[The Pequod Captain] Ishmael

Captain Ishmael is a very interesting Support ID. Very good and strong, a lot of going on in her kit but she has issues in her design that make her finicky to use and team build around. Let’s focus on good things first. Skill 1 rolls 12 with +3 offense level which is already above average.

On top of that, S1 buffs Defense Level, grants aggro, and at any 4+ A-Resonance, grants 1 Protection. This offers small, but decent damage reduction for an ally adjacent to her on the board.

Skill 2 rolls 16 with 48 offense, which is average but this skill offers 3 Offense Level Up to 2 allies adjacent to her on board (Equals to 1 clash power), at 4+ highest A-Resonance grants 2 Damage Up AND at 4+ Pride A-Resonance, grants 2 Pride Power Up. All those buffs can boost damage, especially when skills are of the Pride Sin affinity. On top of it all, with high enough Resonance, S2 will activate Assist Attack causing the ally to the right of Ishmael, to use their S1 free as an unopposed attack, and depending on ID, it can be an amazing (Dieci Hong Lu), or average. Now the Skill 3, the Nuke that rolls 16 on base and with Coin Power, 24. Due to dealing more damage (up to 30%) and less HP than the enemy has, this skill will usually do decent damage and at best, rival some other good nukes. After an attack with this skill, if the target is staggered or defeated, Ishmael will heal the SP of allies, the number based on A-Resonance length, and give them Poise. So when paired with other Poise IDs, she will let them maintain it for a bit longer. Then there are passive, or rather two passives. One is just 10% more damage vs lake enemies. Second, the more important one, is on 3 Pride Resonance, after Ishmael attack if an enemy dies, she will gain Poise and Poise Count, gain status that lets her apply 1 Burn on Hit for a turn, and 2 other allies will heal 7 SP, gain Poise and give them 1 Pierce power up. As a topping, her Defensive skill restores 5 SP for 2 allies adjacent to her on board. Overall, from positives. She has good numbers on skills and her buffs making her a very universal ID to use.

Now the bad things. While Captain Ishmael inflicts bleed and burn, the application is negligible and is there only to activate Mirror Dungeon gifts. While Captain Ishmael is leading the Pequod crew, her support for them is finicky. Pequod Yi Sang and Heathcliff do damage on their Envy skills, why is Ishmael Skill 1 buffing their defense? In case they lose with those skills? Why is Skill 2 buffing Pequod Crew Skill 1 that you preferably do not want to clash with due to them rolling 10 at the base? And their damage won't be even that impressive when those skills will come from an assist attack. Ironically, Captain Ishmael has better synergy with non-Pequod IDs than with her crew. Like W Ryoshu (amazing Pride S2 and more charge from S1), Cinq Sinclair (another amazing Pride S2, fast making Ishmael buffs more reliable, more haste from S1), Middle Don (Synergy with her Counter + Ishmael S1, and great Pride S3).

While her passive is great, it does not exist in boss fights so Ishmael has no passive in fights that matter. A-resonance requirement for the majority of her buffs might be not reliable. The same goes with her granting buffs to allies adjacent to her on board, meaning bad speed rolls will make her buffs hit the wrong allies or in the case of S2, only 1 ally.

However, probably the worst part of her kit is her unique sanity system. Ishmael gains and loses sanity differently than other IDs, however, the most important part of her Sanity, is her losing sanity when allies kill enemies of a higher level than her level. So Ishmael always has to be max level to mitigate that. This makes Captain Ishmael annoying to use in content like Mirror Dungeon as her SP will plummet down quickly. Ironically, in mob fights where her passive can be activated, she suffers more. This causes a clash between her design goals of what she wants to do. She wants to support other units making them hit harder, but at the same time, she weakens herself by doing so. Of course, her SP loss doesn't matter in boss fights, but her passive doesn't exist there anyway.

Overall, Captain Ishmael is an ID, that is bloated in terms of numbers and effects, which makes her good, but there are parts of her design that do not work with each other, causing clash in what she is supposed to do, and especially her Sanity, makes her mildly annoying to use.