What This Comp Does
Stain Pressure Core is the default Act 2 and Act 3 party. entity:maelle, entity:lune, and entity:sciel each carry a kit that feeds the next character's kit, which is why three editorial guides we surveyed put it at or near the top of their party rankings (TheGamer ranks it #1 across all party formations).
Lune opens the round by applying item:trebuchim-driven Stains and Burn through skills like item:ice-lance and item:immolation. Maelle inherits a target that is already burned and marked, so her Virtuose-Stance item:stendhal cast skips the priming turn most other Maelle parties have to spend. Sciel runs the support layer through item:all-set for Shell + Rush + Powerful coverage, item:fortunes-fury when a single-turn damage doubler matters more, and item:intervention to refund AP across the party.
The result is a comp that produces top-tier single-target burst on turn 2 or 3, has AOE coverage for trash waves, and never runs out of action economy. It is the party most theorycrafters fall back to when they don't know what the boss looks like yet.
For per-character mechanics, see the dedicated guides for Maelle Stendhal, Lune Stain Rotation, and Sciel Twilight Burst. This guide covers the synergy layer only.
TL;DR
- Trio: Maelle, Lune, Sciel.
- Anchor: Maelle (Stendhal opener).
- Tier: S (community consensus across TheGamer, KeenGamer, ethugamer, game8).
- Difficulty: Standard. Works pre-Painted Power on a Burn Stack variant; ceiling unlocks once item:painted-power is on Maelle.
- Turn order: Lune first to apply Burn, then Maelle for the Virtuose burst, then Sciel for buffs and Twilight finishers.
- Build dependencies: Maelle on item:medalum or item:brulerum, Lune progressing toward item:scaverim level 20, Sciel on item:charnon for damage variant or item:rangeson / item:tisseron for the support variant.
The Synergy Loop
The comp runs three turns deep before the rotation repeats. Each turn does work that the next turn cashes in.
Turn 1: Lune primes. Open with a Stain generator that also applies Burn. item:ice-lance gives one Ice Stain plus one Light Stain in a single cast, which is enough Stain inventory to support Maelle's Burn-affinity stack on turn 2 even if Lune does not get a second action. If the AP allows, follow with item:mayhem to add Stains without spending a full turn. End turn 1 with the target burning and Lune sitting on three or four Stains for her own future rotation.
Turn 2: Maelle delivers. With Burn already on the target, Maelle skips the priming turn that other parties spend on Spark or Pyrolyse. item:swift-stride enters Virtuose Stance from a non-Virtuose start; if Medalum is equipped, Maelle is already in Virtuose at battle start and the Swift Stride is unnecessary. Cast Stendhal as the second action against the burning target. Stendhal is single-hit Void damage that removes Maelle's own Shields and applies Defenseless to her, which is the cost the comp is designed to absorb through Sciel's Shell coverage.
Turn 3: Sciel buffs and finishes. Sciel's first turn is the buff turn: cast All Set for the party-wide Shell, Rush, and Powerful trio. If Maelle survived turn 2 with Shields up and the target survived the Stendhal, Sciel's second action becomes a finisher. Use Focused Foretell into Twilight Slash to push Foretell stacks toward 10, then enter Twilight on the next turn-start for the +25% per consumed charge multiplier.
The rotation can compress when AP allows. Sciel can cast All Set on turn 1 ahead of Lune's prime, which moves Maelle's Stendhal earlier and converts the comp from a turn-3 finisher into a turn-2 finisher. Pick the order based on Speed stat. Whoever has the highest Agility acts first.
When to Use Fortune's Fury Instead of All Set
item:fortunes-fury and item:all-set are different Sciel skills, not a linked combo. Both buff the party, but at different costs and in different contexts.
All Set covers Shell, Rush, and Powerful in one cast. It is the standard turn-1 opener because Shell mitigates the Defenseless damage Maelle takes from her own Stendhal, and Powerful adds a flat damage buff to the next outgoing hit.
