Chained Echoes: Magnolia, The Mystic Guide

Chained Echoes Magnolia, The Mystic Guide: Stats & Build Suggestions. Also check; Chained Echoes Character Guide.

Chained Echoes: Magnolia, The Mystic

Magnolia is the third optional character you can recruit. She is a pure magic-based attacker, boasting the highest MAG stat in the game, on top of very high TP (meaning she can spam skills at will). Her arsenal covers all the elements, meaning she is equipped to deal with any situation.

Her mechanic lies in her card system, where whenever she cast a spell, the card can be between 1 and 10, empowering the spell. On top of that, Magnolia can transform into her Fairy Queen form once per battle where any spells cast are 8 or above card effect.

Strengths

• Magic Attacker with a wide array of spells that cover ever element.
• Highest MAG.
• Third highest TP.
• Skills can be empowered depending on the card number when cast.

Weaknesses

• Other than MAG, all her other stats are between mediocre and low.
• Lowest AGI, tied with Victor (but somehow she feels even slower).
• Damage output is very RNG dependent, making it unreliable.
• Lenne is better than her in every aspect.

Baseline

• Elemental Spells: Magnolia has the best elemental attack coverage as she has a spell of each element.
• Lunatic Joker: deals neutral magic damage. Useful when the enemy has no elemental weakness.
• Eclipse Ace: pretty much the same as Lenne’s Heaven’s Tear, dealing damage based on the enemy’s current elemental weakness. It has a lower potency of her normal elemental skills, though.
• Fireworks: consumes the Ultra Bar to deal REALLY high damage. Pretty interesting skill and can hit very hard with proper buffs.

Class Abilities

• Firestorm / Earthstream Spirit: from Shaman. Synergizes extremely well with her kit since the damage scales with MAG. This ability can be equipped on pretty much any character as it has no set duration and adds extra damage on every turn.

Crystals

• MAG Up: stack those and Lenne will be hitting even harder. No-brainer choice. There is actually a diminishing return when stacking these stat up crystals, though.
• HP / DEF / MDN Up: considering Magnolia’s low defensive stats, trying to circumvent with crystals is a good idea, though I prefer maximizing her MAG so she can just kill things faster.
• HP Drain: very straightforward. Hit enemy, get HP. The amount seems to scale with damage done, so the harder you hit, the more you heal. Useful on pretty much all characters.

Magnolia joins much later, with all tier available. So just pick those aforementioned spells and dump the rest on her passives.

As for the Class Emblems, Pyromancer is the best, followed by Shaman and Summoner.

For accessory Bracelet of Magic is good just to further increase her MAG.

General Tips

Setups are everything

Combat in this game, especially in the late-game, is all about setups. Your characters will unlock plenty of buffs and debuffs and it is key to lay those down to empower your team while simultaneously cripple the enemy.

For instance, Sienna alone has four really important buffs she should have active nearly all the time, while Glenn should always make sure the enemy has Break debuffs on, With certain setups you can see some really big numbers (I’ve been able to crit +18k with Lenne during the final boss) so it’s important to have your team cover everything.

Don’t bother with Crystals (until later)

The Crystal system at the blacksmith anvil is a potentially powerful, yet a bit obnoxious system (because of RNG and how the combining functions), way to make your characters REALLY powerful, allowing you stack passives to reinforce their strengths or to circumvent a weakness. For instance, stacking Crit Damage Up crystals on Sienna can make her dish out some really insane damage, while adding debuff crystals (i.e. Poison, Blind) on characters with multi-hit moves can make inflicting those easier.

However, I strongly recommend waiting to tamper with this system until the endgame. It’s not really worth hunting down crystals or farming, and the game is already relatively easy enough that you can clear the vast majority of the content without worrying about crystals.

If you want more details on the Crystal crafting, check Xenocite’s excellent Crystal Guide.

Agility is everything

Agility (AGI) is the single most important attribute in the game, hence why Sienna is so busted since she has the highest in the game. Improving your AGI in any way (passive skills, buffs, crystals) is key to get as many turns as possible before the enemy.

Drunken Master (a skill from the Monk Class Emblem) is an ability you should have learned with one or more characters and equipped at all times, and use it as soon the fight starts. It’s party-wide.

Additionally, crippling your enemy’s AGI with Robb’s Leg Shot (and also Kylian’s Leg Aim) is key in any boss fight to further enable more turns for you and less for the enemy.