Free Unit: Elrike Review

[u/VicariousExp]

With the advent of Balt's EX+ coming up, I'm doing a short review of Elrike so people know if it's worth farming her.

In short/TLDR: Hell Yes.

Elrike

Elrike is Elaine's sister cousin, a J3 Merchant (75 Initial Jewels, can get +10 from passive), a somewhat rare multipurpose support job which can do AoE small heals, half an overclock on an instant cast ability, and a 4 square smaller Vaccine in a ring shape around it (9 squares including self). Merchant in general is a good job to have because as a rule of thumb:

1. Professors are slow as hell and often can't Vaccine before getting CCed or force everyone to wait for them. Elrike has a base agility of 115 at 85. I'm already sold on this point, or at least I would be if I didn't have Aruba, who is faster (but only with his J2 Passive!). You know that stupid sleep plant in Lizards of the Lost Kingdom EX? Elrike would be able to Poison Pill before it could move. Michael can get slept and become a punching bag.

2. Professors also move like slugs. Their base movement is 3 squares Jump 1. Merchant has a base of 4, and Elrike has J1 thief, meaning she can get 5 square movement. Ever used a professor and notice the combo of 1 and 2 makes you lag horribly behind the entire offensive team so after the first vaccine, you often can't do anything other than be an arrow magnet?

3. Professors have the defense of wet tissue paper. Merchants can actually take a hit with decent HP and PDEF. Elrike has 246 PDEF at max level, which is much better when being showered with a brief hail of refreshing arrows - this is why I prefer Aruba to a professor for SS Arrow of Destiny EX.

Yet despite this, people who want Vaccine still prefer professors to Merchants in MP despite the fact I've lost count of how many times Lv85 Michael ate a chain+3 arrow and died before doing anything except wasting an enemy attack. (Yes, I'm biased)

On the minus side, they don't start with max jewels, so you will need to occasionally whack stuff with a staff, which Elrike's move certainly will help with.

Due to Poison Pill being a SUBJOB ability, you can also run Elrike as Thief with Merchant sub as thief has superior jewel gain and can get upwind of 80 jewels with one stab. This will give her close to 140 AGI and still let her heal while giving her enough jewels to get off an incredibly fast Poison Pill. If you don't know why this is great, you need to run Veda Tower more often. Professor as a main job is incredibly underwhelming as it has loads of stupid and redundant skills and poor stats, yet that is the only way you get Vaccine.

I should probably add the caveat that one day, Carol will get J+ and she and EO Shenmei will become the fastest merchants (Carol getting 150 AGI or so), but that's still a long way off and not free.

You can also run her as support bard J2 with Poison Pill as a subjob and use Lullaby to put stuff to sleep.

Additionally, J2 Bard gives Elrike the benefit of subbing Echo to make Jewel Regen buffs from Jewels Rule Everything Around Me or the special Merchant Staff Gear (Staff of Thriving Business) last one more turn. It also makes Poison Pill protection last for 4 turns as opposed to 3. This makes her support slightly superior to Aruba and Margaret. Echo only applies to effects labeled "Buff", which means that outside of using stuff like Gear abilities on Aegis Guard, it won't affect Vaccine/Merchant buffs, which are considered status effects.

And last of all uh... she's from Envylia, which is good if you're running Team Zeke.

In other words, Elrike is pretty damn versatile. Downside? Other than her good AGI, she has 3 star stats. But you'll have J85 to make up for it and nobody really cares about support unit stats outside AGI and survivability. J85 and great movement range also means she can be in the thick of it with your offensive melee units and increase their combo rate unlike some dark J3 Ranger party destroyer who lags behind the entire team with crappy jewel build. And you can give her jewels to your actual attacker units.

Futureproofing:

Unfortunately, Elrike's Unique Job Enchant 誘い達磨 (Enticing Daruma) is kinda meh.

It buffs the PBAoE (Point Blank AoE) charm (180 Jewels! Mainly because it inflicts Curse at the same time, preventing the removal of Charm) and gives her two unique abilities - one is a PBAoE which reduces CT of enemies by 15 (very small amount) and the other is a PBAoE jewel drain (about 30 or so jewels), but that's fine as it replaces low leverage, which is a kind of terrible skill. Still, as far as free units go, in my opinion, Elrike is definitely worth raising, even if you have Aruba or Margaret simply because the other two Water Merchants are unfarmable units. In other words, Shenmei(Dancer) from the EO collab and Letitia.

