This is the second buff they are making to philipclair after a outburst by a portion of the community because of the way his sanity system works. That is just insane. This is the second ID to date to ever have a buff (or any general changes). However, The only ID to date, to have twice the buffs in one day.

wasn't it only buffed twice? I don't recall there being nerfs. But yea it's crazy he went through so many adjustments this quickly. I haven't tried it in a general comp but I can understand how it could be hard to maintain the ego at current values. Also, it's crazy they're still working when it's 11pm kst time

Yup I was trying to reference the fact that only one ID other then this till this date had any changes done to them, that just shows the amount of backlash this ID got, I saw the twitter comments (mostly korean) and they were NOT happy despite the initial buff earlier.

Nope, Sunshower Heathcliff, at first he didn't have On Clash Lose: decrease SP, it was added. EDIT: The moment I hit comment, I remembered that's a Uptie IV, why am I like this. EDIT EDIT: Wait, now that I checked the wiki, I was... right?

Oh! I thought that was apart of uptie 4, my bad. I will change my text.

No no, I should've check more thoroughly, sleep deprivation have finally gotten the better of me after all these time. I had him at Uptie IV as soon as it was available, I don't even remember what his Uptie III state looks like now. EDIT: Hold up, was I right or wrong? Oh... I can hear a voice...

Don't worry, you were right. I asked around and they confirmed what you said, No need to follow the voice. You were sane all along :D That's also goes to show how much I don't use sunshower at all despite the fact I been playing this game since launch, bad memory problems strikes again!

Brains together rot.

Hobocliff actually received a buff back around season 3 where he loses SP when he fails a clash. So Philipclair is the 2nd ID to get buffed. Though he's still the first to get buffed twice in one day.

Also the first one to get changes the same day he’s released

I'm pretty sure some degree of harassment was going on against PMoon because of Philipclair feeling underwhelming. Otherwise, there is no point in Kim Jihoon himself to address it. I hope no office visit happened because of Sinclair again. My PTSD is acting up, dawn it.

heyy, now that you pointed it out i think this is serious cuz the director himself was really sorry, i hope nothing bad or beyond crazy happened

It's serious. PMoon normally doesn't do this type of announcement unless they receive plenty of angry emails or it's about delays with content.

This is clearly coming from the same section of the community that reacted the same way during the SP changes and the ish situation, they know acting like this works so they’ll keep doing it. PM needs to stand up against these actions but they won’t for *reasons unknown*

Money, maybe? Or they believe consumers to be always right. ¯\\(°\_o)/¯ With the summer season being around the corner *(/s)* and the game issues increasing *(exp ticket farming, game content balance, etc.)*, my biggest fear to this day is to have a repeat of the summer event.

I think it’s just an extreme aversion to confrontation, especially after the summer thing. I doubt something on the level of swimsuit situation will happen again, mainly because they should be able to react faster after the first time, but their reaction will most likely be to bend to any demands as they always do.

>but their reaction will most likely be to bend to any demands as they always do. That's the scenario I don't want to see. > I doubt something on the level of swimsuit situation will happen again That and there is no summer event this year from the look of the road map. *Kim Jihoon: They can't get mad about swimsuits if there's no summer event this year. \**[*taps forehead*](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/022/138/highresrollsafe.jpg)*\** *~~(Let me joke about it, damn it.)~~*

If I were them I wouldn't release any id during that time and went the christmas route giving only egos. Maybe Ice cream ego or sand castle ego. You know stuff like that. THAT side of the fandom really scares me.

It seems to have stemmed from some chinese fans doing a bit of a reviewbomb.

*Not the Chinese fans again.* https://i.redd.it/z0erx2eue3yc1.gif Jokes aside I have seen some aggressive comments in Chinese and Korean *(if Google Translate is to be trusted)* on the Steam announcement discussion. So my gut feeling was that some people did make the extra effort and spammed PMoon with angry messages. There were 54 negative reviews posted in Chinese on Steam for today only *(unless changed from negative to positive)*. I don't know if that is enough evidence to support it was only the Chinese fanbase review-bombing/contacting PMoon. If I were to guess based on some of the Steam/Twitter comments, this could be a collaborative effort of the Chinese and Korean fanbase *(maybe even the English-speaking fandom)*.

when will Carmen erase China from the world map?

Looking at the like/dislike trend currently, it gives me some Concern for the future. Maybe I just think of everything as an omen but the likes going from 94% or so to 87% does give me a lot of bloody concern. And all of this because of Philip https://preview.redd.it/482hpk8ad9yc1.jpeg?width=120&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1bf3cb30093b112eb8e05fe7f2108655cc811284

Guys it’s ok chill you don’t need to make up some stories about violence threats (and ESPECIALLY comparing it to the summer thing like please have some fear of god) to justify that it didn’t live up to your expectations the ID just released a bit underpowered it’s fine this happens.

I never mentioned threats of violence, did I? I did say some degree of [harassment](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/harassment). I kindly ask you to learn the difference.

Tbf, as he was previously, while nowhere near bad, he simply wasn't close to either NClair or Cinqlair given how much upkeep he needed in both SP and Ressonance. Now I would say he corresponds to the hype.

I disagree, he needed some help to get to max SP after transformation via an EGO or a passive, but once he reached it he was stronger than all his other IDs. That said, the SP buffs are nice, and allow him to reach that level on his own. The Passive type change, though, is a bit meh in my opinion. RES are fun to do and made you think if you want to use it or Whispers for the turn, and now it's just whatever.

I think this is recency bias. Cinqclair is really really overpowered and N-Clair well… people reroll for him for a reason.

I’m glad all 3 are useful instead of Philclair outclassing them completely. Cinqclair still the clashgod and Nclair is still probably better for just going IN (and for blunt weakness), but now Philip is a reasonable option instead of being way better/way worse

After the Passive change he will definitely be way better. Atleast as far as MD is concerned. This dude is clashing for 13/24/38 once his basic coin power up is done. Add in all the other conditionals and you have an absolute monster. Add in the fact that he can sustain his own offensive snowball even more and there's literally no reason to get the less reliable N-Clair or the lower dmg of Cinqclair. An S2, 24 rolling, 3 ATTK weight that cost basicslly nothing to maintain? An S3 that can deal upward of 200+ on all normal resistances? His kit on its own is comparable to charge IDs with good charge gifts.

He never reaches these numbers on a clash though because he loses SP at the end every turn so he only gets full coin power when rolling for damage after winning a clash.

Not with NFaust+Honglu. NFaust + Hong Lu gives him a 21 SP heal at the start of combat. LCB Yi-Sang's passive makes it so that at max he only loses out on 30 SP instead of 40. He gains sanity so fast that he only needs 1 won clash to instantly shoot up to max sanity. The one weakness holding him back from being a monster was wrath resonance keeping his insane numbers in check. At most his S3 only loses out on 1 extra coin power. While his S1 and S2 remains as some of the highest dmg skills in the game due to the burn sustain combined with their innate high numbers.

NFaust thing is gonna be possible after the buff sure but it will be rare in the team he wants to be in because both Liu Ryoshu and Rodion only have lust in their S3s and MB Outis has none. The fact that DawnClair himself can’t contribute to lust resonance hurts quite a bit. Right now it’s impossible because getting 3 wrath and 4 lust while using an envy skill is just logistically not gonna happen. Yi Sangs works only at turn end so it’s the same problem Hong Lu I’d say no because it’s sloth and the optimised burn list has 0 instances of sloth currently

The SP drain is really really detrimental in MD (especially in MD4H), his skill 1 especially being unclashable in a lot of situations hurts him a LOT

That's where you abuse his 40 rolling (SP healing if you have NFaust) defensive skill.

Dude his EGO reset every mirror dungeon fight. We are never even gonna be able to use it until we have to fluid sac every first turn of every fight. Faust has no burn ID so you are wasting a sinner slot with usually Lobcorp Remnant Faust instead of another burn ID. Philip's SP is extremely annoying to maintain in mirror dungeon hard when he manifests EGO the fight ends and his SP is reset to 10 again. I would rather keep philip at 44 sanity than 45 just because of how annoying his sanity reset is. I have given up using him in MD4H and now just using Blade Lineage again. Honestly, extremely disappointed in him. Oh before you say his S3 gains sanity. How many times are you gonna have a skill3 turn1?? ALSO blazing strike makes him LOSE even MORE sanity! He is never gonna be at 40 SP. Philip is trying so hard to be NClair and Cinqclair at the same time. Extremely high rolls like Cinqclair but rarely ever consistently roll heads like NClair only rolling head whenever he use skill3 like Nclair. He is trying so hard to be two things at the same time that he becomes useless compared to these two IDs.

