This post is up to date with Version 2.2.
Meryl is the Simulacrum tied to Rosy Edge, a SSR Frost Defense Weapon from Aesperia. She is one of Tower of Fantasy‘s standard SSR “characters”. Primarily, her weapon is used for shieldbreaking.
Base Kit
Rosy Edge skews very heavily towards shield breaking. It has a high base Shatter of 12.00 and the stat can get even higher with Advancements. Conversely, the weapon has a pitifully low Charge of 4.00. Save for one exception that’ll be mentioned down below, Meryl’s weapon generally makes for a poor battery. As a standard SSR weapon from launch, Rosy Edge does not provide Frost Resonance. If you’d like to have the effect in your loadout, you’ll need to look towards other sources such as Frigg’s Balmung or Saki Fuwa’s Heartstream.
Out of Rosy Edge’s basic attacks, one you particularly want to use is its charged attack, Whirlwind. This has your Wanderer spinning to win against your opponents. As silly as it looks, it is arguably the weapon’s best move. It can hit multiple enemies at once and it makes you invulnerable to interruption. Thanks to Rosy Edge’s high Shatter, Whirlwind can simultaneously break multiple shields all at once. The move is also the one time where the weapon’s low Charge isn’t too big of an issue as landing enough hits while spinning can still net you a decent amount of points for your Discharges. The only disadvantage to Whirlwind is that it uses up Endurance, much like many other charged attacks found in the game. Its uptime will depend on how high your Endurance is. Should you run out of it, you’ll need to a solid alternative to use in the meantime. You can make do with Rosy Edge’s other basic attacks though I must admit that they feel rather sluggish to use.
When you cast Rosy Edge’s Skill, Blizzard, your Wanderer will swing the greatsword to unleash a barrage of icy attacks onto anything that is front of them. While the Skill has some range and it can hit multiple enemies simultaneously, it is generally used for single target and/or close quarters combat. What severely holds the Skill back is its lengthy 45 second cooldown so it’s very important that you use it at the correct time and place. Otherwise, you risk flailing at thin air and you may need to cancel out of the attack. Performing this alongside Whirlwind can help mitigate each other’s downtime. You can perform Blizzard first and then use Whirlwind as the former cools down. Similarily, you can do it the other way around in which using Blizzard will allow you to regain some Endurance in the process, enabling you to execute Whirlwind again.
For Rosy Edge’s Discharge, Frost Barrier, your Wanderer loses any debuffs inflicted on them and smashes the greatsword onto the ground, creating a barrier made out of ice. Not only will enemies take a lot of health and shield damage, the discharge will knock them into the air, reduce their speed by 50%, and prevent them from dodging or jumping. The barrier itself lasts for 5 seconds and blocks any projectiles coming its way. While a powerful and useful ability, this Discharge can be a double edge sword. While enemies effectively can’t escape the barrier, you and other players will also have a hard time going in and out of the barrier as well. To enter and exit, players will often need to take the extra step of double jumping and dashing. It’s a minor nuisance in solo play but for multiplayer content, you’ll want to be mindful of when you perform the Discharge as it can cost your team precious seconds of DPS or support. At the very least, it might annoy them to varying degrees.
Advancements
- A1 – Increases Rosy Edge’s Shatter by 15% (up to 13.80) and restores 10% of your Wanderer’s HP when you break a shield with the weapon. This is “Meryl’s” best and most important Advancement, mainly due to the immediate improvement to “her” ability to break shields. The healing is very situational and it doesn’t necessarily mitigate the need for a healer. In co-op, you can miss out on the effect if other players break the shield before you do. Nevertheless, it can come in handy in surviving a fight and it can save you the need of switching to your support weapon or using its Discharge to heal yourself.
- A2 – Increases Rosy Edge’s base HP growth by 16%.
- A3 – Upon switching to Rosy Edge, the Wanderer gains a shield equal to 10% of their Max HP; lasts for 10 seconds and takes 20 seconds to cool down. While this won’t make you invincible, you can tank a decent amount of hits with this shield.
- A4 – Increases Rosy Edge’s base HP growth by 32%.
- A5 – Increases damage and Shatter 50% while “Meryl’s” A3 shield is active. Oddly enough, an A5 Rosy Edge’s status will say its Shatter is now permanently set to 16.10 so I don’t know if either that or the Advancement description is a translation error. Whatever the case, this Advancement is a nice improvement to its respective weapon’s shieldbreaking capability.
- A6 – Upgrades “Meryl’s” A3 shield to absorb damage equivalent to 20% of your Wanderer’s Max HP and grant them immunity to certain status effects. Obviously, this makes the shield even more tanky than it was before.
As a standard SSR, Meryl’s Advancements can be obtained by chance and via the Commissary. With enough patience, you can get her weapon to A6 for free and any money you are willing to burn for Tower of Fantasy can be used for something else. Besides A0 and A6, I recommend having Meryl’s weapon at A1.
Simulacrum Trait
Meryl’s Simulacrum Trait reduces any Frost damage your Wanderer takes from enemies by 20% and it makes them immune to the Frostbitten status. Frozen will also last for half the amount of time it usually does. With 4,000 Awakening Points, the game adds to the trait the ability to freeze your surroundings. The value of this passive is situational. It’s useful against Frost-based enemies but it’s obviously useless against everything else. The ability to freeze your surroundings isn’t too valuable in combat but it does come in handy in the open world, namely bodies of water. It’ll constantly create an icy surface for you to walk on, saving you the need to swim or use your Jetboard. Recently in Version 2.2, this has seen hilarious usage for fishing as it gives you greater flexibility in positioning yourself for the mini-game and it makes fish easier targets to catch.
Closing Words
Meryl is one of my favorite “characters” in Tower of Fantasy and her weapon is a solid one in its own right. Rosy Edge is one of the best weapons to use for breaking shields, particularly in Frost oriented loadouts. With Advancements, it also makes for an effective tank. The only issue I have with the weapon is its Discharge’s ability to box you and other players in and the difficulty that comes in getting out of it. In multiplayer content, it can be really annoying, to the point that I sometimes hesitate to cast the ability and opt to use something else instead.
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