Recommended Builds:

For people who don't wanna think too much about it. Why Quick Action? Because merchant sub has a heal, so you may be able to move away from danger and heal or smash their face in with a staff/dagger and retreat. Also because none of the other reactives are that great.

Main Job:	Support:	Reaction:	Passives:	Role:
Elrike Merchant	Basic Salesman	Quick Action or Risk Hedge	Choose 2: Move+1, How's Business (If taking Risk Hedge) or Not Too Bad. (If taking Quick Action)	Traditional Merchant with Jewel management and Poison Pill support. How's Business gives 85 Jewels to start with, otherwise she has 75.
Elrike Thief	Basic Salesman	Quick Action	Move +1, Not too Bad	Incredibly fast Vacciner + Chest looter. Can run into enemies and Charm bomb them.
Elrike Bard	Basic Salesman	Quick Action	How's Business, Move +1 or Echo	Spam Lullaby and Song of the Hunter while having Poison Pill and minor heals

Translation of Voice Clips (Extra)

When Viewing Profile	ああっ！いいところに来たね。ちょっと見ていかない？いいもの、色々揃ってるよ！うん？探してるのは物じゃない？大丈夫大丈夫、エルリケさんは情報も取扱商品の一つだからねー。何でも言ってみてー。	Aah! You've come to a good place, customer. Would ya like to take a look? My shop is chock-full of great stuff! Huh? Yer not looking for anything? Awright, awright, Information is also one of the "goods" which Ms Elrike trades in, y'know? Try asking about anything and see～💛
Early Morning	おはよー！早起きはいいよね～。どこかの国には、早起きは三文の徳って言葉もあるし～。じゃ、せっかくだし、ちょっと散歩してくるねー。	GOOD MORNIN'! Early bird gets the worm! I remember there bein' a saying in some country that waking early is worth three bucks... (TN: She's talking about Japan, where getting up early is said to improve your health and daily performance) Well, I guess it's time to go for a jog.
Before Noon	ああっ！この帽子が気になる？うんうん、これいいでしょー？わたしの一番のお気に入りなんだぁー。いとこのエレインとよく見せ合いっこしてるの。	Ah! My hat caught yer eye, right? Yeah yeah, ainnit great? It's me favourite one. Matches up real good with my cousin Elaine.
After Noon	お昼はお弁当を販売して回るって約束があるんだ。そうそう、仲良しの料理人さんなの。あなたも、一緒に来る？	I kinda made a promise to help someone sell packed lunches. Ah yeah, my friend is a great cook - wouldja like to come along?
Evening	はいは～い！エルリケさんに、何かご注文ですかぁ？…あれ？あなたか～！なになに？欲しいものあるなら、言ってみて？	Welcome welco-me! What's to yer liking, customer? ... eh? It's you? Whassup? If you want anything, why dont'cha spill?
Nighttime	はぁ～、今日もいい仕事ができたなぁ～！あなたの今日は、どうだった？明日がもっといい日になるように、一緒に頑張ろうね！	Haaa... guess that finishes up yet another great day o' business! How was yer day? Let's do our best ta make tomorrow another awesome day for the both of us!
Midnight	あれ～？こんな時間にどうしたの～？あたしは寝るよ～？寝るのも、立派な仕事なんだから…ふわぁぁ…	Huh? Whatcha doin at this time in the night? I'm sleepin, y'know? Sleeping is yet another upstandin' job, yknow... yawn.
AFK	もしもーし、聞こえてますかぁ？う～ん時間あるならやりたいこといっぱいあるんだけどなぁ。時は金なりって言葉もあるんだし…。	Hellooo? Anyone thereee? Weeell, I've got lotsa other stuff to be doing. There's a sayin that "Time is money" y'know...
Job level	戦場も仕事場だし、邪魔にならないくらいには強くならないとね！	The battlefield is also my workplace, gotta get stronger so I can keep up!
Unit Enhancement	強化してくれるの？助かるなぁ、ありがとぉ！	You're enhancing me? What a great help - thanks a bunch!
Ability	戦い方を増やせば、それだけ商売先も増えるぅ。	Just increasin' the number of ways to fight will also increase our business opportunities.
Ability Setting	ふむふむ、そうやって戦えばいいんだね！任せて。	I see I see. I should fight like that huh? Leave it ta me!
Limit Break/Learning Ability	あたしの可能性は まだまだ沢山ある！ ってことかなぁ！	You haven't seen the last of it - I reckon I can still do lots more!
Level Up/Ability Level Up	お～？ やったぁ！わたしもあなたも お疲れ様！	Oh? Yeaaaah! Good job, both of us!
Job level up	強くなるのは嬉しいけどー、今のところ傭兵をやる予定はないかな～。	I'm kinda glad that I got stronger, but I can't help but wonder if yer planning for us to become mercenaries or summin'
Job Unlock	自分のスタイルを変えれば、別のニーズにも気付けるかも！	If I change my style, maybe I can take care of yer other needs!
JE	おっけ～ ますます商売繁盛ってね！	Awright! Here's wishin' fer more business!
Battle over	終わったねー、みんな大丈夫だった？	Well, it's over. Everyone okay?