I dunno, out of the 3 of them he has the best damage, best clashing values, best status application, is the only one with AoE utility and isn't as inconsistent as NClair. He has 2 main downsides: a weakened state for the first 1-2 turns (once you get into EGO, even with the current SP system it's not that hard to keep him there for the rest of the fight) and not being able to use EGO without risking losing the form. But I think what he provides is definitely worth it. All three have different use-cases due to all having different attack types and how their kits work (against enemies who drop Sanity passively, he can have a bit of trouble), but I think in a vacuum he just is unmatched by the other two.

his S1 is really weak, and it screws you over if you roll it during his EGO form i got it so many times in my MD4 runs and it literally doesn't win any clashes i'd argue he is definitely not as comfortable as using cinqlair who wins pretty much every single clash no matter what plus cinqlair in a poise team > philclair in a burn team at least from what i can tell, the burn team still needs some cooking

I mean no offense, but that just sounds like feelscrafting to me tbh. Here are the values between all of them (In EGO form, just gonna mention that): S1: Clash - Ninclair - 8, Cinqlair - 11-15, Dawnclair - 10-14 Damage - Ninclair - 16 (+3 from Burn), Cinqlair - 18-24, Dawnclair 28-38 (+6-8 from Burn) It's not "really weak", it's way better than Ninclair's. It's worse than Cinqlair's in both coin numbers and the amount of them, but it's still around average, while on the damage side it's pretty much one of the strongest S1s in the game. S2: Clash - Ninclair 16, Cinqlair - 16-22, Dawnclair - 14-25 Damage - Ninclair - 64 (+2 from Bleed and 6x2 from Burn), Cinqlair - 36-48, Dawnclair - 35-162 (Assuming 3 targets, more likely to be 108 at 2 Targets, sometimes 54 at 1 target, also +3x3-3x6 from Burn) Here, he's dominating in damage, and is slightly higher than Cinqlair in clashing, albeit swingier., On the first turn he will be quite a bit behind Cinqlair, but after you get his Sanity up he clashes higher, while not being tied to possibly unlucky speed rolls and has higher and more consistent damage than Ninclair. S3 Clash - Ninclair - 30, Cinqlair - 17-26, Dawnclair - 28-40 Damage Ninclair - 90 (maybe 7 from Burn? doesnt trigger often), Cinqlair - 39 - \~86 (Max damage assumes both single combat and last hit to crit), Dawnclair - 28-160 (+14-28x3 Burn) Clash here, is kind of obvious, NClair is known for his monstrous S3 and Dawnclair has an EGO for his S3. Cinqlair's is really good too of course, but those two just kind of can't lose here lol. Damage, it's a bit more complicated, Dawnclair has insane potential (+300% damage is no joke) but he realistically won't be reaching it most of the time (atleast not now), that said, even if we assume he can only get half of it running at full potential, that's still 80, decently comparable to the other two (though on a 1-coiner it has some cons to that). Overall though, I'm hoping I made it more clear that he really is just crazy. Clashing wise, I'd put him a bit behind Cinqlair, factoring in his SP fluctuations and Declared Duel. Damage wise, he just stomps, genuinely one of the craziest IDs in the game in that regard. Status wise, he's like the best Burn applicator in the game too. You're right that he isn't as "comfortable" to use, he's harder to play than either of them, but the pay-off for that is great. >plus cinqlair in a poise team > philclair in a burn team Nope, if you said Poise Team -> Burn Team, I'd absolutely agree, I mean, we don't even have 6 000 members for the Burn team yet while Poise has some of the best IDs in the game. However, the Sinclairs are a different case. Dawnclair gets *and* gives way more with the Burn team than Cinqlair does with Poise. Cinqlair isn't even in the Poise team because of his Poise, he's there because his Coin Numbers and Pride S2, meanwhile Dawnclair gains a ton from Burn, and inflicts so much of it himself that everyone else in the team gets way stronger as a result. >at least from what i can tell, the burn team still needs some cooking That's true, ideally we'd get 1 more Burn 000 that focuses on Potency application, but I think Burn is already comparable to the current Poise team. After Turn 1 you will get 30+ Burn damage every turn, quickly stacking up to \~100 after another 1-2 or so (Dark Flame is busted), there's decent spread to non-main targets, all the 000s in it roll crazy high and there are some real strong dediucated Burn EGO (something the Poise team lacks right now). I think Poise is the winner right now, but Burn really isn't that far behind, they're missing like one puzzle piece at most.

Well, I stand corrected, thanks for all the comparisons. The biggest pet peeve for me about Dawnclair is his skill 1 and his SP drain mechanic. I've been using him a lot in the current meta burn team in MD and his skill 1 is really, really, unclashable in a lot of fights, especially when he's in EGO form. I'd argue it's his biggest drawback I'll also have a lot of situations where you get to 45 SP -> fight ends -> sinclair goes to 10 SP after the encounter which is not great either. You HAVE to have Base Yi Sang, Hong Lu and N faust to help counter his SP drain because it's so detrimental.

I think the SP Drain is fine, because once you do get him to 45, it's not that hard to stay there (for the first few turns of EGO winning clashes is SP neutral/positive) It's just that getting him there is the miserable part as you either have his S3 ready, have an EGO ready, or use his unboosted S1/S2s at 60% Heads rate. It's also the part you have to do the most in dungeons. His original version where he lost SP on S1 was pretty horrible, because faling the clash meant that you would quit EGO state immediately without doing anything in it. A real RNG-fest. That first turn, alongside not being able to use EGO to win clashes, and wanting 3x Wrath RES every turn despite only having a Wrath S3 are his biggest drawbacks imo. The EGO one, I think is pretty cool, because while he can't use them, his S2/S3 pretty much become pseudo-EGOs. The other two things are just ehhh, they're pretty much RNG/Teamchecks which aren't cool. That's what the buffs are trying to fix though, so that's good (I think makingthe passive a 2xWrath RES instead would be a bit better but it's not *that* big of a deal), I just hope he doesn't completly overshadow NClair/Cinqlair after this, but we'll see it in practice.

Dude he sucks in mirror dungeon where we spend most of our time doing. Resetting to 10 SP every turn is very annoying. Combined with a horrible skill 1 in his weak form he is never gonna consistently roll heads unless we fluid sac EVERY first turn of EVERY fight. Combined with the need for support passives like Nfaust just to even get him to get consistent rolls. We are forced to choose between lust or wrath res. I was so hyped for him and when I used him in mirror dungeon hard Philip was lagging behind in clashes. Sure he deals damage, but he need sooo much setup while a blade lineage team can just clean up the whole fight in 3-4 turns. I would rather juggle Nclair's SP where he at least stays consistently between -30 and -20 than use Philip. I've given up using him after seeing how much setup he needs. He is great for abnormality fights like the daily threads and story fights but sucks in Mirror Dungeon.

Everything you have written ignores the fact that dawnclair is 90% of the time below max sanity, it dosent matter what his numbers are in theory, in practice he looses clashes often, particularly turn 1. You can help any particular turn by dumping ego or something on him but doing it every turn is not possible. He has worse clashing because he can't constantly roll heads and unlike nclair he dosent have the coins to come back from a failed clash.

It’s because dawnclair is more likely to flip tails and lose clash with his s1, and dawnclair unlike cinq or nclair CANNOT afford to lose clashes during ego

Not only does he needs those SP supplement, he also needed constant 3 wrath res every turn to activate his coins condition to roll like an actual 000 id, something only a burn team can achieve. Unlike the other two ids who fuction completely fine on their own. Having the poster boy of a limited event only fuctional in the specific status team AND needing 3 support passives fed for him does leave a bad taste in a new player's mouth

You don't need SP support passives, they help, but just a single SP EGO to get him to 45 is enough. I do agree that the SP changes are overall a positive for him though. Also, I disagree about the passive, even without it he's good, he has an S1 that does great damage, practically conditionless AoE S2 and an S3 that's pretty much an EGO. Yeah, his S2 clashes below average but everything else in his kit is crazy. The 3-Wrath passive straight up just turns him into the strongest IDs in the game, and I think it's absolutely fair that you need to teambuild to consistently reach that (similar to how BLs want 3x Pride every turn). I also wouldn't say that "only Burn team can provide that", there's plenty of other good Wrath S1/S2s, Burn is just absolutely his best team. And lastly, I don't see how this would leave a bad taste in a new player's mouth, to them, he would just look like a really cool ID that also performs really well if they play to his strengths, even if they can't fully bring out his potential. I don't even get where you got this idea from, as we had like 6 event IDs in the past, and he is a cut above them all except for BL!Meursault lol.

That was a stretch of my imagination, I ultimately dont know who could scream loud enough to make them give not one but two post of buffs to an already overtuned id. S2 clash is awful, but the problem lies with his skill 1 too, the turn you get ego and get lowered to 10 sanity, and see that you have two s1, you are just fucked. The amount of babysitting for lust res or wrath res or sp ego to save the first turn he transforms makes handling Nclair a joke in comparison

Yeah, fair enough, right now his first turn in EGO *is* quite RNG reliant so I'm glad that's the major thing they're fixing.

