Common Mercurial Gauntlet Picks

Common Mercurial Gauntlet Team Members
Written by Happy (@emotionally stable#4192 on discord) on October 21st, 2019

Wind
Mikoto- strong adventurer who bring coab as well. Consistent dps [do not let ai]
Rena- strong adventurer who bring coab as well, and great burst during break. Rena also has burn to enable burn punisher strats [do not let ai]
Marth 40 and below- marth struggles to get combo high enough for his ability, and in longer fights low hp strat causes diminishing returns because of losing hp conditionals such as crit rate from resounding rendition [do not let ai]
Vanessa- last offense pairs well with marth, and ai will force strike, taking advantage of her passive force strike+
Ramona- a powerful, powerful nuker with her 3k mod s1. Primed strength also brings great support for your lead. Best as an ai because her s1 is so long you will struggle to team iframe for claps
Valentine Ezelith- bow coab is helpful for ais as they do not follow optimal attack combos, while valentine ezelith provides great support, enabling burning punisher strat and having def down s2
Sarisse- bow coab is helpful for ais as they do not follow optimal attack combos, and she is such a nuker it's insane
Sinoa- a great buffbot supporter, sinoa providing coab but being on a roulette so 50% of the time you'll get a useless buff for mg, means you may have to restart, but a good ai and strong pick
Emma- a great buffbot supporter as well, however hers is always strength up 25%, primed strength, her s2 enables valiant crown/first-rate hospitality strats. A good ai as well
Student Maribelle- a strong dps, a good coab, burst during break with broken punisher, good ai, can easily keep skill damage passive. A strong pick in general

   () substitues:
Aoi- blade coab, good dps [do not let ai]
Xania- wand coab, skill damage passive
Mym- she's able to ai, her skills are..okay, but she doesn't charge her dragon for her to be as highly valued as she would be otherwise. There are, however, dprep strats but it's very similar, if not worse, than other strats, and competes with emma for the 5t3 weapon unless you craft multiple
Halloween Mym- Halloween Mym has a def down s1 and a strength boosting s2. She's trying to fill a buffbot role, however her sp cost are high so she feels like a worse emma. I will give her praise for her coab due to enabling crit fishing.


Water
Victor- bleed, strong coab, consistently can spam bleed, benefits from bow coab if it's brought, possibly the best option for a lead [do not let ai]
Addis- bleed, blade coab, addis has burst during break. One of the best possible option for a lead [do not let ai]
Noelle- a buffbot, a good ai, good coab benefits from freyja(0ub) more than a strength dragon so less investment
Maribelle- a strong dps, with a chance to def down with s1, and a good ai +coab
Wedding Elisanne- def down zone s2, powerful dps, powerful skills, force strikes are powerful for faster breaks. Her def down s2 is so useful, she can actually ai, and will benefit from prep to line up with lead skills
Lin You- a powerful dps, and only drawback, sleep, which disrupts clap rotation and makes it more difficult to iframe
   () Substitutes:
Melody- she's a buffbot like noelle, however she struggles as an ai as both a blade and a horrible s2. She doesn't benefit from skill haste, but if no victor/addis she could be a useful lead
Johanna- another powerful dps, although weaker than lin you and can't use passive slayers strength, and is more accessable than the 5 star options and has 3 damaging skills. A great ai as well with no disruption to clap rotations.
Louise- bow coab, enables pazuzu, one of the better ais


Flame
Xander- powerful damage which scales from buffs, which it just so happens water is chockfull of, and faster breaks. [Do not let ai]
Karina- powerful damage which scales from buffs, which it just so happens water is chockfull of, skill prep passive, 5t3 skill from axe also helps as it's one of the best 5t3 skills. Works well with xander as well
Elisanne- a buffbot with a good ai, benefits from beach battle haste, and benefits from bow coab even more. Free, so everyone has her
Lily- wand coab, good ai, can stay full easily so benefits from her passive strength up.
Summer Julietta- powerful dps, bog is powerful, +teambuff for bogging, +primed strength for lead, +good ai. Also benefits xander/karina so more powerful support
Summer Estelle- good dps, free so a majority of players can have her, s2 buff benefits xander/karina
Laranoa- bow coab, good dps, easily keeps up flash of genius combo req, s2 aoe buff benefits xander/karina
Dragonyule Cleo- good coab, new print+facility makes dagger more powerful, s1 aoe buff benefits xander/karina

   ()substitutes:
Celliera- blade coab at the con of average dps. Awkward rotations without haste (8% or more) [do not let ai]
Dragonyule Xander- basically the same as sestelle but weaker and prevents you from running base xander
Summer Celliera- she has strong dps and good buffs, which consistently stay up with her bufftime passive, and benefit xander/karina and stacks her defense buff with doublebuff for personal dps. Enables doublebuff strats as well similarly to emma
Halloween Odetta- she's a powerful unit with a nice s2. If played properly, near 100% uptime, however you lose your ability to control other options such as blades and xander. [do not let ai]


Light
Ieyasu- blade coab, bleed+ buffs because of bleed, strong dps [do not let ai]
Natalie- blade coab, easily accessible selfbuffs, strong dps, pairs with botan very well, able to cheese sub 40 with tough love+choco [do not let ai]
Gala Cleo- wand coab, buff zone, powerful s1, powerful s2, s2 def down, skill prep. It's gala cleo
Alex- a good coab, able to keep full hp passive, s2 does more damage during break, new print+facility makes daggers more powerful
Botan- bleed, good ai, skill prep, buffs (although not consistent, helpful nonetheless), 5t3 skill is useful
Curran- a good dps, last offense if you wish to try to eat a clap, great ai
Veronica- more difficult to eat a clap with but still strong dps and a strong coab
Delphi- useful coab, debuff zone is powerful, because his skills are basically at set timers (13 sec and 20 sec) he can be ai

