Cherry Venus - October 14, 2018

Name: Cherry Venus

DOB: June 9, 1895 (story takes place in 1919)

Element: Wind

Weapon: Sword (mainly longswords)

Playstyle: Defensive/Frontline

Maximum Stats (through Soul Triad only, no weapons)

Learnable Active Abilities:

Body

Pushback (initally unlocked) - Inflicts Stagger at close range. Cherry's pushback can be improved so that the enemy is shoved a longer distance away.

Knockdown (initially unlocked) - Inflicts Knockdown at close range.

Pierce - Deals Attack x 1.5 damage at its base in a very long straight line. Can have its damage, cooldown and range enhanced.

Hyper Blade - Unleashes 4 slashes that launch the user at different angles that deal Attack x 1.5 damage each. Cherry is invincible during use of Hyper Blade. Can have its cooldown reduced heavily and deal double damage during the Body Field Effect. [EDIT: As of 2019/08/06, is now Attack x 2]

Cutthrough - Cherry charges forward while unleashing 8 slashes that deal Attack x 0.5 damage each. Can have its damage boosted, a defense boost during Cutthrough and increased distance and speed forward.

Mind

Stand Ground (initially unlocked) - For 3 seconds, while blocking, Cherry suffers 0 damage. Can have its cooldown reduced.

Fortify (initially unlocked) - For 3 seconds, enemies cannot move while in a large area around Cherry. Can have its cooldown reduced and have enemy attack lowered while in Fortify's area of effect.

Cover - For 3 seconds, allies within Cherry's area of effect of Cover that would suffer enemy attacks have those attacks redirected to Cherry. Can have its area of effect boosted and increase user defense during the Mind Field Effect.

Line Overdrive - Unleash a forward-moving slash that deals Attack x 2 damage. Cherry is invincible during use of Line Overdrive. Can have its damage boosted and cooldown lowered, and can have Line Overdrive's cooldown drop heavily during the Mind Field Effect.

Bladecopter - Cherry throws her sword in a straight line in front of her. On hit, the target suffers Attack x 1 damage and Stun. Cherry is invincible during use of Bladecopter. Can have its damage and Stun duration boosted, as well as an ability that on kill with Bladecopter, its cooldown is removed and the next Bladecopter's damage and Stun time are heavily increased.

Wind Siphon

Power Surge (initially unlocked) - Heal a living party member for 20 HP at its base. Can have this value boosted to 50 HP.

Violent Gust (initially unlocked) - Fires a gust of wind in a straight line in front of the user, dealing Attack x 1 damage and Knockback to a target. Can have its damage boosted, its knockback distance increased and during the Wind Siphon Field Effect, its damage doubled and cooldown reduced.

Phantom Break - Heals a party member for 10 HP at its base, reviving any allies dead at 0 HP. Can have this value boosted to 30 HP, its cooldown reduced and temporary invinciblity applied to its target (whether the target was already alive or currently reviving).

Dark Energy - Reduces all enemies' Attack stat for 5 seconds. Can have its potency, duration and cooldown enhanced.

Tornado - Cherry calls a tornado in front of her, dealing Attack x 1.5 damage and knockback to all it hits. The tornado is persistent and will stay in play for 8 seconds. Can have it so that Cherry gains Attack and Defense for every Tornado in play, and during the Wind Siphon Field Effect, can call multiple Tornados at once.

Weapons

Steel Sabre (default weapon) - Boosts Attack stat by 5% per weapon level (allowing Cherry's max Attack stat to reach 30). Like all default weapons, good for practically any style of play.

Archrip - While blocking with Stand Ground active, allies within an area around Cherry cannot reach 0 HP (if the attack would kill them, they will not suffer damage). Weapon level boosts area of effect. Can be useful for builds that do not make use of Cover (or Cover has not cooled down) and an ally needs some protection.