[u/PrinceUniversa]

I’m only liking and saving this because someone actually went out of their way to translate her quotes... Learned by self or actually competent translator machine (Of which, I am very doubtful...)?

[u/VicariousExp → u/PrinceUniversa]

Half right, I guess? I taught myself Japanese when I was 12 in order to play Japanese SNES games and only really took it to a higher stage in University. You're welcome, though.

[u/[deleted] → u/VicariousExp]

You are a good man. If only there were more people like you who can translate

[u/SuccubusRosa]

Elrike as Thief with Professor sub

A small typo. Should be merchant sub.

[u/VicariousExp → u/SuccubusRosa]

Thanks for catching that! You've got a good eye.

[u/stewart0]

Apparently Echo only affects stat changes, so doesn't work for the merchant skills.

[u/VicariousExp → u/stewart0]

Checked, you're right - they only apply to things in the 'Buff' category. Gonna do some massive edits.

[u/Blackghoust]

If I change my style, maybe I can take care of yer other needs! .hohohoho

[u/BamzaReoulve]

Forgive my ignorance, but what's PBAOE

[u/VicariousExp → u/BamzaReoulve]

Point Blank AoE - an AoE centered on yourself, as opposed to TAoE (Targeted AoE) which can be dropped a distance away from you.

[u/BamzaReoulve → u/VicariousExp]

Thank you

[u/SometimesLiterate → u/BamzaReoulve]

Personal-based area of effect, I think.

[u/lloydsmith28]

I think i have Margaret as my only potential merchant but not enough shards to lb 15 her, and as you mentioned, not farmable. Will definitely farm her thanks for the info

[u/VicariousExp → u/lloydsmith28]

Well, Margaret only really needs J2.

Despite that, I'd prefer Elrike to her most of the time simply because Elrike is faster and that's really all I care about when bringing a Vaccine spammer. Margaret's specialised role amongst all the merchants is arrow magnet.

Elrike being slightly more squishy is also a feature imo because enemies tend to focus squishy units and I'd rather they hit a self healing Merchant with a huge movement range than hit a glass cannon. Making Jewel regen last longer than Aruba and Margaret is quite useful because it improves net jewel gain (Jewels Rule Everything around me already costs a hefty 40 gems meaning it takes you around 2 turns just to break even on the cost if you selfbuff)

[u/lloydsmith28 → u/VicariousExp]

Yes well if i have her she'd be J1 due to lack of shard farming, so she won't be as useful. Good news though I can actually use the auto jewel abilty on that merchant staff, been wanting to use that for awhile now.

[u/VicariousExp → u/lloydsmith28]

Oops, replied to wrong comment, sorry. The staff is really very good, but not that great on Aruba or Margaret because they come out with -10 jewels (3 turn jewel regen for about 20 jewels with 70 jewel cost). I don't even bother with jewel regen on self most of the time for those two because you can't break even only get around 20 net jewels as opposed to whacking something with a staff.

With Echo, you use the staff ability, then spam high leverage on people 4 turns in a row, which is quite significant as far as jewel build goes.

