Pyra — shining

Pyra Myst

Just giving him the middle finger didn't seem sufficient to express her fury, so Pyra gave him BOTH middle fingers, threw in her index fingers as a bonus, and cast Bolt level 4 on him for good measure.
Vital statistics
Race	Elf
Class	Mage
Gender	Female
Faction	none
Birthplace	Thornwood
Relatives	Mrs. Myst, mother
Appearances	Shining in the Darkness Time Stalkers

Pyra is a powerful elf mage who serves as one of the main playable characters in the games Shining in the Darkness and Time Stalkers. She is noted for being something of an antihero, a character type almost unheard of among the playable characters of the Shining series.

Background

Pyra ran away from home and worried her parents. When her parents finally met her, her mother gave her a spanking and the main hero tells the truth explains to her about being in her party.

Personality

Pyra has an extremely forceful personality, and carries a great deal of pride in being part of a long lineage of powerful magic users. She rarely backs down from getting what she wants, and does not limit herself to using her powers responsibly, freely wielding powerful spells out of avarice and even petty vindictiveness. Her temper is also extremely short, and she has a reputation for dishonesty.

Despite her many unheroic traits, Pyra is a faithful and stalwart friend to the straitlaced Hiro.

Many of Pyra's characteristics are softened in TimeStalkers. She is much less quick to lose her temper, for example.

Strategy

Pyra primarily uses Staffs and Whips as her weapon. The Staffs generally have higher Attack, but Whips deal damage to every monster in the selected group. If you equip Pyra with Staffs, you can still use her spells for multi-target attacks, but often the increased attack power of a Staff is negligible; the choice ultimately comes down to personal play style.

The Hex Whip has the highest Attack of any of her available whips, but due to its curse, attacks with it have a high chance of immobilizing Pyra due to her getting tangled up in it after attacking, giving it an unreliability after the first use. Since it has no such curse, the Steel Whip does more overall damage in longer battles (especially if the party is over-leveled, causing the Hex Whip's greater Attack to be frequently wasted on overkill) and carries no risk of battle strategies being foiled by Pyra being immobilized, but the Hex Whip can outperform it against most common monsters since the first attack will always hit. Thus, the Steel Whip is generally a safer option when you anticipate a boss encounter, while the Hex Whip is usually more effective during routine dungeon exploration. The entanglement effect wears off on its own, or can be removed with Detox 2.

Pyra joins with the spells Slow and View. Unlike the Shining Force games in the series, Slow is a very useful spell in Shining in the Darkness. It significantly reduces the enemy's Defense, which can completely change the odds in a longer battle. Even the reduction in Speed can make a big difference, for instance by giving Milo the chance to heal injured party members before the enemy can deal a follow-up blow. If you think it makes sense to use Slow in a particular battle, cast it on the first turn, since its effects last for multiple turns.

Pyra's elemental attack spells can be very effective, especially against enemies with high Defense. However, they should be used sparingly; while Pyra has the most MP of all the playable characters in the game, she can still easily run out while traversing a dungeon floor. Pay attention to elemental weaknesses so as to get the best use out of these spells.