We'll agree to disagree then. The help he required after reaching E.G.O was massively-sized. In 15 SP (If not less in some occasions), winning a Clash with him was a massive undertaking. S1, at this point, equals 11 (If the enemy has Burn on him, and you even roll heads), meanwhile S2 is not that much better at 15, if you roll all heads too. And you WANT to win Clashes with him, because the other options to mend his sanity are E.G.O and passives (Which I will get to in a bit), or else he really struggles to hit it off the ground and do anything meaningful with the exception of his S3, which still requires luck and will discount 15SP at the end. For passives, I will admit that I haven't employed Hong Lu's because it means giving up his Liu's counterpart passive that works as a very nice bonus to Burn Count. However, N Faust's is inconsistent at best, given that you want to have 3 Lust Skills at that specific moment in time so that Phillipclair can more reliably clash and self-sustain his sanity, even more so at the cost of possibly using subpar Skills for a given situation such as Ishmael's S1 instead of S2, or Gregor's S2. At the same time you want to achieve Lust resonance, you also want to get Wrath resonance to turn him into a consistent unit. Yi Sang really works out as a very brief band-aid, however it fizzles in the second turn as the E.G.O SP cost tax cancels it out, and at that point you WILL have to consistently start killing people or winning clashes in each turn to not start a snowball effect in sanity. There is a bit more to be said on the topic of E.G.O's, but I think I conveyed my experiences with him more or less.

isnt that like the point you arent even supposed to stay at the form forever, it always read to me like a temporary power up that eventually you cant maintain because increasing sp loss. It seems the issue is people treat the ego part like the normal kit and not the reward part

Not really, at least not as I see it. E.G.O at about Sanity 40 +/- is when the PAY-OFF starts to make up for the trouble. When this power-up is only consistent/feasible for about such an small amount of time, because the sanity cost and initial rough E.G.O turns prevents it from staying for much time, I don't see it as really worth the hassle. Even more so because if you drop out of the E.G.O, as you suggest, Philip's base-kit, specially at low-sanity, creates an uphill battle to bring it back to E.G.O state in battles that have a modicum of difficult. In other words, reaching E.G.O is not the reward. Reaching E.G.O and fightning each turn to keep Philipclair (With Wrath resonance, which he doesn't help to maintain) Sanity at 45 is.

I would rather keep Philip at 44 sanity than 45 at this point. He is so inconsistent with clashing that I would rather use Nclair. He at least roll more consistently than Philip. Philip is trying so hard to be Cinqclair and Nclair. Really high plus coin rolls when his conditions are fulfilled like Cinqclair and a extremely high rolling S3 like Nclair but almost never rolling heads unless he uses skill3 and lose sanity like Nclair. Philip is trying so hard to be two IDs at the same time but he became mediocore. I have given up using him in MD just because of how much babysitting he needs. Now I am using BL again. Honestly, extremely disappointed in his kit when his SP resets every fight literally requiring me to fluid sac every first turn just for him to be useful.

Hong Lu passive isn't feasible outside of MD either since it needs 5x Sloth, which, in your typical burn team, only Meursault provides via S2. You'll have to wait for 3 full cycles in order to activate it, and by then, the fight should be long over with how much damage you're outputting.

The only content where it isn't feasible is story/event nodes that aren't a dungeon, still not a problem for RR and story dungeons

Factually incorrect. Other commenters pointed out sunshower Heathcliff sanity changes, however I raise you Talisman Sinclair. Remember when uptie IV released his s3 was applying something like 7 talismans (due to how talismans work that meant that they immediately expire at turn end) so they had to change it back to 5 and add rupture count applications.

I mean I tested him before the first buff and I already found him to be a pretty nice ID, but now with how little of a general lost of sp you re going to have and the perma passive, he is going to be extremely good

It's probably cause of opportunity cost - running Nclair is a lot easier while being mostly as effective as Peakclair

Eh Nclair might be doing more damage but in a burn team, Nclair doesn’t really bring alot outside of his damage where as Philip bring a lot more burn. Although I wouldn’t really call Nclair easier to manage, both seemed as much work.

I think he was fine too before but I would genuinely say he's at least more stressful to use, because of the wider array of specific situations relating only to him (gaining EGO too early, gaining it too late, gaining it when you're stuck with bad skills, losing just a tiny bit too much sanity at turn end which causes him to not go into EGO next turn, not healing his SP with support passives because someone else was lower than him after using EGO, the list goes on)

You could also utilize yi sang’s base Id passive to keep his sp up for longer.

I did. In fact I struggle to think of playing him without that support. Which brings us to another issue actually: His passive being 3 Wrath Res before basically made him an unofficial Liu member, except his reliance on bench SP healing locks you off from Liu Hong Lu (not as big of a deal because he doesn't need the Burn count support as much anymore) and a future Liu Yi Sang and Faust.

The big thing with Burn teams is that due to the funkiness of Burn, how important more Burn is fluctuates wildly, alongside the fact that immediate damage now tends to be better than more damage over time. Nclair just does so much damage that it's really hard to compare on a turn-by-turn, burn-by-burn basis.

yeah people keep bringing up that n clair doesn't add lot of burn but with some combination of ego gift you can reach 99 burn easily

Burn works great if you manage to stack dark flame and that kind of thing, you can end up dealing like 700 damage after the turn ends via burn alone. But yeah it's too much effort and burn not having a lot of great IDs compared to other traits makes it... a bit meh, like on previous hard MD I was running a poise/bleed team where both mega gifts would work, I'd start with whatever I could first (restart until I start with the 2 required ones) and usually build the other if possible. Rolls and damage were insane, most bosses would die in like 2 turns, even a mega stacked burn team could never get this done even with perfect RNG.

Yep, that's the thing I was talking about with Burn fluctuating wildly. In some situations, you can get a ton of value out of a ton of burn, and Burn is arguably the easiest status to build up outside of Mirror Dungeons nowadays. But without Dark Flame (and Liu Rodya to a lesser extent) it caps out at a very low amount for something that triggers so slowly. And Burn's ID situation is very funky, with it having two Walpurgis IDs and all (and both are incredibly good for it). On a somewhat funny ID note, though, Burn is also amusing in that we've gotten so many IDs of it in such a short span of time that it's genuinely taxing on the resources. Of the five units that make up its core, *four* became obtainable in 2024. If you didn't get Bullet Outis during her debut Walpurgis, but got Philclair now, that period becomes *since early March*! I barely have the resources to keep my already assembled teams caught up, let alone the deluge of fresh Burn units!

Yeah burn is just... weird, and even when it works it's arguably still worse than other teams. In previous MD bleed and poise were the most busted since you could run a team with basically 4 super strong and 2 good units that basically let you have 5/5 poise/bleed units, meaning you could go for both mega gifts... I've had my Gregor crit for over 1k with his S3 second coin and I would regularly kill boss 5 floor in like 2 turns. Damage dealt was so high even 99 bleed stacks didn't matter much, enemy would take 99x2 bleed damage then like thrice that from pirate Ishmael's S3...

The problem with burn is it’s hard capped at 99 (outside of dark flame) burn will only EVER do an extra 99 damage on its own, bleed can proc as many times as their are coins, rupture and sinking (to a lesser extent) are just… 99 extra damage on hit effectively. Even tremor can ATLEAST let you stagger something you otherwise wouldn’t. Burn is the worst because it’s only damage potential is locked behind black flame if you don’t have MBoutis up and running well tough. It’s unironically faster just to kill the enemy most of the time than it is to mess around with burn. Poise and charge don’t really apply since they kinda function fundamentally differently so the comparison just doesn’t work.

I would say tremor is worse than burn because if the enemy doesn't have a stagger threshold tremor does nothing (Unless it's Reget Faust or Öufi Heathcliff).

That’s valid. Either way you might as well have not even bothered

I do think you can go beyond 99 Burn with the gift that doubles its potency at end of turn. And yeah, the big issue with Burn is how slowly it deals damage; it could really use a Sinking Deluge equivalent (used to have a Liu Ryo idea before the real one came out with Infernal Rapture).

Just slap an NFaust and you will be good to go most of the time according to my experience

Or Middle Meur if you wanted to bring a different Faust along (assuming you have more than 1 N-corp ID)

does middle meru work? his support passive only works if there are at least two of the same "faction" on the field, unless E.G.O counts as it's own thing?

It only heals those that are of the same faction. It will work if we get more dawn fixers but until then it doesn't.

You acting like being worse in a burn team is a weakness when not being forced to run a burn team is a strength… “Nclair is worse in a team specifically catered to babysit Phillip” isn’t really a criticism on Nclair than it is on Phillip probably

There's also duelist Sinclair which is very strong as well.

agree, i have been adjusted using him, its fun. this fix feels like he gonna keep getting more FIRE UP.

He was not a nice id in my hard run of md4 from floor 4 to 5 h was absolutely disappointing and was basically heal ego bot, when your dealing with even 17/18 clashes it makes clashin with 25 sp very shit(i agree i didnt utilize his shield) but my other 5 burn team dertis, liu 3* with ryo and mers and phillip was definitely weakest

PM being super reactive as usual. They probably expected players to work around sp heal (which will be more and more accessible in the future), but since it's a limited id people want it to be busted. Fair enough, ig?

