What’s up noobs! I am Forsythe and you’re watching Let’s play World of Remnant and today is time for another character review. And this time, we’ll be looking at Diamond Frost. We’ll go over her her playstyle, skills, combos, and then we’ll finally going to have a peek at how she does in a fight. Let’s get on with it.

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*Catchy Intro cutscene here*

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[h2]Roosterteeth[/h2]
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[h2]Main menu[/h2]
[b]Continue game[/b]
[b]Start Story[/b]
[b]Start Co-op[/b]
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[b][u]Character selection[/u][/b]
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[b]Call Jack (512-348-9988)[/b]
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[h3]moDa: Diamond Frost[/h3]
Action Points: 12
Aura: 1000 (Extreme)
Strength: High
Armor: Minimal
Mobility: Medium

And here she is. Unlike most characters, Diamond doesn’t quite fit well into any category as far as fighting style goes. I suppose fully skilled up and equipped with proper consumables she would be a jack of all trades, master of none, but that is a very, [i]very[/i] late game.

Fresh out from the entrance exam, it’s easy to say what Diamond [i]isn’t[/i]. A Zoner. Now using dust WILL give you some ranged attacks, but more on that later. On the first look, she would look like a rushdown due to her high strength and lack of armor. You know, close in, do damage, bug out and let Aurelius or someone else take the return fire. However, her skillset doesn’t quite fit that. What might give you the first clue is the abnormally high number of action points she gets. That is because this character is a dirty, rotten thief! If you have a look at the skillset, you’ll quickly find out why:

[Economy] [i]Yoink![/i] (1 AP): Steal 5% of the enemy’s Lien instead of attacking this turn.
[Economy] [i]Trophy[/i] (12 AP): Steal a random item off of the enemy to pawn for lien later. Enemy’s stats reduced by the values of the stolen item.

Yeaaaaah. This, ladies and gents, is the best money making character in the game, beating even Schnee and her discount instinct. What you can do here is sacrifice a few turns in combat to rifle your enemy’s pockets instead of chopping them up. And you can do it twelve times, which if you do the math amounts to 51% of the enemy’s lien!

Of course, you’re never gonna get that, because a) you’d run out of aura too quick and suffer a defeat, and b) the more you do this, the less you are getting. But it’s still a monstrous increase over the standard loot which is randomized between five to ten percent. Which is counted only from what’s left, however it is still a major increase.

What’s the other skill? Oh, glad you asked. Fancy that, you can actually steal a random item as well. Now, here the description is a bit nondescriptive, as when you right click - do you see that? It only counts for trinket slots, so it’ll yank a random ring, necklace or what have you off of the target, but you won’t be liberating any weapons from them anytime soon. But come on, that would just be overpowered. And of course, you want to be using this skill on high level players rather than the common mob or noobs, as it would deplete your AP completely and in early game, the items you can steal, if the enemy even has any, are far below the price of what you can get using the other one.

Another speciality connected to her background are the instinct you can pick from. As usual you can only pick one when you start, so pick carefully. Here they are.

[Utility] [i]Scouting[/i] (Passive): When initiating combat, Diamond scouts out the area and allows you to get a glimpse of the map and opponent before the fighting starts, allowing you to change your gear for the fight ahead for 5 seconds before the match begins.
[Combat] [i]Form specialist[/i] (Passive): With her semblance relying heavily on imagination and mental control, Diamond get’s 5% bonus on dust cost.

You basically have a choice here between being allowed to switch gear to better fit the threat or make your weakness slightly less painful. It… wasn’t an easy choice. The first option sounds very cool but five seconds isn’t really all that much time, and if the game decides to lag at that time it’s as good as not having any skill whatsoever. On the other hand it’s an instinct that works immediately while the other one only gives you any bonus after you acquire dust spells, which Diamond doesn’t get until she reaches level 20.

Alright enough about that, let’s see how she fights. The first thing you’ll ask is “What weapon do I use with her?” Well, here’s where it gets unique. Diamond can manipulate her shadow to a physical shape, and that’s what most of her skills are about. You know, level one, summon a dagger, level five summon a katana and so on and so on.