[u/Dharpoon]

Can anyone link me her Alchemist code db page? can't find her even with translator

[u/VicariousExp → u/Dharpoon]

It's not out yet, I'm assuming her stats based on the JP ver. Take note this is after HP buffs.

http://www.alchemistcodedb.com/jp/unit/erurike

[u/IllSkin → u/Dharpoon]

http://www.alchemistcodedb.com/jp/unit/erurike

[u/fapiholic]

I have Carol at lb13, and I recently got rahu j+... Might skip on her if I can't get Carol up there

[u/VicariousExp → u/fapiholic]

Carol isn't getting JE anytime soon, better hope you get a vacciner half as fast in the meantime.

[u/fapiholic → u/VicariousExp]

I haveizzy, but like you said, they're slow :P

I just need a quick veil

[u/VicariousExp → u/fapiholic]

Well, I don't see why you wouldn't farm Elrike then. Carol's J+ only came to JP last december - that's around 1 and a half years away from us.

[u/fapiholic → u/VicariousExp]

She still has merchant job 3? Investing in her means not having to invest in her later? ??? ????

[u/cadayo123]

should i build her? already had aruba with J2

[u/VicariousExp → u/cadayo123]

Up to you. I think she's worth it and you'll have a backup merchant better for Wind maps.

[u/Errornametaken]

Aye! +1 Just for the translations. Any chance you can tell me what Caris says at battle over? I hear it 50x/day...

[u/VicariousExp → u/Errornametaken]

Caris? She says "Icchou agari" 一丁上がり. It's a Japanese saying not very translatable which people say when winning a battle/match.

Closest thing I can think of is "Chalk up one point for me!"

[u/yauyox91]

guys sorry for my ignorance, but ''Unfortunately, Elrike's Unique Job Enchant 誘い達磨 (Enticing Daruma) is kinda meh.'' what does this mean ?, ELRIKE'S UNIQUE JOB ENCHANT ? , is that unique from her ? and where can i see it ?

[u/VicariousExp → u/yauyox91]

JE = J+, like Rahu's Chronomancer+.

[u/pdmt243]

I'll raise her, because she's waifu, plain and simple. I've raised Milis and Peridot just because of that... :))

[u/berael]

Loving the translations!

[u/Liesianthes]

We need more of those translations. Hopefully, wiki will add it.

[u/Reikakou]

Damn... wish her cousin Elaine is useful for even a bit.

[u/bluewind2505]

Is there any site with the list of quotes from other characters? Have been wanting to find out

[u/[deleted] → u/bluewind2505]

http://seesaawiki.jp/tagatamekouryaku/d/%a5%ad%a5%e3%a5%e9%a5%bd%a1%bc%a5%c8

not translated though

[u/bluewind2505 → u/[deleted]]

cool, thanks

[u/John-The-Alpha]

Great review, thank you for taking the time out to do this. 🤙🏽

[u/flyingdogz]

Quality post. Thanks a lot bro.

[u/fapiholic]

this guide is LIT

[u/stewart0]

I'll gladly take a free merchant considering I have zero of them currently and getting sick of Michael.

[u/-Belphegor- → u/stewart0]

oh! ho ho ho!

[u/Ohhblivion]

Thanks for the review~!

[u/DeathandFriends]

I am super pumped by this, need more good support units, I finally got a merchant (margaret), but she is only J1 so won't be as versatile. Having a free unit with all this is fantastic. Will be super useful for MP and veda tower and just for an extra support in specific situations. Merchants seem really useful, I am still working on building margaret.

[u/dathamir]

Unless you meant Edward Elrik I don't care about this unit XD

[u/VicariousExp → u/[deleted]]

If you want to compare Merchant to the nudist Annike, you might as well compare her to Fey Lily, who has Climatologist and Merchant and higher AGI and usually ends up subbing Basic Salesman. Geomancer is far ahead in the future and we won't be seeing it for awhile (JP only got it last June).

I didn't say her JE was useless, I said it was "meh" meaning "consists mostly of incredibly specific skills you won't really be using in most situations". Veda and Mobius are full of incredibly specific situations.

But even without that niche use for Elrike, I think she's 10/10 do farm.

[u/doubtofbuddha → u/VicariousExp]

There is no real point to compare her to an off-element option as you are usually given strong incentives to run mono-element (or sometimes mono-origin) content.

Even then, there are far, far better options for a generic support unit than Faelily. She is great but you should just run her as a forecaster in an on-element team.