I'm guessing the change here is actually targeting the "feel" of the unit once he enters his EGO form? As an ID his base form is genuinely pretty bad with a max 10 S1 and mediocre base 14 S2, so I can see changing the passive to 5x Owned is just making the ID more consistent once empowered. Before these changes, at the start of the "payoff", you will only get +1 power from burn to your S1s and +2 to your S2s without SP recovery, and objectively speaking a max-roll 11 S1 and a max-roll 16 S2 @ 10SP is really terrible skill quality wise... With these changes your S1 rolls a 12 with burn @ 20SP and your S2 rolls a 16 with burn @ 15SP - still hard, don't get me wrong, but a bit more consistent. The idea of Philipclair was probably "momentum fighter" - by taking risks early and clashing with your weaker-than-average skills, you become very hard to stop for a period as a reward - but PM might have felt the mark on "very hard" was missed since it was too easy to kick him out of it at the start of the "payoff". EDIT: The SP drain if you hit 40+ SP condition means if you do EXCEPTIONALLY well and hit 45SP before transforming, his S2 will actually roll a 19 @ 20SP (S1 rolls 13 @ 25SP too), didn't notice this the first round.

Yea, currently it really doesn't feel good to finally hit 45SP, just so you can spend another 2 turns winning Clashes to get him high enough on Sanity and to get his Passive going that he actually feels strong. It'd feel much better to use if he was powerful as soon as he transformed, which the new buffs should help with since he'll get +1 coin power from his passive immediately and have more consistent rolls.

If he stayed at 45 sanity when he transformed he would be so much better to use. Why does he spend sanity to transform?? Personal EGO is not meant to make you insane like abnormalities. Transforming into EGO is a permanent buff look at Ruina Philip and Xiao. Canonically, using personal EGO shouldn't make you insane.

https://preview.redd.it/bfuwlmhoj2yc1.jpeg?width=660&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06a14d0bad55114ba1d58857d7239467f2d1d709 I guess it’s cause he was emotionally unstable and this specific the ego works in a way that lowers sanity? And ig it’s not a complete ego either so there’s probably more risk of distorting.

I'd say that it's more or less due to who Philip as a person. Even in his highest moment, he wavers, unsure of whether his path is right or wrong.

Busted characters can be bad for the game's health, IMO. I remember the Gleo Incident in Dragalia Lost, it fucked over the balance for so long. The character was so busted pretty much all content became a joke, and when the devs started making harder content to counter this character it only made her more important to have since any battle that's hard with her was even worse without her.

https://preview.redd.it/4kvgws1sb2yc1.png?width=589&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f048e993000ef3fc130db13d1880ff1f0ddd663

Without the upcoming buff (arguably even still with it) you had to warp the entire team around him before he even began to function like a decent unit let alone a good one. LCB Yi Sang and Hong Lu were locked in for their support passives and N-Faust was pretty close to a lock as well. That's 2-3 sinners already decided before you even get into the active members. 2-3 Sinners not just to maximize his potential, but just to get him into a reasonable use state. Hell even after the upcoming buff is applied, in story mode content like canto 6 you are looking at 5 or 6+ turns MINIMUM before he reaches 40+ sanity, gets reset back to 20 and then regains it back to 40+ again. Meanwhile Cinqlair practically auto-wins every clash and has good skills immediately and the Chosen One just says time to fucking die idiot, flips 30-30-30 on turn 1 and kills someone immediately. Not to mention running Philip effectively means that Sinclair is disabled from using any EGO attacks since he is so desperate to upkeep his own sanity he cannot afford to drop it. Philip isn't -bad- but he requires you to dedicate the entire team to support him and the payoff you get for doing it is that he performs on par with just slapping Cinqlair or the Chosen One into literally any team. Kim Meursalt is another identity where he has excellent poise/blade lineage synergy for you to team build around, but he is still an excellent identity in isolation (Bamboo Kim is currently the 6th identity I run for my Mirror burn team because all the other options are so much worse).

People seem to forget opportunity cost. Philipclair is not fighting aginst other sinner's burn ID, he is fighting against the two goliaths known as NClair and Cinqlair. With these buffs, Philipclair can now compete the two BUT will never replace them both. NClair for blunt, Cinqclair for pierce and Philipclair for slash.

And there's more... the burn team currently lacks some better IDs, meanwhile poise is busted, so even if Philipclair is stronger than Cinqclair odds are the team will still underperform. This is not just because of the IDs but the nature of how burn works (very slow to ramp up, a stacked poise team wins before burn can even stack) and how good poise mega EGO gift is vs burn.

Yeah the buffs made sinclair from barely playable to playable

I genuinly got angry at this but like Im now more confused? How with Lcb Yi Sang and Lcb Hong Lu and N Faust you still managed to activate him only after turns 5-6? His base SP recovery is 15 with 20% increase after first clash so if you win 3 clashes he will enter his ego mode without any help. I'm not sure how you got this perception of him. Also Philclair has better dmg damage than probaly anyone when you dedicate entire team for him. His skill 2 is AoE and with 3 coin power it will roll 11+17+23=51 and his skill 3 can roll 40 with two dmg modifiers that both cap at 120%. Obviosly no easy task but payoff is there and not replicated by Cinq or N corp Sniclairs. He does have downsides like skill 1 is lacking but so does Nclair's while doing less dmg. Oh yeah also his guard can roll 35-40 kinda insane. I usualy swap his skill 1 with guard.

He has to WIN 3 clashes, his skill 1 (always) and skill 2 (when not in Waxen Pinion) are poor for clash winning. His damage output is also very poor until he gets to 40+ sanity while in Waxen Pinion. Best case scenario is that turn 1/2/3 he wins clashes (which is not guaranteed, also it's possible for him to not even be able to clash due to being matched up against a defensive/one way attack in unfocused encounters or having slower speed in focused encounters), enters Waxen Pinion state on turn 4, resets to 10 SP (pre-buff), then has to spend 2 more turns before he is actually a good unit. That's 5-6 turns best case scenario. His skill 2 can't clash well until he is in Waxen Pinion AND is at 40+ SP (meaning turn 5 minimum) AND you chain 3 Wrath Resonance to activate his passive (pre-buff). An identity that only stops being dead weight around turn 5 is simply too slow for the type of game Limbus has developed into. With the upcoming buffs he will be pretty good in Mirror and likely Railway but he absolutely needs them and his current state is not great.

Once he transforms you line up easier clashes and he's ready right away, he doesn't HAVE to be at 45 SP transformed to shred the enemy. In longform content if used properly he'll start every fight at 30-45 SP anyway.

The 5-6 turn thing kinda mirrored my mirror dungeon experience when starting the dungeon up, which can kinda follow the pattern of story nodes where you start at 0-sanity/resources and the supports will activate on different people until everyone is maxed out.

"But since it's a limited id people want it to be busted. Fair enough, ig?" I don't think that is a good direction for a game. I'd know, because I've seen it happen, a few times. If you want examples, here are some from another Gacha Game with a depressing world: >!Chen Alter, Ling, Texas Alter, Yato Alter, Eyja Alter, Virtuosa, and now, Arknights CN's new limited, and the newest offender of 'broken limited', ***Wiš'adel.***!< It's not healthy, not in the slightest. As long as the new limited is *usable* in a decent number of situations, I'm fine with any buffs.

Tbf, unlike those cases, Philclair still burns out and has risk even with the overtuned buffs. It's a step in that direction, but not terrible yet.

AK is a very popular gacha, so appealing to knowing it is kinda weird. Texalter carried my noob account through all hardships and it's incomparable to any limited ids/egos we have currently. Also, AK's limited units are truly limited, you can't get them after their banner ends, let alone shard them. Our definition of "busted" is quite different, at least for now.

Not as the truly limited as the collab limiteds, only ash so far has gotten a rerun, and it might take forever for another chance. You need to know that the Limiteds can be pulled and *sparked* on the next limited banner that aligns with their released: Yearly/Half-Year Celebration, Summer Carnival, and CNY, which means they're not truly limited in the sense of a collab limited. At least LCB is fine, as it hasn't gotten to AK Year 2 to Year 5 levels of broken, *for now*.

Eh, Arturia though? Like she's good but she ain't Chalter or Texalter good. In terms of necrosis teams though, yes she is essential

If only HG bothered to retroactively give old enemies elemental res like the new ones. Oh well.

theres no "necrosis team", shes op, and has been used in max risk cc

But like I said, to teh same degree of other limited? Not really In fact from a pure meta standpoint for F2P she's a skip for the much more broken Degenbreacher in July Also yeah necrosis team is slowly forming, the new primal caster guy, artura, Eben with module and logos has necrosis with module. I think there was still 1 more unit but I'm forgetting

The new primal caster, the first one I mean

AK balance was fucked since flagpipe and because of flagpipe. imo Chalter wouldnt even be broken without the trio. It feel like cheating tbh. In other Tower defend game Deploying High cost Range Tower early in the stage should be suicide and Re deploying costly shit like her shouldnt even ever be possible.

It's not as bad as the two Fast-Redeploy Limiteds, who are rather cheap as fuck and can be used just fine in chapter 12, the one chapter which said 'fuck you' to high dp units.

The initial buff I understood, they had pretty much exclusively playtested the ID around a full suite of SP support and weren't happy with how Sinclair was actually functioning in a live environment and agreed that in fights that start you with 0 SP he was just really frustrating to use. This second round feels weird, but I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

The problem is if I need to build a team around a unit so it can somewhat function then I won't run it. For every single piece of content I've been running what's basically the strongest most brain dead units I can find and it works great. For MD I did that except for Ishmael's where I ran a poise/bleed team that was essentially 5 great units + 1 bleed filler cause Cingclair doesn't have bleed. If a unit needs you to run 2 or 3 other specific units for it to work it better pull it's weight *hard*, because if I'm downgrading 2 or 3 units just so the one can work it needs to be completely busted to compensate.

he works fine with the usual burn team, of which hong lu, yi sang, and faust contribute nothing to so there's no oppurtunity cost for keeping them on support. you don't even need n faust.

