Characters - Mia

Class - Strategist

Has exceptional versatility to control the battlefield

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Mia has a number of abilities that help her control the battlefield, with her Poison Cloud being among the most notable. While Mia is in play, her Poison Cloud will deal 1 damage every 2 seconds to enemies within it. If her Dark Energy Flamethrower makes contact with her own Poison Cloud (this cannot be another Mia's), her Poison Cloud will immolate, creating 16 stationary fireballs that deal 8 damage each.

Mia's C4, once its 4 second timer expires (shown by it changing colour), is also an effective tool for area control, as it covers a sizeable area and detonation is instant. Her Wide-Area Shotgun covers a large area, as well, and her Sonic Ball, which if the projectile hits, causes Blind and Knockback. Though Mia is more effective at close-range, Sonic Ball can be useful for pushing an enemy into her Poison Cloud and C4.

By default, Mia has no access to Stun. However, once her Total Control Extreme is activated, she gains Stun to all of her attacks and abilities except for Sonic Ball. Poison Cloud, be it its standard attack or its immolation, provides wide-area stun, as does Mia's C4. Mia's Wide-Area Shotgun is great for applying Stun up close, and her Defense Crusher Rifle can stun opponents from far away.

Note that Mia's Total Control initially lasts 10 seconds, but the actual length of Total Control is until her Extreme reaches 0%. This means that successfully attacking opponents adds to the length of Total Control, and with them being Stunned on attack, Mia can follow up with another attack. On top of all of this, Mia's Total Control also doubles her Extreme gains for all attacks and abilities.

Attacks that earn Mia more Extreme include Wide-Area Shotgun (when more shots hit), Defense Crusher Rifle (when the enemy is blocking, but not Perfect Blocking), C4, immolated Poison Clouds and Pulse Scythes that trigger instant death.

Mia has access to some offensive abilities with unique traits to them, two in particular. The first is her Defense Crusher Rifle, which if it hits a standard blocking opponent (but not a Perfect Block), she gains 4x Extreme and instead of reducing the damage done by 75% as standard blocks do, the blocking enemy suffers 4x damage, making this a great ability for punishing bad blocks (which an enemy may do trying to avoid the effects of Poison Cloud and C4).

Her second notable offensive ability is Pulse Scythe, which deals instant death and 3x Extreme gain from the attack to an opponent whose current HP is at 25% or less than their maximum HP, making this a great finisher to a weakened opponent, especially those with high defense.

Mia can take a lot of getting used to, particularly in terms of controls, where instead of standard attacks, she has 5 different abilities. In addition, she can not angle her shotgun, rifle, flamethrower or Pulse Scythe, meaning a lot of her attacks can be avoided by ducking. Her C4 requires 4 seconds of wait time to trigger, as well, which can be hard to prep for against an aggressive enemy.

There are also a lot of nuances, timings and setups to be considered to get the most out of Mia, but the more familiarity gained with Dragooned itself, the easier it will get to play Mia. Placing a Poison Cloud in the air and immolating it under Total Control, for example, will cause the Stunned enemy to be unable to alter their velocity as they hurtle through the 16 fireballs.

Developer's Take:

Mia has access to more abilities than any other character in Dragooned, which provides her with more versatility than any other character in Dragooned, but at the price of some awkwardness. 5 of her 8 abilities are triggered with the cross button and she can not angle her attacks like many other gun users (which makes it very hard for her to attack ducking enemies).

However, when the player does become used to Mia's setup, there are a lot of advantages to be found: large areas of effect for attacks, frequent Stun, high damage and instant death when the enemy's HP is low enough.