Fortune's Fury is a single-target skill that sets one ally to deal double damage on the next action. It is the burst window when Sciel needs to amplify Maelle's second Stendhal cast specifically rather than buff the whole party. Use it on turns where Maelle is the only party member acting before Sciel's next turn, since the doubled damage tag consumes on the first Maelle action and is wasted if Lune or Verso act first.
Most rotations open All Set on turn 1, then save Fortune's Fury for turn 3 or later when a single Maelle hit needs to clear a boss phase or punch through a damage threshold.
Build Coordination Across Slots
Each character runs an independent Pictos and Lumina set. There is no comp-shared loadout. The coordination is in which individual choices each character makes given the trio's combined coverage.
Maelle: item:augmented-first-strike, item:glass-cannon, and item:critical-burn as the standard Stendhal-opener picto stack. item:painted-power as the late-game Lumina gate (without it, Stendhal pins to 9999 per hit and the comp's ceiling never unlocks). item:burning-shots pairs with Critical Burn for the self-sustaining Burn loop. item:rewarding-mark adds a multiplier on Marked targets when a teammate applies Mark.
Lune: Element-amplifying pictos that match her current weapon. Trebuchim phase favors Fire amplifiers and Burn pictos. item:scaverim phase shifts to Dark amplifiers because each consumer skill leaves a Dark Stain that adds +50% to skill damage stacking. item:dodger is the universal cheap pick at 1 LP for the parry-AP economy.
Sciel: item:effective-heal for the support variant on item:rangeson or item:tisseron. item:cheater for the damage variant on item:charnon. Speed-focused pictos to cycle her turn ahead of enemy turns and keep buffs refreshed.
The party's shared late-game gate is Painted Power on Maelle. Without it, the +50% Dark Stain stack on Lune and the Twilight multiplier on Sciel still produce damage past the cap on individual hits, but Maelle's single-hit Stendhal cannot escape 9999 and the comp loses its biggest payoff window.
Where This Comp Lives In The Optimizer
Default optimizer parameters land on this comp: Maelle anchor, Lune second, Sciel third, Painted Power on, Virtuose stance. Adjust the base skill damage field to whatever Stendhal value the Maelle build calculator estimates for your gear, since the per-skill multiplier remains an unverified gap (see [[gaps]]).
Toggle Painted Power off to see how the comp performs pre-cap. The Stendhal output drops to 9999 per hit, which is the breakpoint that decides whether the build is ready for endgame Expert content or whether the party should keep farming Color of Lumina to unlock Painted Power first.
Tradeoffs
Burn-resistant or fire-immune enemies erode the comp. Lune's Burn priming is the load-bearing turn-1 action, and bosses that resist or immune Fire damage flip Lune into a sub-DPS who cannot apply the status Maelle's Burn-affinity pictos depend on. Swap to a non-Burn rotation (Lune on Lightning or Earth Stains) when boss element resistances show.
Stendhal applies Defenseless to Maelle. Sciel's Shell from All Set helps but does not remove the risk. Missed parries while Maelle is Defenseless drop her health quickly. Pair the comp with item:second-chance as the standard insurance Lumina, especially on Expert difficulty.
Setup cost on the support variant. If Sciel runs the Twilight Burst variant rather than the Support variant, her first 2 to 3 turns build Sun and Moon charges instead of buffing the party. Pick the Support Sciel variant when the comp's job is to feed Maelle's burst; pick the Damage Sciel variant when the fight runs long enough for Twilight Burst to fire.
Single-target boss bias. The comp's strongest output is on a single high-HP target. Trash waves push Maelle into filler turns since Stendhal hits one enemy. Lune's Elemental Genesis and Fire Rage cover the AOE gap, but on pure trash content a Burn Stack Maelle variant outpaces the Stendhal opener.
When To Pick This Comp Over Triple DPS
Pick Stain Pressure Core when the boss runs a long single-target phase or when the party still needs sustain to survive a tighter difficulty. The comp's Sciel slot covers the buff and AP economy that pure DPS comps give up.
Pick the Triple DPS variant when every character is leveled, Painted Power is online, and the fight is short enough that buff coverage matters less than total damage output across three burst windows.
The fall-back rule: long fights and unfamiliar bosses pick Stain Pressure Core; cleared content and farming runs pick Triple DPS.