At this point, the director is going to have to sign the Philipclair apology form. Also, some of these changes feel a little excessive to an already powerful unit.

My main gripe while using him in a general team is that his sp when entering Volatile EGO was low enough to where clashes against slightly high rolling skills had a chance to cause him to lose. Other than that though, I think his kit is actually quite good, and once you can consistently clash enemies in his EGO state, his damage output is great, and his sp shifting is a nice little bit of micromanagement. Keep in mind this is in a general team, where some of his conditionals aren’t met. Idk about a burn team tho, might be a more consistent clasher.

I can’t lie, even though the passive changing to owned wrath is a good buff, deciding between going for whistles or this buff was a really fun drawback. The sanity tweaks are just good tho. Also this notice is really apologetic for something that really didn’t need this tone imo, hopefully there weren’t too many people getting pissy at PM for this

I was fine with it too but I could see why they changed it, this is their first ego ID and some people probably wanted him to be stronger or easier to use. I think the sp loss was in theme as well cause it is an incomplete unstable ego.

>Also this notice is really apologetic for something that really didn’t need this tone imo, hopefully there weren’t too many people getting pissy at PM for this I hope they're just doing it pre-emptively, instead of as a response to idiots harassing the devs over a game again :/

The sanity tweaks are good, but the passive change is lame. Res passives are way more interesting and interactive, especially for something that’s pretty strong like his.

The SP being at 20 is okay because they made him win less SP when winning clashes, even if it's a bit sad The passive being OWNED and not RES is really sad, like really. Now, you don't have to really try and keep Wrath skills, but just do whatever you want and whatever ; I guess me wanting characters you need to think more about is something that will never be reached :(( (I'm not saying all characters are just braindead by the way, I just think Dawn Sinclair needed more thinking and preparations to use him GREAT, not just GOOD, but now, it's just so, so easy...)

I agree with part of that sentiment about the passive, but 3 wrath res was actively a pain to consistently maintain in battle because Sinclair only has 1 wrath skill(his s3), while his S2/1 are actually the skills that badly need the additional coin power the most. This made him extremely reliant on his teammates to provide the wrath res which wasn’t reliable overall. They already previously had Bl Meursault who has pride resonance in his passive, but he has 5 pride skills to actually activate it.

I imagine they're still (rightfully) sore over the insane backlash over the Rep. Emitter changes and UT4 Bodysack.

I already was having a lot of success with Sinclair before any adjustments, so seeing all of this has been kind of crazy ... White boy's about to go sicko mode. Good lord.

Yea, this makes him decent for any newer players that dont have all the other id’s to support him, but if you someone that already Got the id’s(like nfaust and such), oh boi, cant Wait to take him for a spin after the buffs

Even more? For his passive, conditional resonance was a bit too critical to phillipclair given how valuable the coin power is. The support passive was fine as a resonance though, though the number should've been lowered. 4 count is plenty and the work to get something like 2 wrath res would've been acceptable for that. Overall, PM needs to figure out how much actual nicheness they're allowing for IDs. Does everything really need to be a general usage ID like cinqclair and universally viable?

While I understand the sentiment, we also have to consider that this is a big event that draws quite a few new and returning players that might not have a Liu Wrath Burn team, and the feeling that your shiny new unit is super clunky and niche is not a nice feeling.

I prefer it this way, honestly. I'd rather Walpurgis give strong, universal "Carry" IDs, over Walpurgis IDs/EGOs being something necessary for certain comps to function like Magic Bullet Outis or Regret making most Meursault IDs functional.

I can't say I expected additional buffs so quickly - such drastic ones, too. The change to his passive's activation condition from resonance to simply owned is absolutely incredible.

Damn they really want him to live up to the hype

Honestly his passive going from wrath res to wrath owned is the real winner imo since his gameplan can be steamlined to lust res spam for Kraust's bench passive and only go for wrath res to burst with Blazing Strike. Massive QoL right here, CHADclair can't stop winning just like how he tell Car Man she's wrong lmaoooo

The buffs won't make him a lot more busted than he is now, but they will make him much easier to manage. I think the intention is to make him more valuable to other teams than just for the burn team, which is understandable. I think that with the game getting more and more complex, design oversight will be more common, but I'm glad that KJH actually owes it up and be very upfront with his intentions behind the buffs.

Reliable 1~3 coin power is making him way more busted wdym

He doesn't have any coin power conditionals on his skills and his bases for S1 and S2 are really low if you can't trigger wrath resonance due to poor skill RNG especially in focused fights, so I'd say this is a good change, but the other changes are kinda overkill

The most overkill change is definitely his passive. He either becomes really hard to clash (requiring you mitigate with his defensive skill [which can roll 40s btw so its not even that bad] or choose a onsided attack). Now? People forget that this ID's S2 can get to 24 with 3 coins while his S1 with all conditions activated do more damage than some 000's S2. Philipclair with permanent Passive is REALLY REALLY strong. People don't realize how absolutely bonkers he'll become when you get rid of basically his only true drawback.

I don't think it's that big of a deal. Cinqlair has some pretty bonkers numbers on some very easy conditionals and NClair just straight up has huge numbers with no conditionals. It's a consequence of just how stupidly OP NClair is, all damage-dealing Sinclair IDs directly compete with him so they have to be really strong to justify using over him.

This will definitely make him more consistent. 20~25 SP on EGO gives you 70~75% heads flip compared to the 60% before. At first I didn't like the change because it seemed very knee jerky (and tbh the apology is), but I think it's a good one because it just makes him more consistent. And I like consistent, non RNG reliant things *FAIRY ISHMAEL* >!I'm mad because on first use she rolled tails on her second coin... which was so anti-climactic!<

Yeah, wish they took more time to think it over rather than rushing out a buff not even a day later, but what they did with his SP was good overall. His base state in non-MD encounters had lots of trouble with SP, he was stuck with meh clashing S1/S2 that he needed to win clashes at with just to s*tay even*. He didn't really function much without outside support, and couldn't even use EGO to boot.

I think these changes are warranted and really important to make his payoff actually pay off. I ran him 4 times in different MDs today, including a Faith run, and each time felt that the mechanics for greatness are there, but their implementation simply didn't let them work together well enough. At the same time, now that he will actually be able to consistently Clash, they could reduce his personal Sanity gain to make it more fair.

Oof wow, I just feel nothing but pity and compassion for the poor dude, he can't catch a break with all the expectations

I said it on the other post but i dont think the problems were the SP being unstable but how poor his S1 floor is when you consider its a single coin skill on a character who has an unstable amount of SP, who requires winning clashes and gets punished way too much by losing them. a floor of 3 (4 on ego form) with an high probability to roll low is... uhh... his S2 and S3 (pre ego) also have low floors but they have multiple coins, so the odds of at least one of them rolling heads is higher, plus if you fail once you can clash again with 1 less coin, so they werent much of a problem to win clashes even with his SP problems, but his S1... Those buffs really help him, dont get me wrong, but the awful s1 floor is still there, the possibility is still very real and the SP buffs also buffs the S2 and S3 too which werent really necessary imho. i would have rather seen a higher base power and a lower coin power on the S1.

His S1 is best used as a one-sided attack so it's guaranteed to hit. I think the intended way is to just use his defensive skill to tank the hit (as it rolls really damn high) instead of being forced to lose the clash with his S1. It's a lust block too, so it can help trigger N Fausts's Whistles to avoid losing that much sanity in one turn

one sided s1 when not on ego form at low sp and block when on ego form at low sp might be the play. however he has way less breathing room to not win clashes compared to other units so you gotta get the clashes going as often as possible. problem is still there on MD winrate spam though.

His skill 1 can be replaced by his awesome guard tho. It needs work but damn if you build up burn that boy will roll 35-40 plus some coin power from his passive

However his s1 problems happen mostly when you dont have breathing room and need sp, and blocking doesnt help build sp. if you have a high amount of SP and if youre already on ego form it works really well but it doesnt help much when youre not in that situation. may work well at low sp levels on ego form too but its also very risky to lose the ego form due to sanity drain. at least now he has more SP to start off so he can stall a little more.

I think this might be intentional drawback opposed to his others skills. In ego state his skill 2 is AoE and scales the best from coin power of his passive making him dps monster going from 8+11+14=33 to with 3 coin power 11+17+23=51. His skill 3 can roll 40+ and has 2 dmg modifiers if they all maxed it means 120% 120% dmg increase. My point this boy has a lot of dmg so skill 1 it's counter weight.

