Surya

Overview

Surya is the fourth path of Ara, a female support character with a strong focus on versatility. She functions as an all-round support, primarily providing various damage buffs to the entire party while significantly increasing the team’s overall survivability.

Pros

• Long buff duration

• Greatly improves team survivability with a proper build

• Does not require 4th Master Skill or 2nd Hyper Skill

• Low investment needed

• Can maintain permanent Super Armor on herself

• Beginner-friendly

Cons

• Difficult to provide consistent Super Armor to the entire team

• Does not regenerate Special Resources for allies

• Slow damage output when played as a DPS

Support

Capabilities Surya offers a wide range of supportive effects:

• Defense Decrease

• Increased Attack Speed and Movement Speed

• Increased Attack Power

• Damage Reduction and Max HP Increase

• Cleanse (debuff removal)

• Healing

• Elemental Resistance Reduction

• Increased All Skill Damage

Skill Bar

Rotation

No Freezing:
Suppression: Pummel (R) → Seal of Time (D) Wishing Star (C) → Phoenix Wings (F) → Turtle Stance (Q) → Convert (A) Repeat

Someone else Freezing:
Howling Fox (W) → Suppression: Pummel (R) → Seal of Time (D) Wishing Star (C) → Phoenix Wings (F) → Turtle Stance (Q) → Convert (A) Repeat

You Freezing:
Howling Fox (W) → Glacial Breath (F) → Suppression: Pummel (R) → Moon Rabbit Kick (S) / Combo (activates Petrifying) → Wishing Star (C) → Glacial Breath (F) → Convert (A) → Seal of Time (D) → Turtle Stance (Q)
Note: Keep in mind that Surya’s Freeze lasts up to 5 seconds, while a single Petrifying proc lasts 4.5 seconds. To maximize uptime, pay close attention to these durations to avoid overlapping them.

Important Skills

Thickening (Lv. 60)

The Turtle Secret Art is an important part of Surya’s support kit.
Secret Arts are special techniques available to all Ara paths, executed through a skill chain involving a designated step skill, and in some cases a preceding combo, before activating the step skill from the skill bar.
For the Turtle Stance Secret Art, the step skill must be used repeatedly until the blue bubble appears (after 4 activations). When fully executed, two additional buffs are granted to both the user and nearby teammates.

Note: The last step of this Secret Art is counted as a Tenacity skill.

Turtle Secret Art – Passive Interaction
The Turtle Stance Secret Art is further enhanced by this passive. This passive grants an additional effect to allies, providing Max HP Increase equal to 10% of Surya’s Max HP. For example, with 1,000,000 HP, each party member’s Max HP increases by 100,000.
As a result, an HP-focused build is highly beneficial. Common approaches include using HP-oriented weapon options as well as the Rosso Challenge Mode Force “Will Save You.”

Joining (Lv. 60)

In situations where no immediate actions are required at the start of a dungeon (e.g., Cornerstone of Prophecy Laser Connection), skills can be used repeatedly to build up stacks in the buff bar up to the maximum before the encounter begins.

This passive grants both herself and allies 0.4% All Skill Damage per stack, reaching a maximum of 20% All Skill Damage at 50 stacks. These stacks persist for the duration of the dungeon and remain active even if Surya is defeated. Buffs are refreshed automatically every 30 seconds through the use of support skills.

Note: It is highly recommended to equip Surya with 35% Cooldown Reduction (CDR) to maintain continuous uptime on both healing and defense-shredding effects.

Awakened Will: Marici (Lv. 70)

This passive provides self-only buffs, including Cooldown Reduction (CDR), Action Speed Increase, and Increased Damage Against Normal Monsters (does not apply to bosses).
These effects are exclusive to Surya and are not shared with allies. When the skill rotation is executed correctly, these buffs can be maintained permanently during combat.

Convert

This skill allows Surya to grant Global Super Armor (SA) for 5 seconds. This effect will apply to the entire team, provided the skill is not modded.
When it is used, it will convert 30 MP to 1 Orb.

