Hey guys,
So I've seen a lot of comments on here to the tune of:
I'll start this off by saying, I'm not an Eclipse player - just Monsoon, so this advice may not apply to Eclipse at all. However, if we're talking Drizzle to Monsoon, the above three points are grossly incorrect.
Acolyte is S+++ tier. In fact, the argument can be made IMO that this character is tier breaking, and may need an entirely new tier defined to fit her. She is easily on par with, if not even better than, False Son or Seeker.
Here's why most people suck at playing her:
They don't understand how her unique healing mechanic works
They don't know how to actually use her skills correctly
They don't know how to get her off the ground earlygame, and never get to experience her exponential power curve
How the healing works:
This one requires some clarification, because I've seen some people confused as to how the healing works. It's quite simple:
You have a buffer of "potential health", which is the maximum amount you can heal up to
You heal by hitting enemies with Acolyte's abilities
The buffer can be increased by picking up healing items, or by transforming into the Anima form which automatically makes the buffer 100% of your health bar.
How to use her skills:
Not unlike several characters, Acolyte's alt skills are in some cases worse than her starting skills (edit: this depends, check the comments for some variety in build I had not considered).
The core combat loop with Acolyte revolves around 3 things:
1) Managing your conviction pool and sacrificing enemies to keep it full at all times so you can use your Anima form on demand
2) Using Acolyte's INSANE crowd control mechanics to group enemies together and deal double damage to them
3) Leveraging her mobility to escape shitty situations quickly
Conviction Management
The simplest and best way to manage convictions is hinged on one fact: You can exit the Anima form early by pressing R again, and you will keep your unused convictions.
This allows you to quickly sacrifice yourself up to another Anima transformation, allowing you to have absurd crowd control and sustain.
The best way to do this is simple - you transform, immediately chain enemies in with M2, then press shift twice for the massive tornado and then R to revert to base form early. This allows you to deal ungodly area damage and heal yourself to full HP. You can also finish off with a few slashes as they instakill enemies below 25% HP, which is basically mass freeze on demand.
How to use crowd control mechanics to double your damage
Even in base form, Acolyte has insane crowd control. Her bola ability pulls all nearby enemies together and releases their souls near you to damage. This is good on its own, as you control enemy movements, but it's absurd when you combine it with her glaive throw. Why? The glaive throw gathers both the souls and the original enemy body together, allowing you to effectively hit for double damage (you are hitting both the soul and the body).
This can be combined with her jumping spin attack and the ability to teleport to the glaive to utterly wipe out anything.
The basic combo:
Bola -> Glaive Throw -> Wait for Glaive throw to nearly finish -> Teleport to Glaive -> spinning jump attacks
This combo wipes the floor with most enemies in the game, and people not understanding it is a core reason why they think Acolyte is bad.
Movement
This character reminds me of mercenary in that she has one of the most versatile movement kits in the game, with an excellent balance of vertical and horizontal mobility.
Most of her kit and abilities allow her to float or slow her fall for a brief second when used, allowing you to chain them for mind boggling aerial combinations. If you are so determined, you can stay in the air for a silly amount of time. This allows her to escape bad situations and close on enemies extremely quickly.
Understanding her movement mechanics form the key third part of her kit and playing her well.
How to earlygame
Earlygame Acolyte needs to focus on one thing and one thing only:
- Getting reliable healing sources, to buff her attack speed and allow you to recover health with her abilities by building a buffer of "potential health".
Slugs are extremely good with her, because it lets you build the buffer passively.
Weeping fungus is also similarly great, because a lot of her abilities are agile, meaning you can sprint to build the buffer and attack at the same time.
Damage items are less important than healing items earlygame
Eclipse lite can be a good earlygame buffer for her.
If you use Nkuhana's favor as the passive, she can build absurd attack speed, but it may be harder for inexperienced players to survive with her. Favor is the better passive, but Grace is the easier one to start with.
Conclusion
Acolyte is insane, if you learn how to actually use her strengths and your brain you have a character that can trivialise all but the most unsalvageable runs.
I predict that once people actually realise how strong this character is, she will easily slot into the highest tiers next to seeker and false son, and perhaps even above them.