So lately I've mention in one place or another that I've been unsatisfied with the design of GLEX units for the past few months. I figured I'd post some thoughts here and see if others agree, or do I just have unrealistic expectations that every unit should be of the same high quality as earlier units? Here's the list of GLEX units and intrinsics from the last year for reference:

Early 2022 Months

I won't spend much time discussing these because overall the quality was high, but here's some brief points about each:

Chow: Introduced full uptime omnicover. His morale generation and LB fill support (through counter build) is so strong that it completely changed the game. This is probably one of the two units from this year that crossed the line into being "too good" due to how much it warped the game balance. At least no one felt buyers regret after pulling in January.

Esther: Introduced GLEX premiums (not actually a perk lol). Strong unit, could do two roles very well, great kit, other than her field still being one of the biggest troll moves in GLEX history.

Reberta: Introduced tag chaining that was actually worth using. Has a wonderful support kit on top of being a strong damage dealer (for the time of release).

Fryevia: I guess we can't all be winners. The first major flop of the year, barely even saw use in her own Clash, and to this day has worthless damage. She was only recently "saved" by a vision card replacing her entire damage kit. We've already gone through the five stages of grief with Fryevia, so I won't spend more time on her in this post.

Kaito: Introduced buff manipulation through his magnus skills, and to this day is still completely unique in this function. Has the full debuff kit inside of Clash, though his power outside of Clash is very stripped down. Even outside of Clash though still has a lot going on like aoe killers, racial mit, aoe imbue/amp (limited uses) etc etc.

Sylvie: Introduced everything. No, really, she does everything except damage. The best support unit ever created and this unit needs no introduction. She's the other "too good" unit from this year, and probably crosses the line into being too strong. We do love her for it, but we also can't deny she raised the bar so high that it's partially to blame for the upcoming complaints of units being not good enough because of the standards she set.

Wylk: I may get arguements here, but I feel like Wylk was the second dud of this year. This unit is completely and entirely carried on the back of his 90% DEF break. Take away that 90% DEF break and Wylk is even worse than Fryevia. His damage is bad, it was crept instantly after his release, he's awkward to use, and he just doesn't really do anything in a team. Literally carried by his 90% DEF break and the fact that all 90% DEF breakers are bad these days, so he's the best of the worst options.

(IA) Louise, Mazurka: These units introduced Intrinsics, and they were bad. I think most of us forgave them being bad because we were so excited that Gumi was actually doing unit enhancements again (after like a year of nothing), but yeah, in reality this batch was a flop. Mazurka was just reskin of her JP crowns that now consume a materia slot, and Louise's IA did nothing to make her damage relevant in the meta of the time.

Chizuru: Just an updated version of Reberta, aka a fully functional support kit on top of meta relevant damage with tag chaining. This isn't a bad thing, and giving updated versions of amazing units is fine in my book. Reberta set the standards for a dps with support, and Chizuru carries on that legacy faithfully.

(IA) Elena, Yoshikiri, Skye, Olivera: The IA batch everyone references. This was the time they did IA's right. Elena's IA took her from the dumpster and made her relevant again, giving her one of the highest sustained DPS in the game. Skye's just made an already meta unit even stronger by a meaningful amount. Olivera's IA is tecnically amazing, but he suffered from a lack of dark content near his release so he never actually had his moment to use it. The IA itself though was extremely well designed. Yoshikiri's IA gave a very powerful buff, though it didn't really fix the unit itself, so this one is generally considered bleh.

Olive: Introduced GLEX SLB units (again, not a perk). That said, the unit was still well designed in spite of SLB handicaps. Does solid damage, has 90% SPR break, is relatively easy to use with a clean rotation (assuming ex3... sigh). Olive is what we all wish Wylk could be.

(IA) Melia: We're going to discuss this a bit further down

Tsukiko: The last "complete" GLEX unit we've had as of the time of this post. She made evocation cool again, has support for multiple elements, a strong support kit, lots of fields, breaks, perfect dispel, good damage, ease of use, etc. An overall great unit.