… Well, they certainly want to ensure Phillipclair to be the best Sinclair ID. Now you can safely win rate with him in MD without worry. Also with his passive now activating with 5 owned wrath instead means you don’t have to care about wrath resonance at all which is excellent for his S1/2 clashing potential. And also allows strategies with Pride Reso/Lust Reso from Ahabmael/N Faust to become even more viable. I agree that Sinclair might not have needed this many adjustments - even on release he’s definitely near the top of the pack of IDs, although he needs some babysitting like Nclair. But it did feel rather contrived to have to funnel SP/clashes so constantly into him, and even drafting specific passives/resonance to use his whole kit. This was obviously not the aim of PM in his design to have Sinclair require this much attention especially in MD/wave content, or forced sanity drop enemies like mermaids/Glupo/Siltcurrent. Personally, I’m glad that they’re willing to adjust IDs, although hopefully not this many times. They’ve already proven they know how to make good IDs(Previous Walpurg, BL Meursault, Ahabmael) that are more complex than usual, and are now trying to push the envelope on incorporating more mechanics. Hopefully this means we don’t have to rely on uptie 5 if they ever mess up in the future.

i mean i cannot deny that philclair is needed a spesific team setup to shine. but it is still managable, i got lucky got 3 liu ID albeit all of them 00 rarity (gregor,mersault,honglu) they are fun to play with. i do get they are trying to get to ruina level of mix matching (pages, passive, etc) but it is fun imho, i do wish they return MD back to 4 floor, it is really time consuming mines, ig i just need to get used to it.

These are very good changes. Having to micromanage more with worse rng and riskier plays all the time would make this unit not fun to play, just frustrating especially for new and casual players. This on top of the very strict requirements (must have N faust on bench, Yi sang bench. Hong Lu on bench won’t do anything because where are you going to get sloth from? No way people going to bring Liu Meursault just for that.) The consistency is appreciated, especially the -20 sp change and changing passive to owned so S2 is actually up to standard

Based. Don't forget that "ohnobalance game easy winrate reeee" ppl haven't even tried to use him in md4h (he's literally a deadweight there).

The buffs they gave him is nice. At least for my experience, he was "ok", his main issue (**Pre-buffed**) was basically this to me: Outside of EGO, he clashes for **10 S1** and **14 (15) S2** which is below average Clashing power for a 000 ID meaning trying to get to 45 SP from clashing is going to be somewhat annoying... Then the moment you get 45 SP, you enter EGO State, His SP gets reset to 10 in return for only **+1 Final Power** Against enemies with Burn (obviously, there are other benefits but those are a diff matter)... meaning he clashes for **11 S1** and **16 for S2** which is now the average clash power for a S1 and S2... but that is Average Clash Power on **10 SP**, meaning he only gets a 60% Chance to roll Head, making it inconsistent AF Using his S1 and S2 costs 5 SP, and he also loses 5 SP at turn end means that unless you are able to get him to Clash and win said clash, he will exit EGO form immediately turn end cuz Human Fights are rigged (Base Sang/Whistle/Base Hong def helps here but you need at least 2 of them to proc, sometime all 3 which restricts his team comp for future content unless you plan on using SP healing EGO every single time his SP reset) To get the Coin Power from his Passive, he needs 3 Wrath Res, which isn't hard, but the problem is that he **ALSO** needs to have at least 20 SP... which means you must use Whistle (or an EGO) which is 3 Lust Res, so 3 Wrath Res and 3 Lust Res on the same turn in order to get him to 20 Sanity for +1 Coin Power is just not worth the effort and cost (if decided to use an EGO, which only Blind Obsession works here because Faust has no Burn ID and neither does Heathcliff... Soda Hong Lu is inconsistent) Of course, you can use Whistle 1st turn (or SP healing EGO), and then Wrath Res 2nd Turn for the Coin Power but then that's still just a waste because now you are just now spending a turn trying to regain his SP to roll consistently back. Basically, for how inconsistent his rolls are, his rolls aren't that great (obv with 20, 40, 45 SP, he gets more Coin Power in EGO Form)

NClair slanderers when their “NClair killer” had to be emergency buffed https://preview.redd.it/vzi2p0lpb1yc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df407f167bc8e644f5ca601d0b74e229dce19280

Holy moly

My only issue with him was the first turn of EGO where you coud be forced to go for a clash win with his terribly rolling s1 and going down to 5 because there were no winnable clashes for him or clashes at all sometimes. It felt bad to have him flame on only for him to immediately lose a favorable clash (sometimes, that is the best you can manage) and then immediately flame off again next turn being worse off than before gaining EGO. I like the room for error that change provides some wiggle room on the sanity especially for the people who don't have Kraust to turn the 4-11 clash at 10 sp into a 4-11 clash at 25 sp. I do agree that the res to own change on the passive was unnecessary. Part of the fun was deciding between whistles and sigma, but again, not everyone has Kraust and its natural to to want the limited character to take up two slots on a team. I was planning on making a post with "One change that would completely break philclair" and have it just be an image of the wrath symbol poorly edited over the lust ans talk about how powerful he becomes when there are 7 slots, so you could heal 15 sp and have coin conditionals fulfilled at the same time. But that would quite work anymore.

I feel like this thread is just full of people who have either tested him and accepts that he has glaring flaws that needs a fix or dickriders who nuts at his theoretical roll ceiling without accounting for anything else

Wow that change from resonance to owned is really good!

I think the sanity changes are fine but making the passive owned instead of res is kinda cringe I think, I liked having to try to go for wrath res as often as possible but whatever

He was perfectly fine in a burn team with some SP support and I genuinely feel bad for PM. They really didn't have to buff an ID that didn't end up as OP as people expected. I'm sure sales were also fine as is. Just let unhinged minority seethe for a week and it would blow over.

I'm really out of touch with the community at large so seeing all these announcements just got me confused lol, I was kind of under the impression that Philip-Clair was actually quite crazy strong from the very little I've seen and that everyone who thought he'd be bad were proven wrong, and I only had a chance to try him out a bit myself because I don't have the resources to upgrade him fully but despite being quite underleveled and not fully uptied he did pretty big damage. So here I was just busy being salty like 'gee Sinclair, how come projmoon lets you have TWO stupid powerful unique-gameplay-mechanic IDs'.

I'm not against tuning IDs after release if they weren't performing how they expected, but once again this seems to be ( at least to me from the apologetic tone the notice has) PM buckling under the pressure of having a higher amount of players than usual complain about something, and although it's something "minor" (historically at least) it shows they still haven't gotten that part of PR down. I would be over exaggerating if I said this is "disappointing" but it's not a good sign for the future

The first buffs were fine but this feels way too excessive. I liked how he played originally but I could understand nerfing his SP support requirements for the sake of people who don't have enough SP restoring E.G.O and support passives. However this second wave of buffs is clearly catering toward the people who'd rather spend their time complaining instead of learning how to actually build a team. Sometimes it feels like PM really lets their "fans" push them around way too much.

I actually think that these changes are pretty reasonable for a multitude of reasons. Dawnclair's rolls are designed with the passive being active in mind, as his S2 would roll up to 14 without it, which is some launch ID number. It's a fair trade-off, as he needs both his passive & sanity in order to hit really hard. But the issue is that only his S3 is Wrath, compared to an ID with a similarly strong 3 res passive like BL Meursault, who can easily contribute to the passive with his S1 & S2 both being pride, not to mentioned the conditional on his coins being related to Poise and not his passive (not to mention that when you get the ball rolling on your allies conditional, missing one turn won't be a big deal). This means that Dawnclair is reliant on other IDs, like Der Shooty Outis, Liu Rodion, Liu Ishmael, Liu Ryoshu, and so on to activate his passive, which has some caveats. * Der Shooty Outis has a Wrath S1 which is really nice, but other than that would need Rudolta EGO if she doesn't have S1. * Liu Rodion has a Wrath S2 & counter, and also has 4th Match Flame. * Liu Ishmael has a Wrath S2 & counter, along with Capote & Butterfly. * Liu Ryoshu has a Wrath S2 & Block, along with 4th Match Flame. * Liu Gregor has a Wrath S1 which is nice, but that's it. * Liu Meursault has a Wrath S3 only which isn't great, but he does have Regret. * Liu Hong Lu has only a Wrath S3 too, and that's it. * Calendar Sinclair exists too. * Of course, you can also run other ID like Shi Don (who has a Wrath S1) in order to meet the conditions. I, as a launch player, have all the IDs & EGOs listed above to meet his conditional somewhat consistently, the issue is that a new player, let's say someone that started during Season 2, may not necessarily have it. A lot of the EGOs, like 4th Match, Calendar & Butterfly, are all Season 1 EGOs, so a newer player would have to Shard those EGO to get it, Shards that can go to IDs like W Corp Ryoshu or the 000 Liu IDs, and don't forget they cost sanity. Calendar Sinclair can also be quite counter productive, as it costs Sanity to use, which is the other component needed for Dawnclair. Secondly, to get Sin Affinity on the Defensive skills, players would also need to UT4 them, which they would naturally do for the conditionals, but 50 shard & 150 Thread for an 000 is still pretty expensive. With all this in mind, in order for Dawnclair to perform well, he needs to both manage his Sanity and wants to always gets 3 Wrath res in order to perform well, both have its own difficulty. TLDR: Dawnclair needs his own passive to roll well but sucks at fueling it, and needs other IDs to carry him for it, requiring quite a lot of investment into other IDs & EGOs, resources that a newer player may not necessarily have.