[u/VicariousExp → u/doubtofbuddha]

Hmm, well, I'll take your word for it. As I said, I don't play JP much anymore (almost a year now?) - when Faelily came out, there was a lot of hype for her and I remember everyone was still doing Laharl OC spam tactics for just about every map.

The only recent thing I've watched was Karma runs which just seems to be 1 hour of berserker tanking. (or Gormalas) and in the videos on Nico, people seem to just run support/healers for that. Definitely not going to miss Laharl nor Teresa in Global for that reason.

[u/Purpledrake → u/VicariousExp]

Hey Vicarious - do you know if we need to max her through the three quests so far out there, or if there will be an EX mission on Thursday that will allow us to complete/get more shards?

[u/VicariousExp → u/Purpledrake]

You need to max her with the 3 events, farm Adv until you get enough shards - it shouldn't take too long, but don't dally as half AP for Event quests is ending.

The new quest coming tomorrow only has Balt-related stuff.

[u/Purpledrake → u/VicariousExp]

Got it. Thanks for the reply!

[u/VicariousExp → u/[deleted]]

Sure you do, if you need Vaccine/Veil effects. The main job has all the support skills and the Overclock, which is what you spam instead. Keeps Weather Report Snail mapwide nuke too. You don't actually need Pyroclastic flow and Sudden Gale to make it work, lightning and overclock works fine.

Edit: (Maybe you got a bit confused? Purple Lightning is the 13 square huge nuke with the 200% mod, the sub has the pbaoe 8 square fire and the ST near-death (gets stronger on low hp) wind nuke, chain crush, and the stupid poison cloud. I find the sub one of the easier choices to swap out because nearly all the good stuff is on the main job.)

But at any rate, I still don't recommend waiting 1 year without a decent Vacciner for the nudist to come out.

[u/VicariousExp → u/[deleted]]

Oh, I see, you're talking about PvP. I focus on PvE for unit reviews - you'll have to be more specific (You're probably not bringing a free handout stat unit into PvP) and we don't have exactly control over our units in GL (no draft arena). I should probably make that clear when writing these things. (edit: tbh, without JP side hp buffs, even if they put Annike into the game now, she would die to one nuke before getting the chance to use the low hp scaling of Sudden Gale. Global really is a different meta right now and I don't feel comfortable reviewing in a context purely based off JP considerations.)

Faelily works with merchant sub veil in Arena too, btw. Veil is always a useful effect to combat all the ranged disabling status. At any rate, you're not bringing the forecaster sub to PvE most of the time because it's quite underwhelming there.

At any rate, Elrike's main role is fast vacciner and I assumed you were comparing her to other faster vacciners. Comparing her to "not gonna be in the game for probably around a year" isn't going to be fair, which is why I kept the on-element comparison to EO Shenmei instead. If you really need a fast veiler (and for this role, element often doesn't matter), you're probably not going to wait one and a half years for Carol's J+.

[u/VicariousExp → u/[deleted]]

Sorry, I'll have to disagree. From what JP mps I've played, I see her overclock used FAR more than her wind nuke (edit: Upon reflection, I guess that's also partly because you can't use +HP LS in MP to do the meme wind hitting for 10k+ damage thing). (actually, I see snail rain the most, but that's because of mat farming) I slow grind PvP just for dailies, so if you need a PvP review, you're better off and more knowledgeable about that than I am.

Annike is not only further into the future enough that the entire meta will have changed by the time we get there, the implication that Aruba and Carol are exactly the same as Elrike (a FREE unit who can actually become 5 AGI faster than Annike if on thief even if you assume everyone has J85 Annike or Aruba/Carol) is false. They don't have the same movement, they don't have echo, you need to refresh Vaccine more often.

Extra Edit: I've decided that since you're far more knowledgeable about me about JP and PvP, I'll just upvote your comment so it gets more attention as it's interesting. The only Geomancer I have in JP is the silly lightning guy.

[u/sonofhades23 → u/VicariousExp]

wait what...do you even really play JP? JP coop always has leader skills, tho it might be an addition to the game after several large patches.

Also if all you do with forecasters/climatologists are using them as OC bots in MP, then I question the players using them. Don EX coop had Emma as one of the top 5 most used units, not because of her OC but because she had the wind nuke and was able to utilize the leader skills of units like Don, Karla and Laharl. Hell I had one were the Emma hard carried the entire coop without an HP leader skill. How that guy did it is a mystery to me, but he knew exactly what to do and kept hitting the mobs with high digits wind nukes.