Beginning of the End

Towards the end of 2022 it feels like there was a drastic shift in unit design quality. Maybe they restructured the development teams or something, but whatever happened, unit quality went downhill very quickly around September. Let's take a look at what happened:

Melia

Why not kick this off with the biggest train wreck of 2022? Oh Melia, what happened here. As a unit, Melia had been dead for a very long time. The IA (which is no longer free, like the previous good ones), only adds a cover and barrier, low mitigation, and the cherry on top, is that it doesn't even have full uptime. What is even happening here. Whoever made this intrinsic is completely out of touch with the game. The IA and unit are so bad I won't even bother trying to think of a way to dig her out of the trash can.

Noppy

Melia's IA was bad? Ok, why don't we double down! Not only does Noppy's IA again do nothing to save the unit, but now we're charging 12,000 lapis to obtain it instead of 3 crowns. Uh... wut? Ok, let's get serious for a moment. This IA, at face value, is "good". It gave a massive boost to Noppy's damage. Except, if the person who made this IA actually played or understood the game, they would realize it didn't fix Noppy at all. For one thing, Noppy is stuck with a dead chain family (SR) that noone uses anymore, and another thing is that Noppy is made of wet tissue paper and dies at the drop of a hat. Not a place you want to be in when Clash has shifted to being extremely dangerous on the survival front. Like Melia, Noppy is too far gone to bother trying to suggest fixes.

Lilith

Another SLB unit. Global sure loves those. This is where the actual new unit design fell off. So she's a tank unit that wants to be a dps. Or a dps unit that wants to be a tank? She can't decide, and neither can we because she has major flaws at both. First of all, lets address the major glaring flaw in her kit that drives me insane. Her terrible mitigation for a primary tank unit. Remember Runda? The little free roboball that gives permanent 85% general AND physical mitigation? Well why does Lilith only give 75%? As we've seen from Clash lately, 75% mitigation just isn't cutting it anymore. Before you @ me with videos showing Lilith solo tanking a recent clash, let me reference a quote from Muspel: "Just because a problem has a solution doesn't mean it's not still a problem". Yeah, you can force Lilith to work as a tank with external mitigations, excessive gear, or big brain team strategies. Doesn't change the fact that 75% mitigation is too low these days, and recent clashes are using things like 85% racial mitigations on TOP of 85% gen or phys/mag mitigations to survive. A new main tank unit being stuck in the 2021 meta of 75% mit has no place here.

Then there's her damage side, which is fine in clash, but terrible outside of clash. Remember units like Chizuru or Tsukiko who can do relevant damage in both game modes? Why is Lilith limited to only being a dedicated DPS in clash? Then there's the issue of her rotation, which is a train wreck of epic proportions. Her SLB has no physical mit at all, which means if you want to maintain gen and phys mit for the party (at her "best" values), you have to both SLB AND LB every 3 turns, which means you need to entrust her (or externally fill her) every 3 turns, and she has to dedicate 66% of her actions to just spamming her LB and SLB to maintain mit (at ex3). If she's under ex3 she can't even maintain the good mits at all. The other fallback is lol50%. Give me a break. Sugggested fixes:

• Increase LB gen and phys mit to 80% like Runda
• Increase SLB gen mit to 85% like Runda
• Add phys mit to SLB (at 85% like Runda)
• Give her an on-demand phys and gen mit better than 50% for people under ex3 (70 or 75%)
• Increase her LB mod outside of clash. Doesn't need to be equal to 2B or anything, but it should be better than it currently stands.

Karten

Once again, the IA team is out of touch with the game. Karten's IA should have given him 300 or 400% TDH, at least a 1x chain cap, and a much higher mod boost to his skills. This IA was just a dps boost to an outdated unit, and it didn't do enough to make him relevant. Wasted potential.

