SylviaBuild and Guide

Sylvia is a Reason Affinity Support/Healer hybrid, capable of healing and buffing allies out of turn, alongside a uniquely powerful but difficult-to-use S3 that can turn the tables in an instant.

Skill 1

Sylvia’s S1 is divided into an active and a passive: the active is a 1-hit single-target attack that has a good chance of reducing by 1 turn the Animus Skill CDs of the ally with the longest active CD.

The passive, Inspired Gaze, provides each member of her team with Healing based on their Max HP after their respective turn ends, and the Healing amount is doubled if the ally is below 30% Max HP. A 1-turn [SPD+] is also automatically granted (at Skill level 5) to the ally at the same time as they receive the heal.

This skill allows her to fulfill her main role of healer, while improving the turn cycling of all of her team by buffing them after their turn ends. Starting from level 3, every level offers a strong buff to the S1, so it’s worth taking the skill to level 5.

Skill 2

Her S2 is an AoE Heal that recovers a good amount of each ally’s health based on their own Max HP, on top of granting a 1-turn [Immunity] to all of them except her main target, who receives a 2-turn version of the Buff.

Excellent to offer some Burst Healing and a very powerful Buff; raising the skill to level 3 is the bare minimum. Depending on your needs, you may consider raising the skill to level 5, but the priority is lower than S1.

Skill 3

Sylvia’s S3 is a 1-hit AoE with a unique gimmick: it removes all Buffs and Debuffs from BOTH teams, resetting everyone’s Turn Meter to 0 before giving a 30% Turn Meter boost to all allies (at level 3).

Depending on your gameplan, you may never cast this Skill twice in a fight, or you may rely on casting it as often as possible to disrupt the enemy. For this reason, after taking it to level 3 with very high priority, you may consider if you would make use of the reduced CD at level 5 alongside the extra EFF RES nodes. 

PVE

Frankly speaking, Sylvia was not designed to be used much in PVE. Her S3 doesn’t work on Bosses, which makes using her in auto very counterproductive. Her abundant heals and near-permanent SPD+ on allies can help in a lot of stages though, and the reset, while very niche, can be a game-changer when applicable.

PVP

In PVP, Sylvia easily finds a spot in any serious player’s roster. All of her skills range from great to incredible, with huge amounts of passive healing for bulky teammates alongside SPD+, AoE [Immunity] with Burst Healing, and a “reset to factory settings” button with S3. This last skill is especially egregious, as if your Sylvia is faster than the enemies, you can simply deny them a full team turn and allow all of your Animuses to go before them, provided they don’t have ways of guaranteeing their turns like Fiamelia or Kethos. And if that wasn’t enough, uber-fast Animuses can go before Sylvia, dish out some massive damage to the enemy, then go again right after Sylvia uses S3 since their SPD lets them benefit the most from everyone being at 0 Turn Meter. And if you play against teams that have very fast Buffers/Debuffers but slower damage dealers? Sylvia removes all buffs and debuffs without refunding the skill CDs. Evil, yes, but so effective.

Much like the other Animus released alongside her, Nathenn, Sylvia wants a massive amount of SPD and she’s got her work cut out for her with her fairly average base SPD. The upside is that her Heals are based on her allies’ Max HP, and she’s got no need for any specific stat, so feel free to hyperfocus on giving her some top SPD gear that splashes some Defensive stats, so that she doesn’t crumble after taking a single hit from the enemy. Alternatively, you can opt for a slower build with a speedy Bloodbath setup, either because of your strategy or simply because you can’t contest top speedsters with the gear available to you in the first place.

Typical counters are super fast Animuses who can stop her from using her S2/S3 by controlling or increasing CDs, and in long battles be careful of undispellable Max HP reduction effects as her healing can become trivial if your bruisers’ Max HP gets chipped a bit too much.

Conclusion

Sylvia easily carves herself a spot at the very top of the PVP environment, thanks to her incredibly strong kit. She’s one of the few Animuses who can both solidify an advantage and let your team snowball from it, while also having the ability to completely stop certain gameplans from playing out or even getting started, and she does that with very little stat requirements outside of SPD. This comes at the price of a low potential in PVE; however, the pros massively outweigh the cons so long as you build teams by playing around her strengths.