To successfully provide Super Armor to the entire team, Surya must regenerate at least 6 Orbs.
Orbs can be consumed using Phoenix Wings. However, hitting allies with Phoenix Wings — which is desirable for its healing effect — will regenerate one Orb per ally hit.

For example:

• In a 6-player team, using Phoenix Wings on all allies to empty Orbs will regenerate 6/10 Orbs, which is insufficient to reach the 6 Orbs required for unmodified Convert.

• In an 8-player team, using Phoenix Wings on all allies will regenerate 8/10 Orbs, allowing sufficient Orbs for regular Convert.

Proper orb management is therefore critical to consistently applying global Super Armor.

Note: Since regular Convert is rarely practical in Raids and Challenge Modes, Surya players generally opt for [Mod] Convert instead.

[Mod] Convert

This version provides Super Armor exclusively to Surya for a minimum of 7 seconds, regardless of whether it regenerates Orbs.
If Orbs are regenerated during its use, the Super Armor duration is extended by 1 second per Orb, reaching a maximum of 15 seconds.

Fox Shadow
This skill provides completely different buffs depending on whether it is modded or not.

When unmodded, Fox Shadow functions as a teleport skill, allowing Surya to relocate allies who are in idle motion (not performing a skill or combo).
This is particularly useful in dungeons such as Madame Corae’s Garden, or in scenarios where positioning allies, for example, inside the boss area is critical.
Note: The unmod version does not cleanse debuffs.

[Mod] Fox Shadow

When modded, Fox Shadow creates a field that cleanses all allies’ debuffs within its area for 5 seconds.

Exascale

Unlike some support characters, Surya does not gain significant benefit from repeatedly spamming a single support skill on Exascale, making balanced skill rotation more effective.

Tips

• First Master Class Skill: Use this to build stacks more efficiently, especially when a Prophetess roll with Master Skill is present in your party. Surya’s own Master Skills do not provide buffs.

• First Hyper Active (Lv. 65): Recommended over Level 99 Hyper due to faster execution.

• Hyper Acceleration in Raids: With Broken Seal of Time, use a lower rarity of Hyper Acceleration to avoid excessive speed.
  → Alternative: Saturation Bombing.

• Buff Visibility: Enable visibility of party members’ buffs to track whether your support effects are properly applied.

• Buff Range Management: When allies are spread out (e.g., Wilting Tower: Flight Phase 1), use the Giant Potion to increase the effective range of your buffs.

Support Synergy for Surya

• 2x Rena → 80k HP

• 3rd Path → Broken Seal of Time

• 2rd Path → Cloudy Sunshower

• Built-in Revive Synergy if you use a different support title than Attack of Steel Machines (Dogma / King of Abyss)

FAQ

Does Surya need Mod (E) for support?
No. [Mod] Shadoweave: Myo Myo reduces cooldowns of certain support skills, which is unnecessary when Surya already has sufficient CDR and follows her rotation.
[Mod] Falling Dragon: Summit Cascade is purely a DPS skill and not relevant for support.

Does Surya need her yellow Orbs?
Not for support.
Orbs are only required if Surya is played as a DPS, as they increase skill damage. For support-focused gameplay, Orbs can generally be ignored.

Why is Hyper Acceleration placed on the first skill bar?
Placing Hyper Acceleration on the first bar increases visibility and reduces the chance of forgetting to maintain the Broken Seal of Time buff for the party.
Experienced players can replace it with Guarding Charm on the first bar for easy access to a Tenacity skill in dungeons like Orchestra Hall or Queen’s Throne Hall. It can also be placed on the second bar if preferred.

How do you deal with cages in Queen’s Throne Hall?

If available, use the Phoenix Secret Art or [Mod] Shadoweave: Myo Myo.
To activate, perform the »Z or ZZZ combo, then immediately cast Phoenix Stance 2: Strike repeatedly (about 4 times) until the golden rain effect appears.

Avoid using defensive weapons in Phase 2 of Queen’s Throne Hall, since that makes you unable to contribute damage.