LighterBuild and Guide

Lighter is an S-Rank Melee Fire Stun Agent fulfilling the role of a low field time Daze character who also brings incredible supportive buffs for Ice and Fire teammates. Stun characters continue following a trend of picking up absurd supportive abilities and Lighter only takes this to the next level by sporting buffs that rival (and even exceed) many dedicated Support Agents - all the while fulfilling his role as a Stunner. Furthermore, he is the first Agent in the game capable of manipulating the duration enemies are Stunned for, allowing him to extend burst windows and doubling down on his supportive identity. It wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to call Lighter a Stun and Support Hybrid, but his Daze output is top class thus pushing him more in that direction, to learn more let's dive in.

Lighter’s kit is wordy and confusing… but his playstyle is anything but that. In combat he has one mission: wait in the wings allowing his teammates to fight until his unique resource bar “Morale” is between 80-100% filled, swap in, execute a flurry of devastating attacks consuming said “Morale” and swap out. This combo takes minimal time, applies all of his buffs, debuffs and delivers a strong amount of Daze.

Lighter’s Core Passive: Accelerant is at the heart of his kit and is mandatory for his combo - as without it he would be dead in the water. Accelent allows him to gain up to 100 of his resource gauge “Morale” from two different sources.

• The first being his Passive, which allows him to gain 2.9 “Morale” every second regardless of the fact if he is on the field or not.

• The second source is reliant on your squad - for every 1 Energy your squadmates spend (Including Lighter himself) he’ll generate 0.26 “Morale”.

  • For example, you’ll gain 15.6 “Morale” when an ally or Lighter spends 60 Energy on their EX Special.

“Morale” isn’t usable until Lighter gains at least 80 of it, after which he gains access to a myriad of bonuses. The first of which is the ability to trigger a Quick Assist for one time the next time he switches in ignoring the usual rules of the Assist.

The second is the ability to enter the “Morale Burst State” upon executing the 5th portion of his Basic Attack. While in the “Morale Burst State” he cannot generate “Morale” through his Passive or from Energy consumption.

While in the “Morale Burst State” Lighter gains the following effects:

• Lighter’s 5th Basic Attack is enhanced causing it to consume “Morale” rapidly.

• For every 10 “Morale” consumed by Lighter, it grants him 2% Combat Impact for 6 seconds up to a maximum of 20%.

• Any attack landed during the state applies a 15% ICE & FIRE RES Shred for 30 seconds.

• Causes the final portion of his Basic Attack 5 to apply “Collapse” to any target hit. “Collapse” causes the next Stun the enemy suffers to be extended by an additional 3 seconds, “Collapse” cannot stack and is removed after the enemy recovers from Stun. 

After entering the “Morale Burst State” it’s heavily recommended you fully consume all of Lighter’s “Morale” swiftly and immediately to ensure you land the biggest Combat Impact buff possible, fully stack his buffs/debuffs and ensure you’re back to generating “Morale” as soon as possible.

Lighter’s Additional Ability: Fighting Spirit is for the most part an extension of his Core Ability and absurdly powerful, so ensure that you build teams in order to activate it. Now what it does is that while within the “Morale Burst State” each of the hits caused by his 5th empowered Basic Attack grants all squad members a stack of “Elation” for a maximum of 20 stacks lasting for 30 seconds. While the 20 Stacks might sound like a lot, Lighter’s empowered 5th Basic Attack can hit many more times than that - so you’ll have no issues maxing this out when playing correctly. The “Elation” Buff grants those affected by it up to 75% FIRE and ICE DMG%. Each stack of “Elation” grants 1.25% FIRE and ICE DMG% or 25%... hold on then, what about the other 50%? For every 10 points of Impact Lighter possesses over 170, each “Elation” stack grants an additional 0.25% bonus for. Thus at 270 Impact we’ll gain 3.75% DMG increase per stack instead, allowing him to reach the maximum bonus of 75%. The 30-second duration of this buff is huge in itself but as an added bonus whenever an ally performs a Chain Attack, its duration will be refreshed making its uptime pretty much permanent.

