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crystalelemental · 3 months

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Sync Pair Retrospective - Kalos VA Act 1

The Kalos VA was a fun time. Kalos has always been behind in the total sync pairs department, and was generally underwhelming on the power scale prior. VAs to this point had always focused on protagonists, but the recent NC alts suggested they weren't about to get anything else, opening a lot of possibilities. Excitement ran high, and boy did act 1 swing for the fences.

Sygna Suit Diantha The NCs were, of course, ridiculous. No one questions this. Keeping up with the pace they set would be no easy feat, and yet. SS Diantha delivered. Packing Rock Zone, Diantha offered literally everything a Rock pair could want: Zone, Def debuffs on her AoE buddy move, speed debuffs for the myriad Cakewalk pairs. Diantha did all of this, while having exceptional damage output, and independent ability to cap her offensive needs. Her main flaw was over-reliance on Rock Zone. Unlike someone like Courtney, whose sync needed boosted Defense, Diantha needed Zone. Her Buddy move also needed Zone to be active, and without these effects, she fell back on...Rock Tomb. Diantha was one of the most reliant pairs out there when it came to field effects, and the 5/5 node for Extension 3, for the first time, felt legitimate.

As an offensive pair, little has changed for Diantha. She was wildly self-sufficient before, and she remains so. Currently, no one else sets Rock Zone, so her reliance on her own MPR is still in full effect. As the support offering Rock Zone, she's doing as well as ever, as the major Rock addition of Paulo still aligns perfectly to her kit. She's strong enough that she's largely considered the likely solution to the next Ultimate Battle with Darach. It's fairly hard to top that.

Diantha hasn't gone anywhere, and I don't suspect she will any time soon either. She is an excellent pair, who...frankly carries this entire type on her back. Rock is a pretty weak typing right now, and without her support, it's a really rough time. Diantha salvages a lot for this type, and I think it's gonna be real hard to usurp her position.

Shauna As a general pool, Shauna was largely overlooked. As an Atk/crit buffer, many considered Hop sufficient and thus Shauna irrelevant. This wasn't strictly unfair, but it was overlooking a bit. Specifically, that Shauna's actually really good.

Grid-based Vigilance and Endurance are really nice traits. Attack Trap goes underrated until you suddenly need it. Blocking attacks with a two-turn shield isn't always great, but sometimes it's the exact trait to salvage something like an Extreme Battle. Shauna did exactly what she needed to, and did so quite well.

To that end, little has changed for Shauna. She remains a fairly good pick for Atk/crit buffing in the general pool. The main hit she took was Hop receiving EX and a grid expansion with First Aid included. Hop is just better at being bulky, and his Def boosting on TM and Potion access feels more relevant. Once he had the EX tools, there's not a ton of reason to use Shauna, beyond stage countpick thanks to free lucky skill. The other major blow, however, was SS Acerola. When considering Grass types and their support, Shauna cannot keep up at all with Acerola, who grants comparable stat bonuses with two cohesive field effects, and tremendous physical damage stacking. This leaves little room for Shauna to seriously stand out, even as we enter the High Score event for her type. It's a sad state of affairs for a pair with a strong kit for the general pool.

Final Thoughts Act 1 was a decent time. SS Diantha was one of those borderline "must pull" pairs, given how much she did for a struggling type, while Shauna...hasn't really held up despite being pretty good. Shauna just has too much competition to seriously stand out, while Diantha has zero competition and nothing to stand in her way. Hell, and potential competition may just make her better.

#sync pair retrospective #sygna suit diantha #shauna

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