How To: Agatha (Discontinued)

How to be successful with Agatha in Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals

Context

Ooooh, a new How To: Guide, I'm so excited! Welcome! I heard the new one is going to be talking about Agatha, so I put together this cringy introductory statement for ya. :D

I'm so sorry guys lmao. The beginning statement ain't lying though; this newest iteration of the "How To:" series of guides will be going over Agatha. Agatha's known for being a spoiled little brat in the Dark Deception universe, and in Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals anyway, she has a lot of reasons to be that way. She's widely considered a high tier in Maze Escape and former queen of Shard Mayhem due to her perfect combination of traits that allow her to excel in both collecting shards and direct combat. This intro will be rather short, because there's a lot to discuss here. Without further ado, let's get school in session and begin the lecture!

Background Info

(For diversity, we'll go with the Frenzy/Nightmare Mode Agatha. She also looks cooler like this.)

If you've read the first guide I've ever made, "How To: Fiend," you'll remember I brought up Agatha quite frequently. This will be the case here as well since the two are basically rivals in this game. Similarly to the Monstrum monster, Agatha is a Speed class Monster. This means a couple of things. The first is that her damage output isn't very good and her health is miserable, meaning most Mortals and essentially all Monsters are able to take her on and have a good chance at winning. Despite this, her attack speed has little to no cooldown, meaning she can spam attacks all day and deal damage very quickly, becoming a threat if the Agatha player is good at avoiding opposing attacks by constantly being on the move. Speaking of moving...

She can run, she's very good at it, and you better believe she's going to make it everyone's problem. It's no surprise, really, as you can easily tell she'd be a Speed class just from playing base Dark Deception. Only in this game, you don't have teleport unless your Doug and speed boost isn't nearly as widespread, meaning unless you're a Speed Monster yourself or PenPen, Agatha will outrun everyone else in the game by a fair margin. This makes her extremely good at being a huge nuisance to Mortals by constantly rushing them down and running their pockets of their will to live, as well as scooping up shards from other Monsters' grasps, hogging them all to herself. On top of this, while you can hear her footsteps, they tend to be really quiet, meaning unless her prey's a good listener, she'll easily be able to plan ambushes on the two characters she can't naturally outrun. Finally, she is notoriously good at killing despite her low power level. While she can kill perfectly fine if her user is good at the combat system, she doesn't always have to commit to attacking directly, and it's for one simple reason; she doesn't have to engage for long. Only enough to bring you into kill range of her finisher, her Ult.

Ultimate: Hello Friend!

This Ult is named after one of her most popular jumpscare quotes in base Dark Deception. Her Ult is referred to as "Hello Friend!," and my god is it a good Ult. Upon using, Agatha will teleport to the player with the lowest HP currently in the match and attack them, dealing 80 damage to the target. While the Ult itself seems rather dull, it's actually one of the better Ults the Monster team can provide. It isn't Ducky Surprise, but it can get pretty close if Agatha actively whittles down her target first. What makes the Ult so good is the fact that she will benefit from it no matter when she uses it. Is the target at full health? Cool, she gets free, uncontested damage on the target and will make killing it easier if they don't heal. Are they at 80 hp or less? Free kill!!

Another major detail about this Ult is that the player being targeted by it will get attacked with no warning ahead of time. If you're a Mortal with a self-buff Ult such as You'll See or Seal of Metatron, or you have the Invincibility item, you have about a half a second to use it before you take the 80 damage. If you're Bierce, you better hope you have your Ult ready to use if you suspect you'll be the target, that way you can either get out of kill range or pass Hello Friend! to someone else. By and large, this Ult is the reason Agatha is able to shred Mortals she would otherwise struggle with easily, while also being able to go toe-to-toe with the Monster class, as 80 hp is a decent chunk of their health. The only real counterplay that's not character-specific or the Invincibility item is to pray you get enough medkits from the item boxes to get above 80 hp.

