Karla

• Preferred IV: +SPD or +ATK / -HP or -RES
• Weapon: Vassal’s Blade
• Assist: Reposition
• Special: Moonbow
• Passive A: Distant Counter / Fury / Swift Sparrow
• Passive B: Wrath / Desperation
• Passive C: Even Spd Wave / Flexible
• Sacred Seal: Quickened Pulse / Speed +3 / Phantom Spd

Despite the lack of unique Special, Karla has incredible damage potential thanks to Vassal’s Blade. With her massive Speed stat, she is in a good position to consistently activate the bonus damage due to most units not being able to keep up. Her base Even Spd Wave skill makes it even easier for her to maintain a Speed advantage thanks to the massive +6 buff. If Karla can maintain the maximum +7 damage, then her damage potential can outclass even Ayra.

Moonbow is chosen for its low cooldown; with the -1 Special cooldown effect from Vassal’s Blade, Moonbow will be activating constantly. Running Quickened Pulse allows Karla to activate Moonbow twice in a single combat, including a potential Wrath-boosted activation.

Distant Counter gives Karla some useful versatility to allow her to tackle ranged threats. While not strictly necessary, it does allow her to handle a huge number of typical opponents. Otherwise, either Fury or Swift Sparrow works just fine for offensive purposes. Life and Death and Brazen Atk/Spd can be considered as potential options with proper team support.

Karla’s base Wrath skill works well by granting her access to significant burst through her Specials, but is not strictly necessary due to the massive damage boost potentially gained via Vassal’s Blade. The choice between Wrath and Desperation is mostly up to preference - hitting twice with Desperation with minimum +5 bonus from Vassal’s Blade will break even with the bonus damage from Wrath, and any higher bonus will exceed Wrath’s damage. However, the +10 damage from Wrath can potentially allow Karla to one hit KO an enemy, as the -1 Special charge allows her to have her Special primed at the start of every turn that she is in the HP threshold.

The massive +6 Speed buff from Even Spd Wave synergizes well with Vassal’s Blade, as +6 buffs can otherwise be fairly difficult for infantry units to acquire. If this buff is accessible from the team (such as from Spd Tactic), then it can easily be swapped out for another skill to better suit the team.

Quickened Pulse significantly bolsters Karla’s initial combat prowess, as having instant access to a double Moonbow (including a potential Wrath-boosted one) allows her to overpower a huge number of enemy units. Alternatively, a Speed +3 Seal can give Karla a bit of a boost to her Speed if she needs it, such as if she doesn’t have access to a +SPD IV and lacks team buff support. Phantom Spd is an option if Karla needs a massive Speed boost, such as if she has a -SPD IV, or can’t get access to Speed buffs (including not being able to run Even Spd Wave). However, Speed +3 is still generally better than Phantom Spd due to giving a tangible benefit outside of specifically activating Vassal’s Blade.

• Preferred IV: +ATK or +SPD / -HP or -DEF or -RES
• Weapon: Vassal’s Blade
• Assist: Reposition / Ardent Sacrifice / Reciprocal Aid
• Special: Galeforce
• Passive A: Fury / Swift Sparrow / Life and Death / Brazen Atk/Spd
• Passive B: Desperation
• Passive C: Even Spd Wave / Spd Smoke / Def Smoke
• Sacred Seal: Flashing Blade

This is an alternative nuking option to the first build, as Karla is not dependent on damage from her Special activations in order to defeat her opponents thanks to the potential +7 damage boost from Vassal’s Blade. Combined with the -1 Special cooldown from Vassal’s Blade, this allows Karla to be an effective Galeforce user.

One of the main considerations to make with this build is choice of Assist: a movement Assist like Reposition works well as always, but Ardent Sacrifice and Reciprocal Aid provide Karla with an alternative way of safely dropping her HP into the requisite 75% threshold to activate Desperation. Utilizing her Assist to drop her HP allows Karla to run more aggressive A skills like Life and Death or Brazen Atk/Spd, as she can circumvent the risks typically associated with those skills. Keep in mind that Karla needs a -HP bane to effectively utilize Ardent Sacrifice, and even then will no longer work with enough merges or Summoner Support.

Karla’s A skill is dependent on her choice of Assist. Since she can run Flashing Blade as a Seal, she can choose from the myriad of options that boost her stats. Fury is always a good choice due to increasing her bulk as well as making it easier for her to enter Desperation range thanks to the recoil damage. Swift Sparrow gives slightly more offensive stats, but doesn’t boost Karla’s bulk; it becomes much better at higher merges. Life and Death or Brazen Atk/Spd are excellent choices if using Ardent Sacrifice or Reciprocal Aid as they allow Karla to circumvent the downsides of Life and Death or Brazen Atk/Spd by entering Desperation’s HP threshold without having to enter a risky combat first.

Karla’s base Even Spd Wave is excellent for fueling her Vassal’s Blade bonus damage as well as securing doubles, but can easily be replaced if she has access to Speed buffs from her team. Spd Smoke and Def Smoke both synergize well with Galeforce as they make it easier for her to take out her second target.

• Preferred IV: +ATK or +SPD / -HP or -RES
• Weapon: Vassal’s Blade
• Assist: Reposition
• Special: Pavise
• Passive A: Life and Death
• Passive B: Shield Pulse
• Passive C: Even Spd Wave / Flexible
• Sacred Seal: Flashing Blade

One of the main perks of Vassal’s Blade is that it boosts Karla’s damage output enough that she often doesn’t even need a damaging Special to KO her opponents. This means that she can instead opt to use a defensive Special like Pavise. Combining Pavise with Shield Pulse means that Karla is very deceptively hard to KO; for example, she can easily survive a Black Luna from Zelgius. This continues to be true even if she actively lowers her own defenses with an aggressive skill like Life and Death.

The beauty of utilizing Life and Death with the Pavise/Shield Pulse combo is that the reduced defenses have basically no effect but Karla gets to enjoy the big boost to her offensive stats on both phases; this set can effectively engage powerful melee threats on either phase. The Flashing Blade Seal is vitally important to this build, as it is key to making sure that Karla can have Pavise active for every enemy attack. Without Pavise active, Karla will easily get KO’d.