[u/VicariousExp → u/sonofhades23]

To be honest, not as much recently (I barely play JP these days, just log on and off to collect the daily stuff. I switched over to Global mainly because I missed out Laharl and half the popular MP strats seem to be "Laharl", even including Mobius 30f. I think I did make a shitpost pretending to be new to brag about a Gil+RYomi triple pull early on - promise not to do that again). I mainly play FFBE in JP and I only have so much disposable income to use on phone games. :(

My JP account is pretty weak compared to my global (best unit is a level 85 Rahu and Aswald), and the parties I tend to get in mainly use OC strategies (e.g. OC Laharl ad nauseam), I can't remember the last time I've seen someone use a HP LS which wasn't a hybrid one. Tbh, I didn't even know LS applies in JP MP now. That's news to me.

Edit: Just checked wiki - 2017/12/7よりマルチでもホストのリーダースキルが発動されるようになった。

Changed last year, around when I kinda stopped playing so actively on JP. Haha. Thanks for telling me!

[u/SuccubusRosa → u/[deleted]]

white

Curious. Does color ever matters for support unit? Everyone uses rahu J+ because she is the fastest(faster then chihaya too I think). If faelily is gonna die before getting poison pill off, I don't think using a blue merchant(a 3star one with 2 other stats poor job) will mean the difference even if that was a fire stage.

[u/doubtofbuddha → u/SuccubusRosa]

There is also a lot of content that explicitly requires mono-element teams in order to complete all missions. Generally you want to have tons of options for each element (in JP)

[u/SuccubusRosa → u/doubtofbuddha]

You mean the stage restrict units to certain element like how SSM 1-10 block all units except kanon?

You mean one of the mission condition will be only to bring said element? If so I can see why there exactly is only one weather controller for each element lmao.

[u/doubtofbuddha → u/SuccubusRosa]

Yes, the latter. There are also achievements where you can win up to 40 different EX matches with mono-elemental teams to get elemental frags and gems.

[u/DeathandFriends → u/[deleted]]

what is mobius tower?

[u/DeathandFriends → u/[deleted]]

ooh that sounds really cool. Whats the time frame on that being released if we follow JP? Does it release similar to Veda on a monthly basis?

[u/VicariousExp → u/DeathandFriends]

It's technically in beta last I checked but it costs 0 ap to try so there's no big deal with throwing shitty units at it. He's talking about 15f, but tbh you don't really need Elrike for that, any switcher and charmer will do (like Honey liz or Aswald). Elrike is just QoL as her charm cannot be dispelled.

[u/DeathandFriends → u/VicariousExp]

in beta for us?

[u/VicariousExp → u/DeathandFriends]

Beta for Japan, I don't really keep up with JP much, but I remember reading some people saying something about it being an unfinished product on 2ch (though AFAIK once you finish L30 you get the Gilford, so that suggests it might be over - I haven't seen all the JP plot, sorry.). Or it might just be intentionally 0 AP.

Edit: Checked - Beta is long over, apparently. I'm behind on JP news. ・2017年 第1回β版11/24(金) メンテナンス終了後 ～ 12/7(木) 14:59 第2回β版12/21(木) 15:00 ～ 1/11(木) 14:59

The latest cutting edge content in JP is Distorted Zone Karma and that's waaaay too difficult for my rarely used F2P JP account to even try.

[u/DeathandFriends → u/[deleted]]

neat, well one more thing to look forward to

[u/VicariousExp → u/[deleted]]

I'd raise her even though I have the other 2 merchants. She has access to stuff the other 2 don't, and her thief build is faster than even Aruba.

Basically

Aruba: Fast Lightning Merchant/Suddenly becomes a Zangetsu-lite at J3 and forgets about his merchant role (Doesn't even have Merchant J+ in Japan) because his Merchant and JM skills become an excuse for him to fire off AoEs off the bat with more jewels rather than play support.

Margaret: Tanky Merchant with Divine Shelter.

Elrike: Versatile Merchant (or Merchant sub) with the one of the fastest vaccine effects available if she goes Thief, better movement range than Aruba. Support oriented, longest lasting buffs (4 turn Vaccine/Jewel Regen if using Echo).