DNA Character Guide - Truffle and Filbert

Many character guides for Duet Night Abyss (DNA) go through what Weapons, Demon Wedges, Geniemons, and Partners each character should have.

This character guide will focus on instead other tips and factors and how the character is used and played.

Truffle and Filbert

Exploration, Expulsion, and Hedge missions when you are not going to AFK them.
Not good for Defense unless you can one-shot them because she tends to fling enemies about. She can just melee instead of charging or using her skill (Trotters Trot-Trot) but it's still a mess in Defense.

The AI sometimes uses Trotters Trot-Trot. This flings enemies about, generally pushing them further and further off (e.g., out of Rebecca's Jellyfish radius), so depending on the situation, it may not be actually good.
The AI does not try to maintain uptime on the damage buff from Trotters Trot-Trot.

You can watch the AI behavior in Sandrealm Meditation, and really it's awful if your character isn't losing health. Even when she isn't out of Sanity, she won't use Trotters Trot-Trot so you very rarely get the damage buff and it only lasts a few seconds.
Presumably this is because the AI treats it as a healing skill instead of a buff, so you should see more uptime if you are losing a lot of health (e.g., playing Psyche?)
When it's up, the damage boost can be enormous.

I have never seen the AI use her Buff/Ultimate "Tummy Full, Hands Full" where she rides Filbert. But this is her single best skill.

When you control her directly, you want to always ride Filbert using her Buff/Ultimate.

In this mode she gets a lot of skill-based damage basically for "free", at no Sanity Cost. This is an insane advantage.
All you need to do is make sure you have enough Sanity to use the buff again when she's eventually dismounted.
Once dismounted, there's a short cooldown of just a few seconds and then you can mount up again. Typically while you are rampaging around, defeated enemies will drop enough Sanity potions to top up your Sanity, but if you are concerned about this then you can use the Prime-Serenity Demon Wedge as insurance (up to 7 Sanity restored per 3 seconds, which can be enough to restore what you used to activate the skill by the time it ends). Some geniemons can also help with Sanity recovery.
If you can't kill enemies quickly, you will end up flinging them around and having to chase them down afterwards. So if you can't one-shot them, consider switching to normal attacks while on Filbert.
This also means you are not relying on her for healing your partners. Even the Demon Wedge that gives healing when you use your Ultimate will be of limited use because you want to stay mounted as long as possible for the benefits and damage.
If you are blocked by enemies you don't immediately kill, you can try jumping over enemies, which seems to damage them as well even though there's no visible hit (probably the 6 meter radius attack range).
Sometimes normal attack can cause ram attacks (Path Damage) to stop working. The most reliable ways to reactivate ramming are:

Making a Plunge attack. If you Plunge and seem stuck on the ground in recovery (possibly due to a longer fall), try jumping immediately.
Dismount and remount Filbert.

In Mystic Maze, she's crazy good and easy to play compared to other characters who have to manage their Sanity and deal with hitstun from bosses. Truffle riding Filbert just face-tanks all the bosses, including the final boss. It helps a lot that she has no Hitstun reaction while on Filbert.

Lisbell is similar but has 100% uptime with Samael and does take hitstun reactions. Her jumping attack "In the Name of Patience" can hit flying Eclosioner and apparently hit all the wings at once.

HP of course because damage depends on HP.
Prime-Serenity Demon Wedge is nice for sustaining her Buff to near-constantly ride Filbert in case you can't rely on enemies to drop potions (e.g., single boss fights). However in general you will probably want Prime-Morale if her Sanity is manageable and you don't need to use her Trotters skill. If you really need to heal your Partners, use a geniemon instead.
Skill Duration or Skill Efficiency are pointless because her duration is not based on Sanity but a separate tracker "Passion for Work".
Whispering Zephyr Demon Wedge - not really recommended if you are focussing on riding Filbert

The skill to ride Filbert does not seem to trigger the Wedge bonus at all.
Once you are on Filbert you can use Trotters Trot-Trot for about a half second to proc the Whispering Zephyr Wedge, but by the time you get back into position (depending on the enemy and whether you can lock). For a less complicated fight overall, you might want to just use normal attack spam.
When you dismount, Trotters Trot-Trot is launched once automatically and that can trigger the Zephyr. But by the time the cooldown on riding is over and you mount up, the bonus is basically gone.
You can use Trotters Trot-Trot directly before, but the animation to mount Filbert takes a couple of seconds and you are not going to be on Filbert for just the remaining amount of a few seconds and then dismount to refresh.
Note that on Trotters Trot-Trot the buff is applied BEFORE the skill even does damage, so don't think you see a bonus on subsequent skill use, but actually it is already applied immediately.
For something that isn't reliant on activation, try Duel instead for extra help against bosses and no Sanity management.

At some point straight HP increases will hit diminishing returns so swap out HP Wedges for Skill Damage (e.g., Covenanter's Blaze - Volition). In general the percentages should be around the same amount for optimal damage.

She will be basically useless with weapons but fortunately your downtime from Filbert is just a few seconds.
If you use a Whipsword like Undying Oneiros (+50% HP), it's normal attacks have great range and can trip enemies, so flail it once or twice if you are swarmed by enemies then mount up on Filbert as soon as possible.

For all characters, the best Geniemon is generally Bro Boxie unless you're pushing the edge of what you can fight and winning by narrow margins.

You can get bonus drops apparently with even base Commissions Rewards and not just enemy drops.
There are only two known (guaranteed) spawn points so to ascend them further (and increase the bonus loot drop rate) you need the Yum-Yum Milk from Immersive Theatre.
The increased loot gathering range is huge for general convenience and AFK farming. Without this, you generally need to run around grabbing loot including Serum drops during Exploration missions.

Instead of relying on Truffle's skill for healing, if you need to heal your Partners, try the Dendemeow or Shroomie Geniemons, which having healing based on the main character's HP, and we are focussing on HP for Truffle because her skills scale off that.

When fighting Eclosioner (butterfly boss), she has phases where she hovers a bit above the ground and you are supposed to shoot her wings. If you are mounted on Filbert, you can jump into her and ram multiple wings at the same time for Path Damage.

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