2B

She's... fine. The kit does feel lacking when compared to older units like Chizuru or Reberta, but overall I'm satisfied with 2B. She does have multiple weapon imperils, AoE mirage, AoE killers, and tag chains. Her damage is quite high too. Solid unit and the clear winner of her banner. Then we come to...

A2

Oh my, what happend here? First of all, dem LB frames, oh boy. I can't wait for people in the comments to @ me with "it's fine, just git gud and learn how to deal with dumb timing". How about... no? There's no excuse for the terrible spacing on her LB, even if you can overcompensate for it. Silver lining is that her LB isn't her primary damage anyway. As for the rest of the kit... wait, wheres the kit? What? There's nothing here! Yeah, A2 is a completely selfish unit that basically did a total copy paste of 2021 Sephiroth design. Can we please keep JP designs in JP? This is Global, we like having some meat on our units. Suggested fixes:

• Make her imbues AoE with AoE amps (aoe 45% is fine)
• Fix those *#$#@% frames on her LB/SLB
• How about one or two unique'ish utility skills? I'm sure there's something from Nier lore that could make sense. Maybe AoE 85% machine mitigation or something?

Chow

I can't really complain that this IA wasn't good enough, because even today Chow is overpowered. As much fun as it was for Skye's IA to buff an already meta unit even more, it's not something I expect or even ask for. The only complaint with Chow's IA is the the IA of the month should have gone to someone more in need (Maeve for example?). That said, speaking of the IA itself, it doesn't really "help" the unit to make him better in a place he's weak. If you really wanted to make an IA for Chow, it should have been to fix his poor physical bulk since in reality we use him as an omnicover tank, not as a magic tank. I realize that's probably more of a metagame decision than the developers are willing to do since his design is as a "magic tank".

Ayaka

Here we go again with JP themed kits. 9 months ago we had units with AoE 150% killers to four races and they included racial mitigations on top. Now we have Ayaka, with her one use magnus killer to three races. Backpedal much? Why does she have no ice imbue or amp for the party at all, other than her one use (instead of Sylvie's four) magnus imbue/amp? Why does she have basically NOTHING AT ALL except chains after her magnus skills are gone? This kit is almost as empty as A2 once you get past the single use magnus skills. I guess we should be grateful she has the magnus skils at all, unlike A2? Suggested fixes:

• Increase the magnus imbue to two uses based on Clash being two (or three) burst phases
• Give her an on-demand aoe ice imbue/amp of 45%
• Change the killer magnus to be a cooldown
• Change her racial mits to be AoE instead of self only

Eldryn

Smells like Noppy again. Maybe the GLEX team was thinking long term because AMoE frames do make a comeback starting around March when Dioses and crew start arriving. I guess Eldryn's IA will keep him meta relevant a few more months down the road when we're in the Dioses and beyond meta, right guys? Right?

Tiana

Oh hey, the guy who made Melia's IA got back from vacation and got his hands into Tiana's intrinsic. We're so glad you're back, and thank you for this wonderful fix for a unit who dropped off the face of the earth last year when her clash ended. Suggested fixes for Tiana:

• Change her stacking skills to just be non-stacking at all. Or cut the stacks down from the insane 25 to something reasonable, like 5 or so.
• Huge mod boosts to all her skills because her damage is real bad right now
• Change her LB to be phys typed imbuable, and make her chains do a self imbue of that element

Shui Yu

Now we have our latest disaster. Shui Yu, a unit who was completely skipped last year finally gets her much needed fixes. Now, after her updates she's doing... less damage than Tiana in Clash, and less damage than Barret in DV. Hold on a minute, I'll be done rolling on the floor laughing in just a moment. What a way to start the year, thanks Global Team! Suggested fixes:

• How about some damage?

Closing Thoughts

Well, there's my thoughts on the last year of unit design. Let me know where you agree or disagree with my thoughts!