Phew… believe it or not that makes up for the majority of Lighter’s kit and as we’ve now learnt his whole kit essentially boils down to gaining access to 80 “Morale”, entering the “Morale Burst State” and executing an Empowered Basic Attack 5. Doing this applies all of his buffs and debuffs. With the wordy part covered lets breeze through the rest of his mostly simple kit.

Lighter has a TON of different Basic Attacks - all of which might have their place in certain niche and specialized combat scenarios… but, when it comes to his core gameplay you use barely any of them. His standard Basic Attack combo consists of 5 attacks - the first 3 are Physical and the last 2 are Fire. We want to avoid using the first 3 wherever possible, as they have poor multipliers across the board. Fortunately many of his abilities allow him to skip straight to executing either the 4th or 5th portion of the Basic Attack string - as such these are the abilities to watch out for:

• Dodge Counter: Blazing Flash (Skips to 5th Basic Attack)

• EX Special Attack: V-Form Sunrise Uppercut (Skips to 4th Basic Attack)

• EX Special Attack: V-Form Sunrise Uppercut - Dash Variant (Skips to 5th Basic Attack)

• Quick Assist: Blazing Flash - Guard (Skips to 5th Basic Attack)

• Assist Follow-Up: Reignition (Skips to 5th Basic Attack)

With proper planning, you’ll find yourself able to completely omit the first 3 - 4 Basic Attacks of the combo and skip straight to what matters the most - Basic Attack 5. Basic Attack 5 is further split up into 3 different parts and can only be fully accessed by Continuously Tapping or Holding the Basic Attack button throughout his 5 Basic Attack combo or after any of the follow-ups above. The three different parts of Basic Attack 5 are:

• “StartUp”:

  • “StartUp” is a flurry of punches that follows right up after executing his Basic Attack 4 but will not be present if you skipped directly to Basic Attack 5 via another ability.

• “Combo”:

  • “Combo” is a continual flurry of punches that hits many many times in quick succession (And this is how we reach 20 stacks of “Elation”).

• “Finisher”:

  • “Finisher” is exactly how it sounds: a huge haymaker to finish the combo off.

While in the “Morale Burst State” each of these abilities consumes “Morale” and is, enhanced dealing more Damage and Daze whie also gaining additional effects. When enhanced “Combo” can be repeated as long as you possess “Morale” to consume, doing so will allow you to extend your flurry of punches to stack “Elation”, it’s always a good idea to channel “Combo” until 0 “Morale” because of the next enhancement. When running out of “Morale” while executing the 5th Basic attack within “Morale Burst State” Lighter’s “Finisher” is supercharged into “Powerful Finisher” dealing further increased Daze and Damage. Another bonus of running your “Morale” to 0 with “Combo” is that it ensures “Powerful Finisher” will have the maximum Combat Impact % buff from his Core Passive.

An additional note is that Lighter’s Basic attack combo can be fully chained and executed simply by holding down the Basic Attack button. Also as mentioned earlier his Basic Attacks do have more to them but with his current top playstyle they’re not worth delving into. With “Morale” up, get to Basic Attack 5 as fast as possible, dump all “Morale” into repeating the “Combo” portion and land a huge “Powerful Finisher”.

Lighter’s EX-Special Attack costs 40 Energy, deals good Daze, damage, and of course helps him recover some “Morale” while also skipping straight to Basic Attack 4. What makes it stand out though is that Lighter can tap EX-Special again right after its use to execute a Follow-Up Attack at the cost of an additional 20 Energy. This is usually well worth it as the attack doesn’t take much longer to execute and deals good Daze for its Energy cost. Lighter’s EX-Special also has an alternative mode which can be accessed by hitting the EX-Special key right after a Dash - something that isn’t easy to do consistently without some practice. As mentioned above the Dash-EX allows you to skip to Basic Attack 5 instead of 4.

