Characters - Melissa

Class - Guardian

Uses a shield that cuts damage in half and inflicts status ailments to disable the enemy

Tags -

Melissa cannot duck. Melissa's shield cuts damage from all frontal attacks in half (does not apply to knockback or pits). Melissa has the By A Thread ability, which prevents her HP from reaching 0 if she has 2 or more HP only once (though save areas in Endless Dungeon will restore By A Thread)

Melissa's defensive capabilities are among the best around, with half damage received from all frontal attacks and projectiles, her By A Thread ability which provides greater longevity, and her Colossus Extreme, which reduces damage dealt to her by another 50% (while negating Trainwreck and Paladin Smite cooldowns).

Melissa's attacks are on the slow side, but she can use her high defense to outmatch the enemy when trading blows and they deal high damage to boot (18 damage for her basic shield attack, 54 damage/Stun for Trainwreck and 20 damage/Blind for Paladin Smite).

Though it has a long startup, a long ending lag and a long cooldown (15 seconds), Paladin Smite covers a very large area, and with the Colossus Extreme, can be triggered more frequently to inflict Blind. For purposes of Craig's Redirect ability, this is not considered a projectile (it is a very large hitbox) and therefore cannot be ended early by Craig's Redirect.

Melissa's Trainwreck inflicts Stun, and with her high damage output and ability to inflict Blind (or Stun again, with Colossus active), being Stunned by Melissa has very devastating consequences for an opponent.

Developer's Take:

Melissa has a strong focus on disabling her enemies from a defensive position. Her Shield allows her to confront swarms of enemies and inflict damage and status effects. Though her attack speed is too low to have her be labelled with the Offense tag, she deals very good damage.

Melissa's Colossus Extreme allows her to make use of two particular strategies: Fight from a distance using jumping Paladin Smites (the long attack time and massive range allow to hit ridiculously large areas) or using Colossus' increased defense to wade into enemy ranks and use Trainwreck's high damage multiple times.