Hrunting - Boosts the damage of Wind Siphon abilities by 10% per level. In this case, this applies to Violent Gust and Tornado, making it useful for higher damage Wind Siphon builds for Cherry (which is overall among her best damage dealing builds).

Ice Brand - Makes Cherry Water elemental as well as Wind elemental, and basic melee attacks add to the Water Siphon Field Effect. Not so much useful for Cherry, but for assisting Knight and/or Claire with their Water Siphon builds (while protecting Cherry from the Water Siphon Field Effect's knockdown).

Fuddle Blade - All Body abilities that inflict damage also inflict Stun. In this case, this applies to Pierce, Hyper Blade and Cutthrough. Handy for Body builds, and with the area covered by these 3 abilities, can be useful for inflicting Stun over large areas (particularly straight lines).

Excalibur - Reduces the Attack stat of enemies currently in Fortify's area of effect. Useful for builds that focus on having both Fortify and Dark Energy for lowering enemy Attack, and therefore useful in a number of builds.

Lyra Buster - Line Overdrive and Bladecopter have their damage boosted by 20% per weapon level. Invaluable for Mind builds, especially since the damage boosts are higher than what the Mind Field Effect could drop it by, and the Mind Field Effect can heavily drop Line Overdrive's cooldown, allowing for very frequent use.

Waller Longsword - Raises Cherry's max HP by 10 per level. Given Cherry's frontline and defensive role, this is useful across a range of builds.

Pros

There is no character better at damage mitigation in The Demon Rush: Legends Corrupt than Cherry. With 5 out of her 15 abilities being able to grant invinciblity (Hyper Blade, Line Overdrive, Bladecopter, Stand Ground while blocking, Phantom Break with Phantom Protect; Phantom Break can make another ally invincible), Fortify to immobilize enemies on the frontline, Cover to transfer damage from allies to Cherry herself, 2 abilities to reduce enemy Attack (Fortify with Hold the Line, Dark Energy), high HP and Defense stats, defense boosts to herself (Cutthrough with Indomitable, Cover with Mind's Shield), healing (Power Surge), reviving (Phantom Break) and repositioning enemies away from the frontlines (Pushback with Pushback Distance, Violent Gust and Tornado), Cherry's defensive prowess for her team is unmatched. Cherry, though not on Brooks' level, can operate with Knockback quite strongly with a Wind Siphon build.

Cherry's Body abilities provide with a solid measure of safety, either through Hyper Blade's invinciblity or Pierce's long range. With the Fuddle Blade, a Body-focused Cherry can inflict Stun over large areas, since her Body abilities tend to cover large areas, mainly straight line.

Cherry's Mind abilities are heavily defensive in nature for the buffs they provide, particularly Stand Ground, Fortify and Cover, which are invaluable for protecting Cherry and her team, despite their short active times. Bladecopter (which provides invincibility) can provide Stun at close range or long range and Line Overdrive (which also provides invincibility), especially when paired with the Lyra Buster and the Mind Field Effect, is a very effective tool for Cherry, due to the invincibility, the area covered, the damage output compared to most of her abilities, the low cooldown and the Mind Field Effect beign active to provide high defense for her team when she does not have Stand Ground/Cover/Fortify off cooldown.

Cherry's Wind Siphon abilities have a wider range of versatility than her Body and Mind sets, featuring healing/reviving (with her revive capable of bestowing temporary invincibility), knockback and one of her most useful damage reduction tools, Dark Energy. Dark Energy lowers the Attack of all enemies on the battlefield, which helps to protect allies when Stand Ground/Cover and Fortify are not options (or the ally is too far away to Cover).

Her Wind Siphon kit also includes Violent Gust, which when powered up with Violent Gust Damage, Squall Strengthen (damage and cooldown enhancing during Wind Siphon Field Effect), Stormfront (higher Attack and Defense while Tornados are in play) and Hrunting's Wind Amplify, is her overall most damaging option (though no defense boosts or invincibility, like most of her other attacking tools). With the Wind Siphon Field Effect active, Cherry can provide a sort of pseudo-damage mitigation through having multiple Tornados, frequent Violent Gusts and the Wind Siphon Field Effects random windbursts inflict very frequent and large area knockback (though still very random and erratic).