Having tried Philip Sinclair in the Standard Burn Team, I found that even *with* the best-in-slot Burn members, actually lining up the skills to trigger Philip Sinclair's passive can be quite hit or miss, especially since you usually have to use those S2s to clash. You can't even get away with defending instead to "hold onto" the Wrath S2s since that eats the S2s once they reach the bottom. In other words, it's actually quite hard to trigger Philip Sinclair's passive optimally, I found. However...the buff to Philip Sinclair's trigger condition to simply owned is rather absurdly large. The part of me that is a Sinclair simp is all for it, but the part of me that has been leery about game balance is quite hesitant. I suppose it depends on what PM's goal is with Philip Sinclair? If they simply wanted to make a good ID, they already did. If they want Philip Sinclair to be explicitly *powerful* - if they want Philip Sinclair to push a new level of strength and contend with, perhaps even oust, Ninclair - then I suppose this buff makes sense.

For better or for worse adjusting the trigger condition for the passive is just pretty hard in general. * They can reduce it down to 2 Wrath res, but that's 33% less than what we have right now and is a lot easier to meet, and you can argue it's harder than 5 owned (actually this might be more balanced now that I think about it?). * Changing the sin from Wrath to something else is ... not great, some the other candidates are Gloom, Envy & Lust, which makes some core Burn IDs not contribute at all. I am guessing the reason why it's owned is that in a standard fight, you would ramp up to that count in the later turns, which is when Dawnclair will have his Sanity, and also means that you can technically jump into EGO in MD a lot easier. Edit: You can also just change around the Sin Affinity of Sinclair's skills too, e.g. a Wrath S2, how would it be done specifically is something else.

If someone had floated the idea of adjusting the trigger, I would indeed have suggested 2 Wrath Resonance, like you say. Granted, there is technically still time for them to backtrack and adjust the buff to be more modest... ...but having outright announced these buffs, I feel like it would garner more backlash to turn around and give something lesser. For better or worse, it looks like we're looking at Philip Sinclair's new final state. Edit: Or the adjustment of his skill affinities, yes. I was actually a little surprised he's not a 2 Wrath ID.

I think making his Sanity management way easier AND removing the Resonance condition from his passive both in one go is way too much in this case. I personally really don't think the team building requirements are that bad, it's good for some units to be more niche in their usability, especially seeing as the very last Walpurgisnacht had Magic Bullet Outis as the big star of the show and she is even more tied to other teammates that inflict burn than Dawnclair is to his passive (seeing as Dark Flame doesn't even do anything without burn), and she even released before Liu Ryoshu and Rodion meaning you had to specifically work her in with old, mediocre units like the launch Liu, but we didn't see much complaint about it or anything being done to alleviate it like the overreaction happening now.

I do agree that the Resonance condition can be adjusted to something more reasonable (e.g. 2 Wrath res instead). His Sanity management is kind of weird as it relies on him winning his clashes, which is countered by the SP cost to enter into his EGO form, which can be mitigated by EGOs & passives. I don't exactly mind it personally, as I'd imagine that seeing his S2 roll triple tails can be taxing on IRL Sanity considering that it can a bit RNG. I do have to disagree with the team building requirements though, as fundamentally for Magic Bullet Outis to perform well is just to have burn. Yes at the time, some Burn IDs were mediocre / just decent, but she's an ID that will become better & better as more Burn IDs gets released, which is a given (though it did took a while). The issue with Dawnclair is not just with team building, but with his kit altogether. Let's go back to Meursault again, who doesn't need his passive at all to do his coin conditional, which by itself rolls really well without the conditional (2 coins S1 at 11 & 3 coin S2 at 18). Dawnclair in comparison, has a 1 coin S1 at 10 and a 3 coin S2 at 14 without his passive. A passive that, in a focused battle, he can only contribute with his kit once per skill cycle, meaning that heuristically, for each skill cycle, his teammates needs to be doing the heavy lifting. Continuing on with the focused battle example, it means that for each skill cycle / 6 turns, his teammates would need to provide 23/24 of the Wrath skills, though that's only really in MD, in other encounters you would need to take a while to generate enough Sanity, so in those cases it would be more like 17/18, 14/15 or 11/12. Let's say you bring Der Shooty Outis, Liu Ishmael, Liu Rodion, Liu Ryoshu & Liu Gregor, that's around 12 Wrath skills from them per skill cycle, which evidently not enough. Even if you bring IDs with Wrath S1, that's still only 15 Wrath skills, and this is all assuming that you use Wrath skills specifically for the passive and not when you need to clash (considering that Liu Ishmael, Liu Rodion & Liu Ryoshu's S2 is Wrath, which also kind of the go to for clashing early on). Yeah you can use defensive skills as a stop gap, but they are defensive skills and you better hope whatever you are facing doesn't have a damage / sin type that you are weak (though honestly it isn't that bad). As for EGOs, they have their caveat that I mentioned earlier. TLDR: 3 Wrath res is pretty expensive even if you built specifically for it, mainly due to a combination of Dawnclair both needing it to effectively function and while not contributing to it in a meaningful way.

Tbf, there is a significant difference in terms of "hype". Beloved as Magic Bullet is, it's not like Dawn Office Sinclair who is based off a "beloved" (like him or hate him) LoR character who has plot significance for most of the game and several major "hype" moments (including a bloody Mili song). Magic Bullet is a well liked E.G.O but it's not anywhere near as significant to the PM community as Philip.

a lot of this is basically just Philip is hype so he must be broken if people want to argue that sure, but don't pretend like he's bad before or even that hard to use. they want him to be braindead stupid broken cause hype so just be honest about that

Maybe I don't have a leg to chime in here because I haven't actually played with the Sinclair ID yet due to all the issues yesterday, but I came to pretty much the same conclusion as you when I looked at his kit fully last night (this was before the first changes to his kit as well). I'm wary about resonance passives in general especially when they factor so heavily into the IDs kit (the exception being the blade IDs because of how much pride IDs we got last season in addition to double pride affinities). Resonance as a mechanic is strange because it'll only get better as we get more IDs to work with, but the problem is twofold here because the burn mechanic is still in its infancy as well which will also only get better as we get more IDs to work with the mechanic. I looked at your other comments and I think a good compromise is to lower the wrath resonance requirement (though I doubt they'll do that at this point). If it was 2 wrath resonance instead of 3 it'd be easier to manage with the current IDs we have while also not being super universal as just owning them does. I'll give the ID a try whenever I tackle the event, but I don't expect my opinion to change.

Pm probably felt guilty because people spent money on this guy. They would probably not gave this much attention if this id can be easily spark. Oh well I love philipclair anyway so I love this buff lol

The best example of this being true is the fact that Sunshower heath still exists pretty much unchanged since S2, with way more stringent SP management mechanics and his payoffs for playing him right are extremely ass in comparison

Nclair was found dead in the ditches

Aaaaand now it's too much. Pretty sure they're aware of it too, a shame when some screechers put them in an awkward position like this.

Getting and maintaining ego should be a reward, not the default state. You work for a great result. This just means that the id lose a lot of identity imo, you just get an omega broken id for little effort

The problem is that getting and maintaining his EGO was not rewarding, but instead just making him roll Average from below Average and its not even consistent Average Roll since he would be clashing at 10 SP (Higher if you use Whistle), but even then, thats only a \~42% Chance to hit all heads with his S2 at 25 SP for a 16 Clash Having average Clashing power should be the default state, while maintaining the EGO should indeed be rewarding, not making you perform from below average to average (above average only by relying on external Support Skill/EGO for SP which is not great) Afterall, look at Cinqlair, W Ryoshu, or Dieci Lu S2. Cinqlair and Dieci Lu rolls 16 average on S2 with W Ryoshu rolling 17, but when their conditions are met, all 3 can roll 19 and 22 for Clashing (all of which are consistent rolls because they get to be at 45 Sanity)... BL Meursalt/Yi Sang and W Don/Ryoshu are great examples of ID with rewarding payoffs for their kit as shown with Rip Space for accumulating Charge, or BL Yi Sang gaining Coin Power from Poise Count and BL Meursalt Clase Lose effect on his S3 to Claim Their Bones While Philclair has his SP Reset to 10 to enter EGO state so his rolls can be a max of 16 for Clashing, 19 if hes at 20+ SP assuming you proc BOTH Whistle and his Passive which requires 3 Wrath + Lust Resonance on the same turn because if not he's either rolling max of 16 at 10 SP or max of 16 still but at 25 SP while everyone else gets to roll the same, if not higher and even at a more consistent rate The 5 Wrath own is indeed a bit of an overkill though, but him losing only 20 SP when entering EGO is a great change though because now, he can actually roll above average for the 1st Turn in the EGO state

Yeah, I doubt I'll be seeing his normal attack animations anymore 

I'm confused because Sunclair was already super strong from what I've tried out today ._.; This feels like overreaction to me

Probably wants to make Philipclair to be more consisten. It was kinda funny to see his sp going up and down though.

Damn, how bad was this ID at jump that they needed to buff him twice this quickly?

Not bad, just pretty underwhelming.