Maze Escape

In Maze Escape, Agatha is a very solid Monster to play as, albeit slightly outclassed. Her fast footwork and fast attack speed allows her to easily chase down Mortals and kill them, while also being able to catch PenPen without ambushing her if she cuts corners during a chase. Speaking of PenPen, no one counters PenPen as well as Agatha does. The reasons for this should be pretty obvious; she can keep up with her, having the lowest hp in the game means Hello Friend! will snipe her very frequently and often kill if Agatha lands only three hits beforehand, and Speed characters getting medkits is uncommon, so PenPen will always be at risk of getting raked by those sharp claws all game. However, what holds Agatha back here is in the form of Power Mortals, her general frailty, and being outclassed by Reaper Nurse, as well as Fiend in this mode. She does NOT handle Power class Mortals well at all, and they will often kill her if they're at the top of their game, meaning she will have a seriously hard time playing the game if most of the team ends up being Power class. Vince in particular gives Hello Friend! the middle finger if You'll See is up. Her frailty means most players she engages against will attempt to fight back, meaning Agatha has to always be moving and being careful of her positioning to avoid taking unnecessary damage. Finally, she has fierce competition with Fiend if the Monster player is choosing one or the other. Fiend and Agatha share mostly the same weaknesses and strengths, but what sets Fiend apart is that he makes zero footsteps (which lets him easily ambush as a result), being able to disorient players with his heavy attack, and the rewards of being creative with Mind Pull. If an opponent is pulled into a banana and/or Primal Fear, Fiend's heavy attack can get 3-4 hits in, out-damaging Hello Friend!, as well as having the ability to dispose of problematic players by feeding them to bosses and/or traps. Meanwhile Agatha's Hello Friend! isn't always needed thanks to the Mortals' lower power level, allowing her to fight just fine unless it's against a Power class. While Fiend has competition with Agatha, Reaper Nurse straight up outclasses both of them since she has range, the ability to inflict fear, disappear, and buff herself via speed and damage.

Agatha is a menace on her home stage, Elementary Evil. This is due to fake portals and ABC Letter chip damage being present, making Hello Friend! almost guaranteed to kill someone every time it's used. She's also a menace on Ancient Ashes due to Vampires and turrets providing constant chip damage, which can make sniping with Hello Friend! super easy. Monstrum Madness and Silent Sacrifice are also strong maps for her since she can use the Super Brutes and Pyramid Head to her advantage, as well as the Air Screamers and steam for chip damage. Stranger Sewers is good for speed characters, period, although Agatha doesn't get nearly as much use out of Boss and Trap times thanks to not being Fiend. Akademi Assault is a massive map and her speed is able to traverse it quickly, but the traps and boss aren't that helpful, meaning she has to put in most of the work in the damage department. Poppy Panic would be a great map for Agatha if it wasn’t for her weakness to the Cat Bee traps, as they can shred her health pool very quickly, otherwise she would be more than great on the map overall thanks to how linear it is. Crazy Carnevil is a linear map, which is good for her since it gives her plenty of room to manuver, but the lack of walls gives Mortals plenty of time to react to her approach. Monkey Business and Deadly Decadence aren't worth mentioning.

PvP Matchups:

Performs Well Against: Doug, Evans, Nikson, PENPEN, Dawko, Cybil, Hanako, Salim
Performs Decently Against: Bierce, SuperHorrorBro, Heather, Info-Chan, Senpai, Jason
Performs Poorly Against: Vince, 8-BitRyan, Borisov

Agatha is a win hard, lose hard kind of character in Maze Escape. There's plenty of good/decent matchups for her, but also just as many bad matchups. She performs horribly against the Power class unless she has Hello Friend! and/or items to help her, and Heather ruins her damage output against everyone for 10 seconds by a notable degree. Jason also can potentially do great against her since Game Over can instantly half her health in an instant, as well as Jason himself having the ranged advantage.

Shard Mayhem

Formely Agatha's best mode. Speed is a very important part of Shard Mayhem, and while her damage output isn't good against other Monsters, Hello Friend! carries her incredibly hard in this mode when engaged, as it helps mitigate her damage problem she'd have otherwise. Since the goal is to collect soul shards, Agatha used to severely outclass Fiend here thanks to her Ult being more beneficial for the gamemode, whereas Fiend's counter-synergizes with this task. Speaking of, these two are often at war with each other if they're both in the game, as creative Mind Pull use can cost Agatha her lead, while Fiend is target numero uno for Hello Friend!. However, as of 1.6.6, Fiend now outclasses Agatha thanks to Hello Friend!'s nerf. When utilized properly, Fiend can rack up more damage overall with Mind Pull than with one use of Hello Friend!. Often times, the game is essentially a battle between Agatha's. If there's an Agatha in the match (expect at least one per game), it's highly recommended to target her whenever possible, as an uncontested Agatha will be almost guaranteed to win the game otherwise. With all her tools and traits combined, it's no surprise why Agatha was considered "The Queen of Shard Mayhem..." at least prior to Reaper Nurse's introduction.

