Heismay: The Ultimate…Tank?
Heismay is one of my favourite characters in Metaphor: ReFantazio. Despite his small stature, he is the oldest party member of the team in Metaphor, with an unexpectedly deep voice to boot. Seeing how this sweet, yet fierce old man processes the grief of his dead son has been one of the most sad, yet most heartwarming stories I’ve seen in JRPGs in quite some time. He lives up to the “cool, wise, yet badass grandpa” archetype (no pun intended) often seen in this genre.
As the Bond that’s associated with the Thief lineage, Heismay moves very quickly, dealing very high single target dark damage, while being able to stealthily dodge many enemy attacks. For most of the game this is what he excels at, yet as the party approaches the end of the game, a brand new option opens up for him: being the ultimate tank. In this role, he even outshines our dedicated Knight lineage Archetype Hulkenberg, without even needing to be on any Archetype of that lineage.
Now you’re probably wondering how this is the case. After all, his defensive stats are some of the weakest in the game, paling in comparison to Hulkenberg and other tanky party members. Throwing him onto a high tier Knight lineage Archetype also costs quite a bit of magla, which is a scarce resource if you're grinding hard in the endgame to fight the superbosses and unlock the Royal Archetypes.
Heismay does this by tanking in an unconventional way: By drawing aggro and dodging hits. As we know, when an enemy misses their attack against a target ally, they lose two of their precious press turns. This is far more beneficial than simply resisting damage, especially when you're near the end of the game and facing the Trials of the Dragon. Those bosses are really no joke, and require careful planning, many attempts with different approaches, and a fair bit of luck with the RNG as well. Given the role of luck in all of this, why not lean into maximizing our luck to cheese the boss fights?
There are three key components to this: an active skill from the Knight lineage, a passive skill from the Thief lineage, and a special expensive accessory to purchase in the final arc of the game. Let’s first start with the active skill.
Knight's Proclamation
The first thing you need is the active skill from the Knight lineage: Knight's Proclamation. Fortunately, you don't need to worry about spending too much magla and grinding for it, as this skill is available on the base Knight Archetype with no higher tier Archetypes required. You can unlock the skill by simply unlocking the Archetype, as it is the first skill unlocked. This will draw aggro away from your allies, and at a measly 4 MP cost, you can easily spam this over and over in a fight without having to worry about mana issues at all. Simply inherit this skill from the Knight Archetype for a measly 1000 magla and you’ve completed the first piece of Heismay’s Exodia.
Third Eye
The next skill is a passive one from the Ninja/Royal Thief Archetype called Third Eye. This skill is especially expensive to inherit at 30,000 magla, making it more expensive than even unlocking some Royal Archetypes. Thankfully you won't need to spend magla to unlock this, as you'll be running Heismay on either of these classes in the endgame anyway. This skill unlocks at level 20 of the Ninja Archetype, or at level 1 of the Royal Thief Archetype. It will double Heismay's evasion whenever an enemy attacks him, and it's also unaffected by buff removing moves like Dekaja. This dramatically increases the chances of enemies missing their attacks when aggroed by Heismay.
Dodger Ring
The final piece of the puzzle is the Dodger Ring. This is a special accessory to be equipped by Heismay, that when enemies miss attacks against him, they will lose ALL of their press turns at once, not just two of them. This is incredibly powerful— even if an enemy is able to land some hits, a single miss is all you need to completely negate their entire turn. You can buy the Dodger Ring from any magic shop in the final arc of the game, for 120,000. These are only open at nighttime however so do plan accordingly. Once Heismay reaches level 20 of the Royal Thief Archetype, you can replace this accessory with another one, as a new passive ability unlocks that is identical to this accessory. It will likely be a quite some time before you reach there though, so this will be essential until then.
By combining these three elements, Heismay becomes an unparalleled tank who (unlike his problems), can dodge his way to victory and trivialize superboss fights. I was struggling with the dragon superbosses initially, but once I built Heismay this way, those fights were a breeze. Let me know how this build works for you. Happy dodging!