Wind Magical Archer (Ardella)

Stats

Skills

Leader Skill (Awakened): Increases the Attack Power of ally monsters with Wind attribute by 35%.

Skill 1: Magic Arrow [370%ATK]: Attacks the enemy with a magical arrow which casts various harmful effects according to the attribute relation between you and the enemy. The damage of this effect increases by 15% for each harmful effect on the enemy.

• Lv.2 Damage +5%
• Lv.3 Damage +5%
• Lv.4 Damage +5%
• Lv.5 Damage +5%
• Lv.6 Damage +10%

Skill 2: Light Arrow [((SPD + 100) / 0.4)%ATK]:  Attacks with an arrow that’s lightning fast. The damage increases according to Attack Speed. (Reusable in 3 turns.)

• Lv.2 Damage +5%
• Lv.3 Damage +5%
• Lv.4 Damage +5%
• Lv.5 Damage +10%
• Lv.6 Cooltime Turn -1

Skill 3: Keenness (Passive): Increases Critical Hit chances by 25%, and your Critical Damage increases accordingly to how much HP you’ve lost. [Automatic Effect]

Rune Recommendations

Site Review

Dungeons:

Ardella can be used as a powerful wind nuker for faster clear times in GB10. However, due to her very poor base stats it makes it very difficult for newer players to have the rune quality necessary for her to survive. On the other hand, end-game players will definitely prioritize AoE damagers like Lushen and Akhamamir when it comes to speed GB10 teams, so she has little use there too. As such, only mid-game players who are transitioning to speed teams should even consider building Ardella here. Her attribute advantage allows her to be a pretty reliable source of armor break on her 1st skill, while her passive basically means she only needs 60% crit rate to have a 100% chance of critting any water monster here.

Raids:

Ardella rose to relevance when raids was released, as players realize just how powerful her attacks are. In terms of damage, the only other monster that reliably rivals her output is Xiao Lin. While Ardella is easier to skill up and has more consistent damage, Xiao Lin boasts far superior defensive stats and stronger burst damage on her 3rd Skill. In the end, it really is up to you and your rune quality to see which one is a better fit for your team.

An Ardella in raids should ideally be built with a good amount of speed to take advantage of her 2nd Skill, which has easily over 750% attack multipliers on a two-turn cooldown if you can get around 200 speed on her. A Vampire rune set is ideal for her, although it isn’t unheard of to have some players building her on Violent. Either way, Ardella is a very stat-intensive monster, requiring pretty much a good amount of stats everywhere in order to be reliable. You can even opt to run a slot 6 HP% rune on her if you have a good amount of ATK% substats everywhere else, she doesn’t need that much to do well.

ToA:

With single-target skills, lack of CC and overall squishiness, Ardella can be difficult to fit in both your manual and auto teams. The variety of elements found in ToA makes her debuffs inconsistent and it can be difficult to differentiate her from other nukers like Theomars and Sigmarus here. If you already have other nukers, you shouldn’t be building an Ardella solely for ToA, or even use her here.

PvP:

While she does have amazing damage, especially in PvE content, Ardella’s lack of utility doesn’t make her stand out from most other monsters when it comes to PvP. The lack of any notable debuffs or unique characteristics like self-buffs or ignore defense pretty much make her the same as almost any other nuker. Her single-target attacks are generally overkill in Arena, but barely makes a dent if there isn’t attack buff or defense break. Lastly, she is greatly held back by her poor support stats, with a base defense on par with the notoriously squishy Perna and almost 5,000 hp lower. While she may suffice in extremely early-game arena, she simply will not work anywhere past mid-game.

How to Counter

A single defense break or attack buff from a nuker will be enough to eliminate Ardella in a single-hit. You’re very unlikely to have any issues countering her so long as you can get the first turn off. Past very early-game arena, you won’t come across an Ardella in defense, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual proper defense with one before.

Other advice:

• As mentioned, pretty much every stat is relevant for Ardella. She needs a good amount of supportive stats like HP, defense and resistance to be sustainable in raids, while having a good amount of attack, speed, crit rate and crit damage to warrant her use here.

Editor’s Note

Ardella definitely does her job well in raids. However, she’s on a pretty interesting and unfortunate situation right now. Newer players who can benefit from her in raids are unlikely to have the rune quality to do so. While more advanced players will generally have other alternatives in place of her. While I can definitely recommend building one, I don’t think she’s worth it at all unless you know for sure that you have the runes and situation to do so.

Scepter

Additional Notes

The harmful effects that Skill 1 Magic Arrow casts are as follows:

• Attribute advantage = Decrease Defense for 2 turns
• Equal attribute advantage = Weaken Attack for 2 turn
• Attribute disadvantage = Sleep for 1 turns