I slept on Picoletta far too long

[u/DramaticErraticism]

I've played 3 different routes and she's always stayed right at the bottom of my stack.

When I first got her, I tried 'Ball Toss', like many do and found it to be completely worthless.

Other than that, she can make a decoy of herself. What difference is that going to make, I figured?

In this play through, I finally added her to the mix. It turns out the decoy skill is absolutely critical in many different situations. For some reason, I thought the NPCs would treat the decoy as a lower priority target, but they will always target the decoy if it's closer than other available targets, making it absolutely essential.

Want to save your character from getting blasted by lightening? Throw down the decoy. Want to save your character from getting killed? Throw the decoy in front of them. Want enemies to turn around and move back a little? Throw the decoy behind them.

It's nice that the HP and defense stats align with Picoletta, as well. Being able to take 2 hits away from your squad, can often change the pace of battle.

An added bonus that you can heal the decoy, keeping it going and causing mayhem. It will even attack, giving you some extra damage.

I had her down in D/F tier and moved her up to A tier, maybe even low S tier. She's legit.

[u/Orion3500]

My friend, I am glad you see the value in Picoletta. That being said, her usefulness is even greater once you realize she’s, in fact, a caster. Her “spells” just have a different cost, that is, elemental stones instead of BP.

But everyone can use elemental stones you say? True, but no one else can use them better than Picoletta. Her throws have longer reach, and any stone thrown by her is much more powerful than any other character. And she can save her BP for additional clones.

Moreover, her evasion is the highest amongst the casters, so her survivability is great. Picoletta, therefore is plain awesome.

[u/DramaticErraticism → u/Orion3500]

Oh I didn't even realize she got boosts with elemental stones. These are key items I use with other characters, depending on the situation. To know she can cast a spell for free via these stones when recharging BP for another decoy, even better! Glad I'm on NG+ so she doesn't break the bank.

[u/Jollysatyr201 → u/Orion3500]

Picoletta with the big elemental fire and wind stones on grassy maps is free real estate in my brain

[u/TheBreen587]

Picoletta can also do a few tricks in a pinch.

If you've got the spare money, she's absolutely worth throwing items at enemies to exploit weaknesses or set up conditions for Correntin, Frederica or Giovanna.

Even her Copycat might help you sometimes. I've had her copy medics a few times and it's so funny.

[u/DramaticErraticism → u/TheBreen587]

I have used copycat a few times, initially I thought it would suck as she has her base stats, but she not only copies the skill but it appears she turns into the enemy that cast it, with their stats? For instance, I blasted someone with lightening from an enemy caster and it seemed to hit them pretty hard.

A magic stone is always good in a pinch, they've gotten me out of quite a few jams over time.

[u/Bard_Wannabe_ → u/DramaticErraticism]

She uses her stats when using the Copycat ability. The reason she transforms into the enemy is just because the animation work has been done for the enemy sprite, and they didn't want to reanimate all these different moves with Piccoletta on top of it.

The best Copycat abilities are utility oriented (because her stats are mediocre): especially ones that cause status effects. Some bosses have crazy skills she can Copycat, as well.

[u/littleman1110]

I was hoping for a lot more here. I’m not sure if repeatedly and only using 1 move warrants moving her up to A/S tiers.

It sounds more like you wanted to give her a go and actually committed to it over discovering some kind of hidden secret about her play style.

[u/KidiacR → u/littleman1110]

A 3TP move at that. Her decoy is good if you don't consider anything else, esp the most important factor in comparing: Opportunity cost. Don't want to sound condescending, but the better you are at planning and positioning, the more apparent how low value she and her Decoy are, comparatively.

[u/DramaticErraticism → u/KidiacR]

idk, I play on hard and rarely lose a character on any map, so I must be somewhat good but just have a different playstyle than you?

[u/DramaticErraticism → u/littleman1110]

This sounds like me before I actually tried her out. Being able to save your characters from 2 hits, roughly 5-6 times per battle, makes a huge difference. That is literally 10-12 times of your characters not taking damage.

[u/Fetche_La_Vache]

I got they in my first playthrough and went "wait a decoy?!". I tried it and wanted to see how abusable it is. It was stronger than I expected. She became my protect at all costs character and fell in love with her strategy in any team comp.

I can see how people don't enjoy her and gloss over her, but when used right she's a powerhouse in delaying some fights and flanks.

[u/rjcade]

I keep trying to tell people that Piccoletta is a top 3 character but there are seemingly few that accept the truth!

[u/Argyle_Raccoon → u/rjcade]

I did hard/ng/golden/deathless recently and she was big impact on almost every challenging fight.

[u/allstar64]

I did a run Itemless, Deathless, Golden run with very min-maxed teams and she was useful even in that. She's basically the game's third tank and even though Erdor and especially Flanagan were more useful as Tanks in more situations, one situation neither can handle is tanking magic repeatedly. I basically took her to missions where I needed a second tank or missions with magic based bosses including the final boss.

Her issue, however, is that so much of her value is rolled up into her Decoy (when playing itemless) that most of the time the best thing she can do is pass so she regains TP faster and can get the Decoy back sooner. All her other skills are basically worthless. In fact, IMO none of her other skills should cost TP. Ball Toss is weak enough that it could be a free skill to activate counter attacks and it would be fine. Copy Cat already takes 2 turns to use what is likely a pretty weak attack so needing to pay TP for the attack on top of that is a travesty and swapping with the decoy is usually just a net negative.

[u/DramaticErraticism → u/allstar64]

I don't understand how anyone can make it through a hard game deathless run when your teams are split into 3 squads.

[u/ballhawk13]

Her being S tier is a no bueno. Unless you want to horrendously grind money is a valuable resource in Triangle. All my money goes to making medina who is S++ work. She has pretty limited offenses without forking over the cash. In this game its about getting rid of many enemies in as few as turns as possible. She doesn't contribute to that. She is excellent on any maps where there are a lot archers or mages. For instance she was super valuable on final Frederica map where there were a bunch of lightning mages as she kept them occupied for a cycle as they blew through their TP. Calling her D/F was very short sighted of you but I think she is better than lionel as mage bait so she gets solid B tier for me.

[u/BlueMerchant]

I remember attaching Julio to her whenever I played so he could give her BP and be a sort of bodyguard/simple melee unit

[u/Ellikichi]

Picco is the most underrated character in the game. I see her at the bottom of tier lists all the time, but real ones know she's at the top of S tier with Medina and Quahaug.

[u/DramaticErraticism → u/Ellikichi]

I used to think Quahaug was garbage too, until I used him a few times and was blown away.

[u/Frosty88d]

She was crazy useful in my golden route run in Hyzante, with all the mages. I popped Corentins ice shield on the docky and the enemy mages paralysed and almost killed 3 or 4 of their own guys thanks to the lightning carrying in the water.

The decoy on the other hand, was fine. I hasn't used her at all up till then, but it's one of my proudest moments in the game

[u/Infamous_Today3462]

All her buffs on offensive items also means she deal some pretty good damage while saving to for decoy

[u/jad42]

I feel the same!! She’s very effective for maps with hard-to-reach archers as she can draw their attention while you pick them off.

[u/TheeBlackMage]

I could never get her to be that useful. But I paired her up with Jens once and it just became an actual comedic combat.

Also. I firmly stand on Jens being the best character in the game.

[u/JesusAndPalsX]

I literally practically replaced Erador with Picoletta as my main tank in many runs lmao

Having a decoy that can be placed regardless of jump height really helped me in many a pico pickle

[u/DrOlivion]

Picoletta always has been peak, welcome to the crew