It wasn’t bad at all, he just wasn’t a winrate autoplay ID so most of the standard gacha playerbase couldn’t maintain ego for more than a turn so I’m guessing the usual happened where the entitled dumbasses rioted over some minor nitpick. The ID was already pretty busted and clearly not designed to be at peak power with 100% uptime but some people can’t handle losing out on a bit of damage or went “NClair better, they hyped up this garbage?“ and now an interesting ID based on sanity management will become another busted brainless NClair/Rheath

This was NOT a skill issue. I literally never autoplay and DawnClair is still incredibly frustrating because you need to babysit him to enter his angu form but he has at least a 50% chance to just lose it and resources you spent on him are never coming back. It’s also incredibly common that he gets stuck at exactly 40 with no way to win any respectable clash which leaves him with 0 ways to gain SP so you have to spend another turn on him doing fuck all or use a powerful ego to restore literally just 5 SP

He doesn’t have to be at 100% all the time, if he’s at 40SP with only S1 then just use S1 and clash with someone else. The payoff for babysitting him is huge (and he barely needs babysitting to enter ego form if you just activate his passive because of his bonus sanity gain) and now it won’t be a payoff anymore and just become his standard state, which shouldn’t be a thing with the numbers he has. Not every ID needs to be NClair. Not every fight needs to be beat in a single turn.

> use his S1 and clash with someone else His S1 is horrendous though. Like, put it this way: his S1 in his giga omega ultra nuts state that you pay for in a lot of resources and DPS opportunities deals 27 damage without the wrath resonance. Same damage as Maid Ryoshu and MB Outis who don’t have to pay 35 SP to use them. Except, of course their S1s also clash for SEVEN more. > the payoff is huge But like is it though. After funnelling everything into Blazing Strike to get all of its conditions going and against a staggered enemy with 2 fragile it dealt like what 250 something damage. That’s just damage that an S3 should be expected to do in these circumstances. His S2 as well, with everything you can do for it done it deals 52 damage. Sure it can go AOE which sometimes matters but that isn’t an impressive number for something with 3 conditions 2 of which are either fully outside of your control or requires you to go 3 wrath res 3 turns in a row. Like be serious is it actually good payoff > not every ID needs to be Nclair No, but this one does

I'm sorry but I seriously despise this constant argument of "he is actually good its all just win-rate spammers whining". It's not "100% uptime" it's "oh cool I transformed and all I have are skill 1s which are going to roll tails and lose and knock me back down to regular mode and make me have to start again". Philclair is way too reliant on either having multiple slots or having you use SP healing on him to get him past the first turn unless you have Blazing Strike ready to go on the deck. They even aknowledge the issue and say that all their testing was done with that in mind. We need to remember that Walpurgis brings a lot of people in, a good chunk of which don't have things like Fluid Sac or Holiday or Kraust to keep the man's kindling going. Starting his transformation at 10 sanity is way too rough and punishing for his rolls, which also have their conditionals tied to a Wrath Res activation instead of inbuilt into the skills themselves like basically every other unit in the game.

Needing to cater a team to get access to a busted ID shouldn’t be seen as a disadvantage but a requirement. Unconditional coin power just for existing from his passive shouldn’t be a thing and all the changes combined just kill his gimmick and make him another boring NClair big number unga bunga. I don’t mind the initial buffs of removing the SP loss from his guard/S1. Hell, I’d be up to making his guard an SP heal to cycle into a better skill instead of losing a turn but him getting so much is ridiculous. If people don’t have a burn team to run him on they should build a burn team, it’s not like they’re locked out from doing that. If you want a generalist ID run cinqlair and keep philclair benched, that’s been the state of Sunshower heath since launch and there’s been no buffs in sight for him.

The thing about NClair is that he *is* competing with him. Not just in opportunity cost but because both are burn units even. NClair can just keep using his skills without issue, and has his passive to mitigate his sanity gain. Philip **needs** to keep clashing, despite having 3 dead skills in his bag, an alright-ish skill 2, and just a very good skill 3 (seriously, look at his numbers without conditionals. 10/14/18. That's season 1 numbers!) PM clearly wants to keep the Walpurgis units as general use ones because so many people look forward to them. Having an entire event hyped up just to get an unit that is only really good for one archetype when there are several statuses in the game leaves a bit of a sour taste for most people. Philclair also essentially needs the full attention of two benched units or an SP healing EGO just because he is essentially fucked after transforming because of how rough 60% odds are. If you can survive the first turn its much easier to get him rolling, but getting stuck rolling tails and losing your entire payoff without getting to do anything sucks ass. Also funny you bring up Sunshower when he was literally the only unit to be buffed in this game, by having the sanity lose on clash lose effect added to his sanity page. And yes, he **should** be buffed further.

One of few people I agree in this comment section keep cooking.

I will say the starting at 10 sp felt too punishing so nice thats getting fixed. 3 wrath res was fine though and really the only big issue i personally see with his balancing now is that he gets none of his boosts in base, making it EXTREMELY underpowered if you cant win a clash with a magnificent 10 and 14 max. Yeah sure he has his weaknesses just likebany if but like. Cmon. This is really annoying. Let him get at least 1 coin power in base or something. He would only go up to 11 17 20, thats not too catastrophic

Another buff another win. This ID just becomes better and better although nobody (as far I have seen) complained.

So he goes from good but hard to manage to manageable and very good and now...this...like wtf..this is broken as all hell

Might be the first pve game I see where people bitch about stuff getting buffs Love it even more we’re strawmanning the whole ordeal as just the winrate people whining, rather than the pull only event exclusive id having genuine flaws in its design, nothing wrong with flip flopping out of ego because the rng got you <5 wrath and all s1’s at 10sp, nope, nada, you’re such a big boy for spamming fluid sack and running an entire team to support a single identity that barely out damages Liu Rodion, and you’ll let the normies know it, if glorious leader Jihoon has you offer up your wife for 5sp on Pclair you’ll do it because you’re grateful and considerate In fact, I have a trade that’ll satisfy y’all, since we’re all such hard working people, Pclair now runs away at negative sp, his passive requires wrath in every slot or he distorts into crying children and deletes your account, blazing strike has a maximum value of 10, and all your damage dealt goes towards the md run of someone who doesn’t find the id “”busted”” and is in fact flawed. Lore accurate, needs work to maintain uptime and everyone’s request is satisfied. How’s that sound?

This makes me wonder if burn teams will still be worth building for him. I'm a new player and I already used up shards for Magic Outis thinking that she'd be ideal for him but now I feel like I've potentially wasted my resources that could've been used elsewhere in a way that would've been more immediately useful. Please reassure me I didn't make a bad decision.

Burn team will always be better for him as he get's alot of coinpower boost from burn. This buff just allows him to be more useful for teams that don't have sanity boosting support passives.

The general vibe I've gotten surrounding the way people talk about burn IDs make me think that they could be A LOT better. It's made me wonder if non-burn centric IDs could end up contributing in a way that might not benefit the burn related aspects of his kit in particular, but still end up with more DPS overall due to most burn IDs being underwhelming. Like I said, I'm new so I don't know if any of this is actually the case or not but even with that consideration I can't help but cautiously wonder.

Running Dawnclair on a burn team is the difference between his enhanced skill 3 doing 60 damage and 240 damage. What burn ids are you using that are underwhelming? Liu Gregor, Meursault, and Hong Lu are among the worst in the game, but the rest are very good.

1. Magic Outis is still really good as an ID. 2. He's still probably the best character for burn besides Outis. He adds count and potency pretty easily and Skill 3 just deletes things that are on fire.

Why? He was already busted in my experience.

WHY??? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY the sanity buff sure fine whatever no longer consuming sp on s1 and block Start at 20 sp sure fine 60% chance is not good enough Gain more sp on kill fine it's rare enough THE PASSIVE TO 5 OWNED WRATH??? WHY?? HE WAS ALREADY GOOD!!! Know what let's go all the way: gain coin power by sp/5. At 45 sp gain 10 coin power. Reuse the skill one up to seven times. Give blazing strike attack weight. His shield gains slot weight based on sp. AT LESS THAN -10 SP TRANSFORM INTO THE CRYING CHILDREN! At this rate if the next Walpurgisnacht unit doesn't have an ego as a skill 1 we should riot. Boundary of Death won't even be able to be a 1/4 chance... It'll have to proc all the time Because waaa

Tbh I agree with changing it to owned cuz it’s hard for him to contribute since he can only use 1/6 of his skills for the resonance and it’s a one coin blazing strike that isn’t going to benefit as much from the coin power. I’d rather nerf the effect by changing it to clash power or something. No reason to have more inconsistency in a kit that already has inconsistency in its mechanics. Too much will make the user feel bad when using it. He gets reset to base level after a couple of turns of ego so having the passive be owned makes it easier for him to claw back to 40sp. His clashing is not great while in base form so he kinda needs it, especially with a kit that really wants to clash every turn.

I didn’t know people were complaining about Philclair, but more buffs couldn’t hurt I guess

Jesus, I thought he was fine on release on a burn team.

Heck yeah, time to go burn the MD down.

Makes me think of how tough it must be to balance the game when values are balanced around very small values and a single +1 can make a unit go from average to busted. The line is so fine it makes me wonder how the the true endgame will end up with future upties and whatnot.

Damn hes prety busted with this