Evelia (Absolution)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single hackrom in possession of a good fortune must be in want of an early-game healer. So it goes for Absolution (by ZessDynamite), a Lex Talionis project I’ve shilled on Discord more than enough times already. Just in case - y’all should play absolution by zessdynamite.
Anyway, when Chapter 1 of Absolution (by ZessDynamite) kicks off, you’re given a squad of six units to play with. The other five are all fun and interesting in their own right (even Ramon), but our focus here is on the unassuming staffer at the back of the line.
Part 1: One Measly Gacha Game Reference
At first glance, her build mostly just looks awkward - that low Magic leaves her staff uses not doing much, and she doesn’t exactly have much bulk either. She’s stafflocked, so she can’t fight, and yet her most competent stats are best suited to a physical attacker. What the heck is going on?
The presence of Fire Balm totally recontextualizes how you use Evelia as a unit. She can heal, sure, but that’s not her main appeal - her actions are often best used putting that +2 Str/Mag boost wherever it’s needed most. And it is needed; between doubling, crits, combat arts, and raw power, Absolution (by ZessDynamite) is full of places where Evelia’s buffs make the difference between killing the enemy and leaving that foe alive.
You can just use her as a standard healer, despite this, but you’ll need to make use of her defining personal skill to have a reasonable time getting past the challenges ahead. Heck, you might even want to plan your whole turn around her, getting relevant combat units to be damaged at the start of your turn so Evelia can heal and buff them. This goes for just about every unit in the game, but Evelia’s unusual base setup provides an obvious place to start thinking about using skills in cool ways.
(don’t mind that i used the debug menu to cheat these into chapter 1)
Evelia’s skill doesn’t just stand alone, though. Absolution (by ZessDynamite) also uses it as a tutorial for combining skills with items you may find. In the first couple chapters, beyond just Evelia’s starting Heal staff, she can also pick up the AoE-healing Mend and the accuracy-boosting Fortune. Both of these provide new considerations for using Fire Balm; Fortune can grant the boost at long range to even allies at full health (plus the hit rate boost being useful on its own; units like Ramon and Eduardo really enjoy the assurance when they’re going for one-shots or one-rounds), while Mend lets her buff multiple allies at once if you’re clever with both damaging and positioning them.
In general, Absolution (by ZessDynamite) is a master class in designing around skills. Really, your whole early-game party is built to take optimal advantage of Fire Balm, and to teach the player how to use it, and skills like it, to maximum effect. As a game designer, there’s a lot of inspiration to take here in your own use of skills. How do those skills change their user’s game plan? What items synergize with those skills? How can those skills let other units do new and interesting things? There’s a lot to learn there, and Absolution (this joke is getting old) is a great place to start.
Part 2: Just the Beginning
You may have noticed that in the earlier screenshot of Evelia’s stat screen, she had three skills, not just Fire Balm. The first one is Healtouch, which just grants a boost to healing done with staves. I’m admittedly not sure why that’s there, beyond just to patch up her low Magic for players actually trying to use her for support. The third skill, though?
Now this is where things get interesting.
At base, Miracle fixes another flaw of Evelia’s statline (her very low bulk), giving novice players a chance to recover from mistakes leaving their healer unprotected while they learn the rhythms of Absolution’s gameplay and combat. She can help hold down a defensive line in a pinch, and when you only have six or seven units to work with, that’s an invaluable bit of utility.
Thing is? Miracle isn’t Evelia’s skill.
(image taken from the Absolution thread, because i cannot be bothered to get my own skill menu screenshot at this point)
Absolution has a mechanic taken from the Tellius games where many skills can be swapped between and equipped to units. Most of those skills are initially found as skill scroll items, but others start out on units you recruit. Evelia’s Miracle is in the latter camp. When you get access to the skill-swapping menu in Chapter 5, Miracle is a tool you can start moving around straight away. You’ve already seen how powerful it is on this backline support unit, so combining it with scrappier combat units is an obvious place to start experimenting. And once you’ve started moving one skill around, why not do more?
And so the player is introduced to this whole unit customization mechanic, through an inconspicuous skill on a single unit.
Part 3: One Master Seal Later…
Later in the game, once you get a chance to promote her, Evelia’s whole statline is justified: she promotes into War Monk, gaining access to axes and stat boosts to match. These give her yet another new niche to work with; her high Strength, Speed, and HP, back from those first couple screenshots in this very long post, combine to let this buff-bot act as a surprisingly potent backup combat unit. She’ll likely not be one-rounding everything, but extra chip damage she gives will help other units secure kills, in much the same way as her Fire Balm did from the start.
This whole build ties into her story relevance, too, minor though it is. Despite being a Cleric, she’s not particularly religious. She’s a combat medic in the player party’s army, responsible for keeping the band of skill-reliant oddballs that is the entire Absolution cast alive. As anyone who’s ever played a MMO healer will understand, this is not a particularly pleasant experience - hence the desire to use exercise, and physical combat, to blow off some steam.
This whole package comes together into a very clever twist, writing-wise as well as mechanics-wise, on the “early-game healer” Fire Emblem archetype. Just by thinking through how best to use all the tools this one unit has at her disposal, you’re equipping yourself to understand the gist of the entire Absolution (by ZessDynamite) mechanical sandbox. And even if you don’t care at all, keeping Eduardo’s health bar topped off and Lakshmi out of one-shot range is still more than enough to keep Evelia on the team.
On top of all that, she has a gorgeous portrait by Levin64 of Levin Pixelings fame. What’s not to love?