[The House of Spiders: The Thumb Apprentice] Heathcliff

“In one-on-one duels, my Palermitan Style has the advantage”, the very thing Thumb Heathcliff’s kit is built around. Thumb Heathcliff is a Tremor and Burn ID whose kit revolves around heavily stacking his unique status on one target and well.. focus on them. When he does so, he gains massive buffs and becomes very consistent. Let’s take a deeper look at his kit!

Firstly, his 3 unique statuses:

• The Duel Escalates - This status revolves around Heathcliff’s entire kit, as it heavily interacts with his passive and skills. The main way to inflict it is when Thumb Heathcliff hits an enemy or wins a clash. Heathcliff can only inflict this up to 3 times per turn.

• Maturing Textbook - A free damage boost up to a maximum of 15%. Gained when Thumb Heathcliff defeats an enemy with The Duel Escalates or after using S3-2. This effect can only be gained 2 times each turn and stacks up to 3.

• Severed Tendon - A -1 base power to enemy skills. Can be good on stages with singular bosses. Yes, that's it

Next, his innate always active passive; The first passive explains how The Duel Escalates is inflicted. When hitting an enemy, inflict 1 stack; if it was a clash, however, it will inflict 2 instead. On top of that, Thumb Heathcliff will also heal SP based on the stack when clashing against the target with The Duel Escalates. If Thumb Heathcliff kills an enemy with The Duel Escalates, he will get a stack of Maturing Textbook. Due to the infliction being at base skill end, he is unable to gain Maturing Textbook from killing with the same skill used to inflict it, slowing his ramp significantly.

His second passive only activates if Thumb Rodion is on the field. If she has Eye of Precognition, after she hits an enemy and it is not killed, Thumb Heathcliff will follow up with Skill 1 (once per turn). However, if she has Eye of Precognition - Overheat, Thumb Heathcliff will gain Assist Defense exclusively to protect Thumb Rodion only. Keep in mind that the extra attack can be activated from Thumb Rodion’s free attack after evading and the Assist Defense can be used to protect her while she doesn’t have Precognition active.

Third passive is for HoS Ryoshu, she will get 1 Entanglement and 2 Tremor Potency and a Tremor Burst on clash win (2 times each turn) when Thumb Heathcliff is defeated. Pretty much makes her a Tremor ID that can reliably trigger Tremor Burst. Very strong for a HoS Tremor-based team.

His normal passive, requiring 2 Lust and 2 Sloth Owned, gives damage boost and damage reduction based on The Duel Escalates and Maturing Textbook status. This passive also gives a plethora of benefits:

• 1+ Stack: Clash Power +1

• 2+ Stack: Base Skills gain Base Power +1

• 3+ Stack: On Hit using a Base Skill, inflict 1 Severed Tendon next turn

• 4+ Stack: Base Skills gain Final Power +1

• 5+ Stack: Base Skills deal +15% damage

Support Passive, requiring 3 Wrath Res makes one fastest ally inflict +1 Burn Count on target (once per turn), prioritizing the ally with “The Thumb” tag, and if said ally has the aforementioned tag, it inflicts +1 Burn Count and Tremor Count instead. If there is only one enemy or one abnormality part, this effect inflicts +1 more Burn Count and Tremor Count. This will be very important as it is a pretty strong support passive, especially when she is shoved into the HoS Ryoshu blender.

Finally, his skills:

• Skill 1 - La Spada di Palermo - Base roll 11 - Max roll 15 - Max Passive Stacks 17 (clash 18) - Below average skill with nothing noteworthy. Don’t ever use this; use his Counter instead unless you need the Lust resource or the enemy is staggered.

• Skill 2 - Colpi Sottani - Base roll 16 - Max roll 22 - Max Passive Stacks 24 (clash 25) - An average skill 2 that inflicts plenty of both Potency and Count for Burn and Tremor, paired with a single Tremor Burst

• Skill 3 - Il Cacciatore - Base roll 17 - Max roll 23 - Max Passive Stacks 25 (clash 26) - An alright skill 3 with 3 Tremor Bursts. Unfortunately, half of this skill is locked behind having Maturing Textbook and The Duel Escalates stacks. It should also be noted that you should never use this skill unless you have 2-3 stacks of Maturing Textbook; then this skill would excel better against Skill 3-2 in a single target scenario. Aside from that, Skill 3-2 is way better.

• Skill 3-2 - Sezionatura di Cervo - Base roll 17 - Max roll 29 - Max Passive Stacks + Maturing Textbook 34 (clash 35) - Incredibly high clashing power and is overall a very good skill with 3 Tremor Burst and is the most consistent way to gain Maturing Textbook stacks, as you can potentially get two on kill. Sadly, just like normal Skill 3, some of the benefits of this skill are locked behind Maturing Textbook stacks. Aside from that, you can get this skill after 3 turns of stacking The Duel Escalates (can be 2 if the extra attack from the second passive hits the same enemy).

• Defensive Skill 1 - Measuring Blade Reach - Base roll 13 - Max roll 15 - Max passive stacks 17 (clash 18) - Actually way better than skill 1 LMFAO. Pretty much higher base rolls, more Tremor Potency, and more damage overall.

• Defensive Skill 2 - I Will Protect. - Base roll 13 - Max Passive Stacks 15 (clash 16) - Only usable with Thumb Rodion on the battlefield. Acting as a one-time protection while she doesn’t have Precognition. It's a pretty good skill, giving Thumb Heathcliff 2 Protection and SP heal for Thumb Rodion, and best of all, it is free!.

To summarize, Heathcliff is a duelist-type character who mainly excels when focusing on a singular enemy. While Maturing Textbook can make up for it in a scenario against multiple enemies, it is not enough and takes way too long to ramp up. Not to mention if you are unable to get his Skill 3-2 active in 3 turns, he's just not going to deal any notable damage until you do, and even then, the first instance of Skill 3-2 won’t do much, while the second one would, IF you can score a kill with the first instance.

Thumb Rodion is a mandatory pair with him, as with her; his rotation becomes much better, turning from a 3-turn ramp into a 2-turn ramp with the benefit of printing a ton of resources. Now, unfortunately, it is better to just throw Thumb Heathcliff into the blender for HoS Ryoshu to feed on, as the benefit is way greater than having him alive, even with Thumb Rodion.

ID/Team Synergy:

• [The House of Spiders: The Thumb Nursefather] Rodion - Mandatory, not negotiable as explained in the review. Without her, he's just bad.

• [Blade of the House of Spiders] Ryoshu - Thumb Heathcliff is a very valuable sacrifice for Ryoshu if you are running Tremor HoS, team. Even in death, he can still contribute massively from the support passive, helping Thumb Rodion stack statuses better. Usually, it is better to sacrifice him

• Tremor-based team - Just like Thumb Rodion, he scales pretty well here due to his 3 Tremor Burst. Tremor - Scorch may override Tremor - Reverb, but a modern Tremor team usually incorporates both with the Everlasting Faust E.G.O, resulting in extra damage.