Unless focusing on a Violent Gust/Tornado build, Cherry does not have to focus on specialization to be a successful part of a team, and can opt for a broader, more versatile build, mixing in various Body, Mind and Wind Siphon abilities. The purpose of this will likely lean towards larger amounts of damage mitigation tools, as being able to cycle between Stand Ground/Cover, Fortify/Hold the Line, Dark Energy and invincible abilities like Hyper Blade/Line Overdrive are useful for stalling for time and keeping the party alive for longer, at the cost of damage and knockback output.

Cons

While there is no character better at damage mitigation in The Demon Rush: Legends Corrupt than Cherry, there is also probably no worse character than Cherry when it comes to damage output. Her Violent Gust can do solid burst damage when the Wind Siphon Field Effect is active, but most characters can do better damage and to wider areas with their own elemental Siphon Field Effect active than Violent Gust can.

Her Body abilities deal good damage, especially Hyper Blade and Cutthrough when the total damage of their slashes are added together. However, given the high movement speed of Cutthrough and the changing angles from Hyper Blade, the chances of each enemy receiving more than 1 or 2 hits from these abilities are low, making them better against either large enemies or spread out groups of enemies.

Trivia

-In the original The Demon Rush, Cherry's statistics were set up more as a balanced-physical character (from an unaltered stats standpoint) than a flat-out tank. Her changes towards this were due at first mainly to how in the original The Demon Rush, her first ability (and often only ability) was Stand Ground, which often put her in the role of tank early on, regardless of intended customization outcome. As the first-billed character of Dragoon's first game, Cherry was treated as a sort-of beginner character in Dragooned, and going along the Stand Ground route (which was an ability she had in Dragooned), she was given invincibility for her other abilities as a balance between being a "beginner" character and her skills as a tank. This carried into Legends Corrupt, where her focus is heavily on tanking (though versatile builds can work for her, too).

-With the removal of the Sword/Knuckles/Gun weapon types that all characters could use from the original The Demon Rush, many of the Sword type weapons (specifically Hrunting, Ice Brand and Lyra Buster) were given to Cherry whose unique weapon type in the original game was "Saber" (basically as a way for Cherry to have a number of Swords exclusive to her). Ironically, while she got the Sword weapon type's unique skill, Bladecopter, she did not end up with the Saber weapon type's unique skill, Deflect. Deflect was originally planned to be an ability, but was cut out due to its usefulness only being applied to specific situations and Stand Ground overriding its use (in the original The Demon Rush, Stand Ground only nulled physical attacks, while Deflect nulled projectile-type attacks, physical or magical, whereas Legends Corrupt's Stand Ground nullifies ALL damage period).

-Ignoring Pushback and Knockdown (which every character gets), Cherry's new abilities not originating from the original The Demon Rush are Cutthrough, Fortify and Violent Gust. Fortify appeared in the Skylight series before Legends Corrupt, though it acts more like its first appearance with Melissa in Skylight 2: Winters of Discontent, blocking off areas so enemies could not pass, than the Skylight Freerange games, which were more about damage reduction.

-Line Overdrive, which was a long range explosion attack in the original The Demon Rush, takes more after Dragooned's version in Legends Corrupt, acting as an invincible quick mobile slash.

-Cherry's eighth weapon in her Weapons List is the Waller Longsword (and is her only weapon that is not from the original The Demon Rush), and its name and associated effect is intended to be a reference to Skylight Freerange 2: Gachduine. Each character's eighth weapon's name and effect is intended to be such a reference, as well (and since Gachduine came 7 years after the original Demon Rush, these weapons are obviously new).