Phantom Malak isn't a concern, as Agatha outruns him, but she will have to be careful about Primal Fears and bosses on the maps she's good on.

PvP Matchups:

Performs Well Against: Murder Monkey, Agatha (herself), Clown Gremlin, Fiend, Robbie
Performs Decently Against: Nurse, Dread Ducky, Lucky, Penny, Kissy Missy, infected Clarice
Performs Poorly Against: Gold Watcher, Malak, Brute, HANGRY, Reaper Nurse, Ayano, Infected Balathu

Unless they're weakened and you have good health, do not risk fights against Power classes, as they will often kill her and will go out of their way to intercept her path when collecting shards. Hangry in particular deletes her instantly, so exert extreme caution should he be in the match. Reaper Nurse also poses a massive threat to Agatha since while she's frail, she outranges Agatha thanks to heavy attack, and Vaccination Time makes it nearly unwinnable for Agatha under optimal circumstances. In general, everyone in the gamemode will try to kill on sight if they spot an Agatha in the match because of how dominant she is, meaning you'll have to pay close attention to your surroundings when using her in this mode. Other than those, Agatha will often win the game if she's unopposed, so do your best to make sure she goes down before she gets going!

Closing

Agatha is an incredibly rewarding character for those who know how to use her. Her high speed and high attack rate, combined with Hello Friend! allows her to claim a lot of kills very quickly if she's experienced. However, she is also really easy to kill, so caution must be taken if you decide to use her. Compared to the other Speed Monsters, she's not as offensively minded as them, so they're better than her overall in Maze Escape. However, her more defensive hit-and-run style of play not only makes her a good choice in Shard Mayhem, she has had a stranglehold on that mode's meta as a result back when Hello Friend! did 100 damage, many players even going out of their way to target her all game to make sure she doesn't get far. This didn't last, however, as there are a lot of Monsters in that mode that are able to give her a hard time in today's meta. Overall, Agatha is an easy to use Monster that can help new players come to understand the Speed class better. Under that logic, use her before Fiend, before Reaper Nurse, and ESPECIALLY before PenPen, as PenPen is a very risky character, Fiend's hard to play overall, and Reaper Nurse is an extremely versatile character. Don't take her friends from her, otherwise you'll very much regret it!

[Edgar Allan Hoe]

I am an Agatha main, and I just run around only attack those who attack or go near me first and use my ultimate whenever it's ready

[Crevice A. S.]

Jesus christ her ult is a jumpscare,. In fact, a few minutes prior to writing this comment, an Agatha used her ult and I was the target, fortunately I was playing as Vince and I had my ult ready. She scared me so bad that I popped You'll See on her then and there, killing her instantly.

[PrincessGunpowder]

Agatha is so awsome.

[ethan muccino]

ethan

[The Ghost™]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[ItsJustKetchup]

@The Ghost™ im one of the few that believe's Vince's standpoint on Agatha's balance, so I feel like she's fine as is; she dies quickly to power classes, plenty of ults on popular characters that help reduce Hello Friend!'s effectiveness, and focus on item boxes if youre low on health to search for medkits. I may be in the minority, but that's what I believe

That said, if she were to truly get a nerf to that ult, I'd say either that or make it scale in damage depending on the class

Speed: 40
Balanced: 50
Support: 75
Power: 100

[The Ghost™]

Nice guide.
Agatha is balanced except for her UA
A suggestion I made awhile back and I want to know your thoughts is what if we made it so her UA does about 30% or 35% damage based off the targets max Hp ?

[thebigwoodkids]

[ItsJustKetchup]

Sure thing! Right now the series is on hiatus because of Chapter 4 enemies and the Yandere DLC coming out very soon. Because of that, i have to update every single guide, so I figured I’ll just wait until it comes out before doing any more, as that means less to edit later

[Wambufan]

Thank you for making this! Right now, I main Agatha, and she has won me at least half of my games. Although, i might want to begin to main Mama Bear and or Reaper Nurse when they come out. Can you do one of those when they come out?