Awakened MariaInformation and Guide

Summary

Awakened Maria (AMaria) is a generalist damage dealer ranger with good performance across the board in all the content she finds herself in. AMaria sees a decent amount of use in PVE and PVP. Her kit is a combination of damage and utility, with her special being notable for the numerous effects it applies. Her high innate CRIT/ CRIT DMG rounds out the whole kit, significantly increasing her overall damage across all attacks.

AMaria comes with a unique positioning mechanic in the form of her passive, which spawns portals at fixed locations on the map, extending slightly further than your initial deployment range limit. These portals cannot be targeted or destroyed, but when approached, they can teleport allied units a set distance across the map. The value provided by these portals will be elaborated on below.

PVE Review

As a ranger with a strong kit and good stats, AMaria is a good option for most PVE stages, and infrequently sees use in Danger Close when her faction is buffed. She doesn’t get used against the Consortium worm boss, though this is hardly a criticism as many ASSRs won’t see half as much usage in PVE as AMaria.

AMaria has an absurdly high crit stat (the highest in the game) and she gains innate 150% crit DMG from skill levels. In situations where AMaria can surefire her targets, she has one of the highest damage to cost ratios in the game. Surefire occurs when your character’s HIT% exceeds your target’s EVA%, and ensures that none of your attacks miss.

AMaria has a notable niche in auto raid teams (Britra, Inhibitor, Kraken) due to the way her portals work. AMaria’s portals will reduce the walking time of all units deployed at the ship, and more importantly, it stacks your backline together. This ensures everyone (especially the snipers) have access to buffs from units that are only applied within a certain radius, like Awakened Shin Jia and Harim. Thanks to this, AMaria passively increases overall damage dealt on raids.

PVP Review

AMaria is used periodically in PVP as a 5 cost generalist ranger. Her individual performance is marginally worse compared to other ASSRs when not accounting for the utility of her portals, but when capitalized on she can become incredibly problematic to deal with.

AMaria’s portals can be used to make novel positioning plays, the most obvious being that with some set up you can drop frontline units directly into the enemy backline. With some creativity, portals can also be used to great effect (e.g. teleporting Jaina Kropel, comboing teleport with Albion stealth). It is worth noting that ASSRs cannot use the portals.

AMaria’s special skill has the highest uptime stun in the game with a buff dispel and -100% incoming healing debuff attached to it. Combined, these effects lock down frontline units and turn them into stationary unhealable bodies, which helps make damage stick, and helps set up kills while they are immobile. Her ultimate is a generic nuke skill. While not specific to AMaria, her ultimate’s wide AOE often results in the edge of it clipping the enemy backline for massive damage.

As a 5 cost ranger, AMaria isn’t difficult to slot into the team. Contrasting some ASSRs that demand teams built around them, she can manage herself fine. She excels when she is put in a team that takes advantage of the unique positioning opportunities made possible by her portals, but even without the portals she still contributes good value through her stats and skills.

AMaria’s multiple HP-triggered backsteps make her uniquely resistant to forward deployable units, giving her insurance against many forms of backline access. The specifics go beyond the scope of this review, but keep in mind it can be very difficult to lock her down with traditional backline harassment tools.