Lighter’s Chain Attack and Ultimate are completely standard - even a bit boring you might say. His Ultimate doesn’t do anything special so the team's resources are usually better spent elsewhere and while his Chain Attack can be used if there is a slot available, it is a low priority compared to those who need it more.

As with most Stun characters, Lighter’s Dodge Counter is actually surprisingly strong having good multipliers and allowing him to immediately skip straight to Basic Attack 5 - use it when the opportunity presents itself.

Lighter’s assists like his Dodge Counter are strong and absolutely worth using. The combo of his Defensive Assist + Assist Follow-Up should be the go-to for you when playing him, as he prefers to stay off-field most of the time. Remain on-field with your other two characters but Hot-Swap to Lighter to execute his Defensive Assist + Assist Follow-Up while you wait for his “Morale” to recover for his next combo. It’s worth noting when you finally do reach 80-100 “Morale” entering combat via a Defensive Assist + Assist Follow-Up is the optimal way to maximize Daze output. Lighter’s Quick assist is also very useful, you’ll gain free access to it every time you reach 80 “Morale” in the resource bar. If you reach 80-100 “Morale” and you don’t see an opening to Swap-In Lighter optimally, following the above this is your go to for a quick skip to the 5th Basic Attack.

With Lighter’s kit fully covered let's bring all of it together. Here’s the final game plan:

• Wait until Lighter reaches 80 - 100 “Morale” (100 will maximize his Core Passive bonuses and is recommended in most cases).

• Swap to Lighter Via a Defensive Assist + Assist Follow-Up OR a Quick Assist.

• Hold down the Basic Attack to execute Basic Attack 5 “Combo” to fully drain your “Morale” and trigger his “Powerful Finisher”.

• If Energy is available add in either an EX Special or EX Special + Follow-Up.

Here it is listed in abilities:

• Defensive Assist: Swift Break

• Assist Follow-Up: Charging Slam - Stab

• Basic Attack: L-Form Thundering Fist (5th-Hit Combo)(Morale Boosted)

• Basic Attack: L-Form Thundering Fist (5th-Hit Powerful Finisher)(Morale Boosted)

• EX Special Attack: V-Form Sunrise Uppercut - Full Distance                

• EX Special Attack: V-Form Sunrise Uppercut - Full Distance (Follow-Up)   

And that’s really it. The above will grant you all of Lighter’s buffs, debuffs, and do a large amount of Daze. If you’re looking for more though here are some additional things you can watch out for.

• In the rare case Lighter is on the field execute Dodge Counters for more Daze Build-Up

• Ensure you never overcap on Energy - swap Lighter in to execute EX-Special’s even outside his usual combo if you’re about to overcap.

• Perform Defensive Assists + Assist Follow-Ups whenever possible for additional Daze.

• Optionally execute Non-Morale sequences of Basic Attack 4 + 5 to take advantage of the skips granted by your other abilities (The Daze output from these isn’t stellar but can fill empty field time or get you the last bit of the way to a stun)

• In combat scenarios that don’t demand Lighter’s full burst combo (Non-elite enemies) tactically use his EX, Defensive Assist, or Dodge counter to trigger Stuns as needed.

Lighter is an incredible Stun character fully capable of serving as a support and at the same time, he has crazy buffs/debuffs, huge burst Daze, extended Stuns and is simple to play. He has a few downsides but nothing deal-breaking. Reaching 270 Impact to fully activate his 75% bonus via his Additional Ability isn’t trivial though, and you'll need Impact-focused W-engines to make it happen - which depending on your account might pose a challenge. And of course, Lighter is a Fire and Ice specialist so if those elements aren’t for you, he loses a lot of his value. If those aren’t a problem though, Lighter is definitely a force to be reckoned with.