Shadowswift (Cartilla)

Super Special Rare

Defensive Persona

Overview

I swear the devs must hate Cartilla or something. Meet the most controversial, confusing, and conclusively worst SSR Persona in the game.

At launch, Shadowswift (Cartilla) was thought to be one of the weakest Persona in the game due to a bug with her skill. The developers have confirmed that she is working as intended, and so she gets to keep her title.

Shadowswift is best described as a Tank Support – she directly supports the Tank. She excels against enemy teams that have a lot of AOE attacks, and massively improves the main Tank’s survivability due to her ability to ‘Share’.

‘Share’ is a special buff that redirects 25% of all incoming damage to herself. This buff can be given to multiple teammates and has 100% uptime so long as Shadowswift is alive and has made at least one move prior.

If she’s your starting SSR, reroll.

Skills

Shadowswift’s Ultimate gives the entire party Share, but all redirected damage now heals her. Her entire kit revolves around this ability, which is why I started with it. Powershare alone turns her one of the most durable units in the game when up against AOE-heavy matches. If you have her in the party, you should always start with it.

The problem here is that it does next to nothing to help the rest of the team survive – A 25% reduction will either be too little or completely unnecessary. If the enemy DPS is too extreme, the rest of the team is going to die anyway, and she’s completely useless on her own.

Shadowswift’s Special Attack was the source of confusion for the entire player base at launch. The skill description initially claimed that it would heal all allies with the ‘Share’ buff for 20% of their ATK. This alone would have propelled Shadowswift to S-tier, or at the very least A-tier, simply because of how important healing is.

The devs have confirmed that this was a mistranslation and that the skill will only heal Shadowswift.

Her Basic Attack gives the party member with the lowest health the ‘Share’ buff. Note that ‘lowest health’ is literal. A teammate with full health might be given the buff if the rest of the Team has a super relic equipped.

The skills below are based on the 0★ form and at Level 1:

Basic Attack
The target takes damage equal to 80 + 100% of ATK, 100% chance of bestowing [Share] on the lowest-HP ally for 3 turns, at a rate of 25%.

[Share]: Reduce damage taken. The amount of damage reduced is then dealt to the ally who bestowed Share.

Special – Shadow Strike [Cooldown 2 turns.]

The target takes damage equal to 110 + 150% of ATK, regain HP equal to 20% of ATK for each party member with [Share].

[Share]: Reduce damage taken. The amount of damage reduced is then dealt to the ally who bestowed Share.

Ultimate – Shadow Salve [Cooldown 4 turns.]

 Restore HP equal to 200 + 65 of ATK, bestow [Powershare] at a rate of 25% on all allies for 3 turns, replacing any existing instances of [Share].

[Powershare]: Reduce damage taken. HP corresponding to the amount of damage reduced is then restored to the ally who bestowed Powershare.

[Share]: Reduce damage taken. The amount of damage reduced is then dealt to the ally who bestowed Share.

Matchups

The only reason you will ever use her is that you don’t have anyone else to fill a slot.

The issue with her kit is a combination of an extremely situational utility, inability to meaningfully control the flow of battle, and low DPS to top it off. For what it’s worth, she is a straight upgrade from Dark Countess as she has nearly 100% uptime on damage reduction.

The game considers her to be a ‘Defensive’ type, but she is by far and away the most fragile unit in that category. She has no means of damage mitigation, meaning that direct attacks will easily take her down.

How to build

If you get her from Gacha, go reroll the account, even if you’ve had it for a month.

Jokes aside, all her skills scale with ATK. If you had to gear her up, stack ATK.

Shadowswift’s Relic, according to the descriptions, it increases the damage reduction to 35% for the entire party. It’s pretty good, but it really wouldn’t rescue her from her current problems.

Evolution Cost

Transcend Cost

Leveling Cost

Availability and where to obtain

• In [Normal Summon], any [Limited-Time Goddess Summon].