Mermaid

Normal ImageEvolved Image				Description A lost soul, swimming through the depths of the ocean and hopes to get released.
Name				Name		Evolved Name		Total Growth
Mermaid				Mermaid				33333
Campaign Bonus				Special Ability
-(growth/1,000)% to all campaigns, capped at -333%.				Increases the heal power for dungeons by an extra 2% * class level if your class is a supporter.
Unlock Criteria				Evolution Requirements
Pet Token				Total Growth		333333
				Material		3333 Magic Ice
				Other		Give her 1000 Scales.

Evolution

You can get the scales Mermaid needs for her evo by using her in the Fishing Pond. There is a 2% chance per caught fish that it will instead be a scale while Mermaid is being used in the Fishing Pond and the fastest way to get 1000 seems to be going back to the first pond (dont forget to use lower costing bait as this does not increase your chance for a scale and will be very costly).

Special Ability

If used in dungeons, she will extract the soul of a random enemy every 3 turns, if there is no soul there and there are enemies with no soul extracted yet.

A soul extraction will add the soul as an enemy with 25% of the hp with the same stats as the enemy. The enemy loses 25% hp. While the soul is there, all pets increase their speed by 0.03% class level per turn.

After the soul is defeated, it will damage the enemy with the lost soul by 10% of its max hp while giving the party members a shield of 0.5% * class level of their max hp and their speed bonus will be converted into attack bonus until the end of the room.

Soul extraction happens even if Mermaid is not evolved yet -- in which case, the speed boost and shield will not occur, as Mermaid's class level is 0. A soul has the same special abilities (summoning, etc.) as the monster from which it's extracted.

Soul extraction may be performed on any non-special monster (e.g., Gram fights, bosses for pet evolutions are excluded). Notably, this includes dungeon bosses, so you'll want to ensure your team can handle an extra summoner, healer, etc.

Mermaid Tower Strategy

Mermaid can create one soul per monster, if the fight lasts long enough. The Infinity Towers have only 5 monsters per room, so producing one soul per monster is feasible, and doubles the XP from each room. Many players farm the Earth Tower, keeping a steady team of 5 pets, plus one open slot for a visiting pet to train (with Gram or an ego sword). Adding Mermaid to the steady team can increase the XP received.

If you're not an endgame player, you will probably just need to experiment, and find a team and a floor number that work for you.

Endgame

The following summary is based on a description provided by Carpe in the Discord server. It assumes you're farming the Earth Tower for experience and have lategame or endgame resources (maxed Dojo, massive Strategy Room speed pet, and so on).

You need to have:

1. All your pets except for 1 damage-dealing Mage (can be 2 Mages) on low speed so they don't steal kills. (The enemies are Defenders, so their defend action works against single hits but not as well against Mages.)
2. Flying Eyeball. (It will always mark the soul if set up right, since souls have low HP.)
3. Mermaid. (Duh.)

Mermaid is preferably faster than Eyeball, but it's not necessary.

Mermaid will carve out the soul of one enemy, Eyeball will mark that soul, and then 7-8 Mage missiles will hit that soul (since Defender enemies can only intercept the first missile, all other missiles will hit the marked soul, hopefully killing it).

Then, since you stripped and killed the soul, both actions remove HP from the original enemy. Ideally, then, Eyeball will mark that enemy next, and you take 2+ turns to kill it. On turn 4, it's dead, and Mermaid can strip a new soul, and the cycle repeats.

You want your team to need at least 4 turns per enemy to kill -- ideally more like 5-6.

Carpe's Mermaid is wearing full SSS+20 Titanium gear with no gems, with the intent to reduce her speed so she doesn't do too much damage. Non-damage-dealers can have their speed nerfed with Titanium gear easily. Tier 3 Titanium gear has a much greater speed penalty than tier 4 Mythril gear, with the exception of rings.

Attack power is irrelevant, because enemy defense is infinite for all intents and purposes.

It may also be necessary to lower your Mage's speed. In Carpe's example, a Rabbit with 64k speed works fine on floor 211.

Non-Mages that hit the wrong targets may kill things in the wrong order and mess up the strategy. That's why you want almost all damage to come from the Mage.