However, there are few that drastically change the way she plays. As I mentioned at the beginning, Diamond seems pretty rushy-downy, however there are few attack oriented moves. Let’s have a look.

[Lvl 5] [i]Shadowbind[/i] (5 Aura): Molds the shadow into tendrils that immobilize the target while Diamond closes in.
[Lvl 15] [i]Enhance[/i] (15 Aura): If Diamond attacks with a shadow weapon, this enhances it for a more powerful strike.
[Lvl 25] [i]Laceration dance[/i] (50 Aura): Summons a random weapon for every casted shadow and uses shadow platforms to quickly move around the target and strike multiple times.
[Fatality] [i]Yanderu galore[/i]: Launches her shadows towards the target, impaling it and shredding it from the inside.

See that on level 5? That one skill is what turns Diamond into a hybrid between a rushdown and a grappler. Just remember to get the hell away once the combo is done, this woman wears a trenchcoat, not a suit of armor. Diamond is, compared to most other characters, quite weak on the DPS side, but her combos are utterly devastating. Remember in the show when she had that dream where Oswald got drugged up and she tried to stab him with a bloody massive Katana? That’s the skill on level 15. It gives you a hit between 150 and 225%, depending on which weapon you have selected. It will also increase the chance of triggering a special effect like stun for blunt weapons.

The Laceration dance is one of the hardest hitting abilities in the game, second only to Weiss’ Shining Flash. This monster will hit for 250 aura depending on how many shadows are casted. The downside is the cost, because as an aura beast you want to keep some 80% of Diamond’s aura for defense, so you’re only going to be suing this up to four times, usually less, but even then using it just two times will shave 30% off of Yang’s aura bar.

“But Forsythe, you said something about dust!” Yeah shut up i’m getting there! *cough cough* Alright, consumables. As you may have noticed, most of Diamond’s skills are depending on how many shadows is Diamond casing at the moment. So in a nutshell, you want to be freeroaming in PvP at night under the street lamps where you’ll do most damage. You can however use this in the day as well when there is a strong source of light present, like the searchlight of the [i]Unsubtle[/i] or the Flare consumable which will cost you 250 lien each, so use them sparingly, but you won’t need to dual wield against anything but the toughest tanks.

As far as dust goes, Diamond can use Freeze and Kinetic dusts, which further hybridizes her between a rushdown and a grappler, but also allows her to temporarily increase her speed and most of all, shoot ice projectiles.

[Lvl 20] [i]Ice penetrator[/i] (5 freeze dust, 15 kinetic dust): Launches a kinetic projectile made out of ice.
[Lvl 22] [i]Slidestep[/i] (10 freeze dust, 5 kinetic dust): Creates a slippery surface between Diamond and her target and propels her along, quickly closing the distance and ramming the target, stunning it.
[Lvl 24] [i]Overfrost[/i] (15 freeze dust): Ensnares the target in ice and binds in in place for 3 seconds. Also deals 10 freeze DPS that ignores armor.

And now you see why diamond has those two economy spells. Those dust costs are MONSTROUS! Just to compare here - Penny’s Superlaser will cost you 20 power dust units, but it will do four times the damage of the Ice penetrator. Yeah.

Alright, what am I forgetting here. Oh! Assists! Now remember, you only get these in Co-op and Story which is a little bit of a shame, but RT announced a patch that will introduce them to PvP when you are in a party. Let’s have a look.

[Marcus] [i]Searchlight[/i] (1 AP): Uses the [i]Unsubtle’s[/i] search light to project an additional shadow.
[Oswald] [i]In and out[/i] (1 AP, 10 aura): Diamond and Oswald take turn rapidly striking and withdrawing, preventing the enemy from using any skills for 5 seconds.
[Aurelius] [i]Distraction[/i] (1 AP, 20 aura): While Aurelius distracts the target, Diamond delivers a crippling blow from behind, dealing a bleeding effect that does 5 DPS for 5 seconds.

Alright, enough about stats. Let’s watch a few games...