Mephistopheles (Dawn)Build and Guide

Mephistopheles (Dawn) or in short Dephi is the 5th Chaotic Soul released in January 2025 on Second Anniversary.. She is an INT Striker who primarily functions as a Main DPS with some support capabilities. Let's take a look at her skills first:

• Passive - Code: Idea: The Core of Dephi kit, it allows her to do all her attacks without cooldown, thus decreasing her rotation time sharply and provides her with Idea Level buff that increases damage dealt and reduces damage taken by 20%. Idea Level is upgraded by Tracking Causality stacks various skills provided, It turns into Idea Level II at 3 stacks and Idea Level III at 10 stacks. Each stack also increases her Crit Rate by 3% each up to a maximum of 10 stacks. At Idea Level III the damage effects are enhanced to 40%.

• Main - Code: Fate Break : A Single Target skill that attacks the lowest HP enemy and stuns it. It gives 1 stack of Tracking Causality normally but if the enemy is defeated, you gain 3 stacks of  Tracking Causality (1 from Main execution,  1 from Main defeating an enemy, 1 from Passive defeating an enemy). Her damage increases with each Idea Level and at Idea Level III she decreases 2000 Mana from the enemy,

• Ultimate - Code: Rebellion: Almost entirely similar to her Main Skill with higher multipliers with exception of ability to get a maximum of 4 stacks  of Tracking Causality from it (1 from Ultimate execution,  1 from Ultimate defeating an enemy, 1 from Passive defeating an enemy, 1 from Ultimate being executed at Idea Level II or above) and instead of Mana Decrease, she instead restores 1500 Mana for all her Allies at Idea Level III.

• Sub 1 - Ark Discharge: Single Target attack aimed at the nearest enemy and provides her with Accelerate buff - 20% Normal Attack damage and 5% Speed buff (stacks up to 5 times). At 5 stacks of Accelerate, Normal attacks do 50% additional damage to enemies and she inflicts Balance Break on them, decreasing their resistance/def for up to 20% max.

• Sub 2 - Anti Plot: Another nearest target skill, which grants her Shield and increases her resistances. At Idea Level II, dispels 3 buffs from the enemy, at Idea Level III, restores 1500 Mana to self.

• Artifact - Ark of Dawn Metatron: The perfect pair to her Passive, every time Dephi increases her Idea Level, she recovers 40-100% HP/Mana depending on ascension. Furthermore, she starts the battle with 2500  Mana. At Leg+ increases all allies Attack by 25% with Idea Level II, at Origin increases all enemies damage taken by 20% with Idea Level III.

Well that was a wordy kit, But let's get to dismantling Dephi. She is a strong frontline attacker that lacks the drawbacks of last few frontline DPS , that is being squishy, all thanks to her Shield and Resistance increases + Reduced damage taken. Furthemore, her Main and Ultimate targeting lowest HP allows her to semi function as an Assassin instead.The Idea behind Dephi is that her Main and Ultimate grants between 1/2-3/4 stacks of Tracking Causality per execution depending on if it defeated an enemy or not, and Tracking stacks upgrade Idea Level (3 for II, 10 for III) and upon reaching higher level of Idea Level, she recovers her Mana and HP.

Thus the perfect rotation for Dephi would look something like Use Main Skill (Kills an enemy) → Gain 3 Stacks of Tracking Causality → Idea Level II → Artifact Refills Mana and HP → Use Main Skill again (Kills an enemy) → Gain 3 Stacks of Tracking Causality (6 Total) → Use Ultimate Skill (Kills an enemy) → Gain 4 Stacks of Tracking Causality (10 Total) → Idea Level III → Artifact Refills Mana and HP → Use Main Skill.  So as you can see, if you can get the flow going with enemy kills and adequate Dephi artifact investment, you can quickly fire 3 Mains and 1 Ultimate in a row making decimating enemy teams in PvE content, similar to Aki.

Although this is not without drawbacks, for starters if she gets entangled with damage sponges like Petra and Daphne, it's more likely for her to waste her skills on them without killing them thus significantly lowering the Stack gain and ruining her rotation. Next Up, a significant chunk of her Stack gain is dependent on killing the enemy with her Main/Ultimate, which means the same is impossible to trigger in ESS, Guild Raids and similar content unless you pair her with Linzy (Thanatos) thereby increasing her rotation significantly in order to reach Idea Level III and operate at peak performance.

In Gaia she has potential as DPS, however she fails as Mana Drainer, since Gaia will stun you before she reaches Idea Level II to trigger that most of times, in Charite she could theoretically tank with her Shields, but getting a Main DPS like her to be the highest HP is no easy task and will dampen her damage significantly. Pluto, being weak to Chaotic Souls and Angel/Demon ESS will be her backyard and she will be able to likely dominate the same without much issues. In Rudra, with Stun on Demand on Main and high survival capacity, Dephi is sure to see some use, whether as Main DPS or Sub-DPS however, that remains to be seen. The reliance on Linzy (Thanatos) might pose as another challenge, since she herself is hard to slot in sometimes.

Investment

• New / F2P / Casual Players: Dephi is comparable to Aki in certain scenarios when it comes to PvE, although she needs more micromanagement to ensure proper stack gain and a bit more costly affair. However, Chaotic units are extremely hard to get outside their banners, so if you have gems, she is not the worst investment. New Players might want to invest in her over Aki as well.

• Dolphins / Competitive Raid Players / Whales / Rankers: Currently it’s hard to assess how Dephi will perform in upcoming raids with seasons changing how raids work at every iteration, however with Season 2 reducing the battle duration, she will surely suffer a bit due to her long rotation, even if paired with Linzy (Thanatos), as she needs to build her own stacks first in order to trigger on-kill effects of teammates normally. However, with Chaotic being limited units, it is advisable to at least Origin her, as another character may significantly boost her or S3 might go back to increased battle durations. As for her Artifact, higher the better with how much you have to gain.

Team Composition and Synergies

Dephi has few souls she really synergizes well with, first being Eve. Eve not only makes Dephi more tanky and hit harder, but also increases the speed she gains access to her Main in, thereby kick-starting her rotation. Beyond that, she would like the company of Daphne to share the load at front, or Claire to go into backlines to disrupt the enemy team instead. Lilith is another great pick as her Operator buffs apply on Dephi as well increasing her performance, being an INT based unit, Dominique also significantly buffs her damage. Lastly, you may want to pair her with an Assassin to ensure that the lowest HP enemy is in the backline and not the tank to give wind to her rotation. In raids we have already discussed the impact Linzy (Thanatos) brings on her, beyond that the usual buffers are all game.

Conclusion

Mephistopheles (Dawn) as things stand is leaning more on Meta side of Souls however concrete assessment will depend on her performance in upcoming Guild Raids, something we can’t judge at the moment due to drastic changes in meta Guild Raid S2 is bringing and lock down of Practice Rooms. In PvE if you can get her going, she makes the enemy team vanish sooner than you can fathom when paired with the right teammates and invested accordingly, and as a solace, she lacks the recent plague of being too squishy due to her self buffs and shields.

Similarly to Sakuyo (Inferno), we will not be rating her in Guild Raid Charite, Rudra and Pluto for the moment, however if Practice Room opens up before her banner ends, we will revisit her review and ratings for the same We will suggest players to aim for at least Origin Ascension for her, regardless of where you stand in the game progress wise, as from past experiences, Chaotic souls have ended up becoming core in many comps of Guild Raids, ESS and Unicats, and without a banner up, it is a very costly endeavor to invest in them.