Solo Leveling: AriseFrierenInformation and Guide

Headlining the collaboration, Frieren the mage joins the Hunter association, hoping to find magic grimoires, mimics, and explore dungeons. Let’s see if she can pass our hunter exam with flying colors!

Introduction 

Headlining the collaboration, Frieren the mage joins the Hunter association, hoping to find magic grimoires, mimics, and explore dungeons. Let’s see if she can pass our hunter exam with flying colors!

Review

Frieren is a Defense-scaling Water mage that excels at supporting her team with her magical prowess. Except for her support ability, which grants Jinwoo an attack/Defense buff and a shield when the entire team is composed of Water hunters, her base kit is pretty straightforward. This means one thing: lots of Ascension Passives, but reading and learning are important to become a proper mage!

Ascension Passives

• At A0, Frieren’s Basic Attack (Basic Magic Attack Zoltraak- Multi-Hit) will activate its stage 1, 2 and 3 consecutively. When the stage 3 is cast, Frieren will activate her Core Attack, Basic Magic Attack Zoltraak - Concentrated. When she enters the stage, she will activate the buffs [Mana Power Control] and [Defense Magic]. The first buff grants Frieren 50% extra Defense plus an extra 20% when she’s above 50% of her MP. It also grants her a 20% MP consumption decrease. Meanwhile, Defense Magic grants Frieren a shield based on 20% of her Defense for 30 seconds, also decreasing damage taken by 5%. Using Frieren’s Ultimate,  Basic Magic Attack Zoltraak - Ultimate, will remove [Mana Power Control] and activate [Mana Power Liberation] instead. This buff increases Frieren’s Critical Hit rate by 100% and refreshes [Defense Magic] on the team. When this buff expires, [Mana Power Control] is reapplied, dictating a cycle of burst damage with Frieren’s Ultimate. 

• A1 provides a lot of extra effects to Frieren’s skills. For starters, her Ultimate will now remove Shields. Her [Defense Magic] now restores HP to the team based on 20% of Frieren’s Defense. Her skill 1, Destructive Lightning Magic (Judradjim), now adds paralysis when hitting the enemy for 3 seconds and her skill 2, Hellish Flame Magic (Vollzanbel), adds the Vollzanbell debuff to the enemy. This debuff decreases the Defense of the target by 5%, increases the Critical Damage received by 5% and increases the chance of receiving a Critical Hit by 5%.   

• A2 is a simple teamwide 9% boost to attack, Defense and health.

• A3 improves the [Mana Power Control] and [Defense Magic] buffs. Mana power control now grants 40% Defense, decreases Skill Mana consumption by 30% and increases Defense by a further 40% when MP is above 50%, while [Defense Magic] grants a shield equal to 30% of Frieren’s Defense and decreases damage by 10%. The buff now lasts 60 seconds.

• A4 buffs the entire team's Critical Damage by 20%.

• A5 adds 80% Power Gauge Recovery to Skill 1 and improves the debuff from Skill 2. Now it decreases Defense by 10% and increases the chance of getting a Critical Hit and the Critical Damage received by 15% 

Weapon and Gear

Frieren’s weapon, Frieren’s Staff, increases her Defense and also improves the team’s Ultimate damage. It’s an unconditional buff, making it a great investment, plus it’s really advised to get it to A5 - or A10 - since you won’t be able to craft it outside of the collab period.

Gearwise, Frieren falls in the support DPS niche, similar to Lee Bora, but actually provides shields to the party, so her ideal setup is 4x Guardian 4x Obsidian to ensure she can deal respectable damage while improving the team's overall damage. She can also wear an 8-piece blessing set, but realistically, the Guardian variant offers better team damage, especially in guild bosses.

Team Setups

Frieren is a Water support that is actually a generalist support, as her only elemental bonus is tied to the Support Ability for SJW. You can run her in Water teams, obviously, but she can virtually be used everywhere.

Should you roll for Frieren?

You should roll for Frieren because that’s what Himmel the hero would do. Or would he?

While Frieren looks amazing on paper, providing good universal buffs and good damage, you have to evaluate the actual buffs that she gives. If you take away the sustain and shielding, you are left with a generic Critical buffer that mostly provides Critical Damage and increases the chance of inflicting a Critical, much like Lee Bora’s weapon. Unfortunately, Critical Damage is a stat that has a lot of diminishing returns and her stat buffs are lower compared to specialised, element-specific buffers. She’s a great all-around unit that may not earn a spot in your teams when every unit has a specific purpose. That being said, she can be used in the Water team in Guild Boss, providing an alternative to Meilin or working as a support in Shuhua’s team. Frieren may be just being a coward and lying low in the tier list, waiting for an opportunity to strike, so pulling for her now will ensure she can showcase her magical expertise in the future. Remember that she is a collab character and because of this, she won’t be coming back unless there is a rerun in the future.

• For F2P players with not many resources, Frieren’s A1 provides extra effects to her skills, making it the best early stopping point.

• Dolphins and small spenders should aim for A3 since it gives Frieren more uptime on her defensive buff and improves her defensive stat line.

• Needless to say, Guild Boss enthusiasts should roll to get Frieren to A5 since she is a collab character and won’t come back, so adding her to your toolbox is gonna be great to have more options.