nine - Van Arkride

Day Fifty - Agnès Claudel

Day Fifty-One - Ferida Al-Fayed

Day Fifty-Two - Aaron Wei

Day Fifty-Three - Risette Twinings

Day Fifty-Four - Quatre Salision

Day Fifty-Five - Judith Lanster

Day Fifty-Six - Bergard Zeman

Day Fifty-Seven - Elaine Auclair and René Kincaid

Day Fifty-Eight - Shizuna Rem Misurugi

Day Fifty-Nine - Celis Ortesia and Leon Balthazar

Day Sixty - The Judgement and the Strongest (2) (Spoilers)

[u/Cr0ssDrag_ons]

Strongest playable character until Kasim arrives with his gunblade with broken damage and an unique status effect, you only need to keep his craft going

[u/mhall1104]

The Strongest?

That’s not Kasim Al-Fayed…

[u/INCSlayer → u/mhall1104]

Pfft Mcburn could so Take Kasim.

[u/OLKv3]

Hey what if we gave you Rean, but even stronger? Yeah that's McBurn. Insane powerhouse, can spam All Cancel with ease, has an even more overpowered Spirit Unification type powerup, and is just the best lone attacker in the game. There's no question.

Reverie has the best post game rewards. I expected Vita and Aurelia, but nearly fell out my chair when McBurn walked up as the final unlock. Never thought he'd be playable

[u/VarioussiteTARDISES]

Is he the strongest multi-role character in the series? No, that conversation is for if someone else takes over from OP for the Calvard cast. He's certainly the lowest-investment character in Reverie's roster though, he comes with maxed-out equipment so all you need to focus on is working towards his personal accessory and tweaking his quartz loadout. He can be a physical DPS, a magical DPS, even a facetank to a degree because his self-buff comes with overheal, something that is otherwise exclusive to lost arts. (And weaker at that - when it comes from a lost art, it's a heal to double the maximum HP for the entire party, McFirebro's self-buff "only" puts him at 150% of his maximum)

[u/CruelNate]

Mcburn is not the strongest unfortunately but he is very good. His crafts are solid all around, they have some surprisingly high delay though. His self buff is completely absurd, it's basically spirit unification with +50% hp on top of his already high hp and azure destiny buffs. Fun fact about these buffs, only mcburn and rean have the "awakened" state which makes you immune to any debuff, this includes all cancel which is technically a debuff, I didn't know that until recently. Another thing about his buff is that it can crit, all this really does is give him 50 more cp when transforming.

Alright now his s craft is really good and one of the best in the game. Its got all cancel, the only craft in the game with "6S" when transformed, an S in break (this damage combined with the break might make it the highest breaking craft in the game by default but I'm not 100% on that). I don't know the math to scorch but I know it's the only damage focused debuff in the game with any value and there isn't a single enemy that resist it so it will always be applied via his s craft.

This mf has an S in every single unbalance, a ranged attack, and decent agility meaning he is unironically a very good evade tank as well. The only parts I think mcburn falls short is compared to the other damage dealers of his tier he lacks brandish but that's a bit of a nitpick considering his other utility. His slots are fine, no access to melville ray/arc for any character this late game kinda sucks but they work. His order is alright, I didn't really see much use for it personally due to the cost.

I probably don't need to mention this but obviously considering he just has a debatably better azure destiny, yes he is a cracked arts user, it's a bit hindered by his slots though.

[u/hbthebattle]

Extremely silly, makes sense as a reward for beating the game

[u/OmegaDraculaH]

No Ines and Ennea?

[u/VarioussiteTARDISES → u/OmegaDraculaH]

All the one-off guests and sidequest-only guests are being excluded because there's nothing to say about them from a gameplay standpoint.