   ()substitutes:
Althemia- a decent dps, good coab, easily accessible, but far weaker than gala cleo
Sazanka- the weakest of all the bleeders, but usable still. Force strike buff from s2, and ai will use force strike, means that she's just able to get closer to her number in sim (which is highly inflated as is, but I don't want to get started)
Zace/Erik- some of the better ais and decent dps, however no bleed so they fall off compared to botan and sazanka


Shadow
Disclaimer: Most of the common picks aren't light, so these are just some useful light options
Gala Euden- buffzone s1, buff from s2 (63 sec timer, so really needs sdo/choco), cupid buff + bonus damage and time from coab/passive. Just really strong
Xiao Lei- a good dps, useful coab if no gleo, and s2 +cupid skill gives 43% crit rate
Halloween Elisanne- skill damage passive, buff from s1 phase 2 and 3, and some prep from s2. Gauge accelerator for faster breaks as well. All around a good pick
Fleur- a good coab, para punisher if para procs (only 4 since 80 base res and each para increases res by 5%), definitely not gonna reach sim value but one of the better options. Excellent burst if you can get para around then, but otherwise she falls off heavily
Annelie- energy support, can't lose energy from getting statuses, doesn't lose skill damage passive, good dps, good ai. Stun might become annoying similarly to lin you
Albert- previously our strongest dps in sim, he is still a valued adventurer because the one who beat him is dependent on para. He has a force strike passive, skill damage and force strike selfbuff, and can benefit from sisters day out to get both force strike buff and skill charge he'd lose out on if he ran stellar show


Cross-element
These are picks who can be used on any element. Here is an example, courtesy of Eriotto https://m.imgur.com/faJjB7p (gala cleo wand mub)

Victor- his personal dps is super high, he highly benefits from valentine ezelith skill haste, has bleed, coab.
Ieyasu- high personal dps, bleed, blade coab, and crit passives. Biggest issue is his s1 being so long, which is why they gave us victor
Gala Cleo- super powerful dps, good coab, and insane support to boot in her buff zone and def down. So powerful, she can enable some meme comps.
Delphi- good coab again, def down, skills are on a set timer so it hardly matters how ai does, and mg boss has 0 base poison res so he can enable pazuzu for victor/other wind options if you don't have vayu mub.
Valentine Ezelith- originally being a "i don't have sarisse so i guess this will do" pick, she quickly rose with affliction changes and a second valentine event bringing a second burning punisher print in another elegant escort. Def down support which stacks with gleo and delphi also increases team utility
Elisanne- our original crossele pick, she provides great, consistent buffs, benefits from beach battle, can run levi to inflict bog at break, benefits from valentine ezelith coab, if you have an open slot and don't have gala cleo she's probably your best option
Summer Julietta- our summer sweet has some powerful utility in water mg. She can bog without dragoning into levi, which not only increases damage but gives a teambuff thanks to her passive, and has primed strength for your lead. Her s2 also provide an aoe buff, with 15% strength on all three phases and 10% crit rate from phase two and three
Natalie- she's a strong blade, with strong passives and is able to cheese sub40. She has one of the best 5t3 skills, and has an easy access to getting low for damage increase and future strength buffs because of choco rerun. Only real con is if you don't have choco there are few prints that work with low hp well


How To Pick A Team

Unless you're a super whale or are day one, you probably don't have all of these. So i'm also gonna add a way to help you decide your team. It doesn't have to be super meta, and for most comps you just need a few things

-Useful coab(s)
Every comp should have at least one of three coabs: blade, wand, dagger. Max unbound, blade coab gives a teamwide 10% strength up, wand coab gives a teamwide 15% skill damage, and dagger coab gives a teamwide 10% crit rate. One of these is almost always used. Another useful coab is bow coab, which provides 15% skill haste max u bound. While not every team will have a use for it with lead, ai benefits a lot more and certain adventurers such as rena and victor prefer it to help with iframing claps

-A strong lead
As you should know, every team has one person being controlled and three being ais. You're controlling your lead. This lead should be someone who either a) has a bad ai, or b) times skills perfectly for claps. Some examples of your usual leads are blades, swords, and daggers. Others would be elly if you trust your ais and other buffbots

-Buffbot
Almost every team wants a buffbot. This is someone who provides a teamwide buff with their s1. Some work for elemental specific, such as emma and noelle, while others don't care what ele but have a drawback of sorts, elly being 20% rather than 25%, melody being 15%, and sinoa being a roulette with a chance at useless buffs for mg.

-Ais
Obviously your team will consist of ais, however there are some who are just so bad, it's gonna completely change the fight if you control them/drop them.
Sword ai will use 5c combo outside of overdrive. This means for about a second, they are mid-animation jumping for the 5th hit. During overdrive they still do this sometimes, and a lot of the benefit of swords is their faster breaks.
Blade ai will force strike as well during overdrive, but it's so laughably weak and has such low sp cost it hurts. Most of blade sp gains comes from the 5th hit which ais won't do because they'd rather force strike, and they force strike through roy fafnir so aoe buffs such as gala cleo or summer juli buffs won't effect them.
The last one is dagger, who already suffer from generally weak skill mods. They will do 5c (where they do that really cool backflip) outside of overdrive and then just pause. And do nothing. This causes them to lose combo, which is needed for twinfold bonds, their best print option, to activate the flurry strength passive.
As you may have noticed, I pointed out the flaws around overdrive. You can control a sword or dagger before overdrive, and then swap to a blade. This works sometimes, and allows you to control some great dps options in their prime (such as using wedding elisanne and victor on the same team).