With a total of 14 Followers to seek out across the Kingdom of Euchronia in Metaphor: ReFantazio, you’re going to need to be on the lookout and manage your time properly. While some of these Bonds are simple to unlock, some will require you to go out of your way, especially for the Bonds that don’t involve your party members. Catherina is someone you will meet throughout your adventure, keep reading to learn how to rank her up and more about her abilities and Archetypes.

Table of Contents¶

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Unlocking the Catherina Follower Bond¶

Catherina’s Bond is another that you’ll unlock very early in the adventure, during the events of the operation at the Grand Regalith Cathedral dungeon as you pursue Count Louis following the events at the King’s Funeral. After finally unlocking Hulkenberg’s Bond and returning to the Mausoleum, you’ll run into her, looking for her friend, and, after solving that little mystery further in, you’ll begin her Bond.

Catherina’s Bond takes a while to rank up, and you won’t be able to max it until near the end of the adventure but it’s well worth it. Not only does the Brawler Archetypes have some excellent skills, but you’ll unlock some great abilities such as increasing how much money you get from Bounties and have her give you a helping hand in labyrinths from time-to-time.

Catherina Rank up Events and Abilities¶

There is a total of eight Rank Up events for Catherina and after unlocking the Bond automatically for the first event, you’ll have to fight her while traveling on the Gauntlet Runner. The table below will detail how to get each Rank for Catherina and the ability it unlocks.

Catherina’s Bond events are a bit of an odd one, after unlocking it automatically, you’ll have to make sure you navigate the Gauntlet Runner to pass by her Gauntlet Runner (which is pink) on the world map. While for the most part, you’ll naturally be going that way and it’s hard to miss, if you were to skip all side content, you may be a bit unlucky so always make the time to visit them. The battles themselves aren’t too had, even if she can hit hard, a Tank will limit her multi-hit attacks and using powerful single-target Synthesis Skills will defeat her quickly. Following these battles, you’ll get a rank up event for her, and you must do all three of these before you can finish the rest of her rank up events normally.

All of these will then take place on a free day at night (just remember you need to wait a full free day between events) and while there are no quests to complete, you will need to max out your Tolerance for her Rank 6 event. Catherina’s Bond is well worth it though, marking treasures and chests on the map is always useful, as is reducing the general store prices and getting a better reward from Bounties. The biggest prize though, is Comrades in Battle, which gives her a chance to appear at the start of a side dungeon. If she does, every battle will see her use a powerful attack on an enemy at the start of every battle, including the boss. This can sometimes be as much as 5000 HP for some of the late game dungeons!

Rank 1 Ability - Brawler Archetype¶

The Brawler Archetype is a hand-to-hand master that focuses on dealing Strike damage, this is especially useful when going up against the Undead, who are often weak to that type. They also get access to the useful Battle Cry skill that increases their Attack and Defense, while Health Font is a great Passive, increasing your Max HP. The Brawler is an important Archetype as a few other Archetypes require investment into the tree, especially Basilio for his ultimate Archetype.

Rank 2 Ability - Brawler Enlightenment¶

Brawler Enlightenment works the same as the other Enlightenment abilities by decreasing the cost of MAG needed to study any of the Brawler Archetypes. There are three Archetypes in this tree, and as mentioned above, a few of the other Archetypes require you to rank up certain Archetypes in this tree, so reducing that cost helps a little.

Rank 3 Abilities - Brawler Archetype: Adept and Bounty Bonus¶

The second Archetype in the Brawler tree is the Pugilist, an Archetype that focuses on its critical hits to deal heavy damage to your enemies. More importantly, they get access to some very good passives, chief among them the Dodge Master passive. When equipped, enemies will no longer be able to critical hit that person, this is useful throughout the entire adventure.

You should always be looking to undertake any Bounties as soon as they become available, and with this ability, you’ll earn even more Reeve from a Bounty when you complete it. For the Bounties that come later in the adventure, this can sometimes be upwards of another 20,000+ Reeve.

Rank 4 Ability - Scion’s Skill¶

Scion’s Skill is the first in the series of Scion abilities that grant you an extra Inheritance Slot. When it comes to the Brawler Archetypes, you can use these slots for physical skills from the other melee-focused Archetypes, while you can also carry over some important passives from the earlier Brawler Archetypes into the higher-tier ones, such as the excellent Dodge Master.

Rank 5 Abilities - Item Tracking and Brawler Veneration¶

If you spend a lot of your free time in the various labyrinths that are scattered all over the Kingdom of Euchronia, then you’ll get a lot of use out of Item Tracking. This will display any treasure on your map without you having to get near to it (the blue markers on the map), allowing you to better plan your route during your dungeon delves.

Brawler Veneration is the upgrade to Brawler Enlightenment, further decreasing the cost of MAG to study these Archetypes, reducing the base Archetype to as little as just under 1,000. As mentioned above, the Brawler Archetypes are needed to unlock other Archetypes, so you will be dipping in and out of the Tree.

Rank 6 Abilities - Scion’s Merit and Streetwise Negotiator¶

The second in the Scion’s series of abilities, this one will give you three Skill Inheritance slots for any Brawler Archetype. You can now add some more useful buffs to your Brawler, giving them ways to further increase the damage they can deal with their powerful strikes.

Streetwise Negotiator will apply a permanent discount to items in every General Store across the Kingdom of Euchronia. As you’ll want to purchase restoratives often, this is very handy and you can combine it with the discount day on Idlesday to save further cash.

Rank 7 Abilities - Treasure Hunting and Comrades in Battle¶

Similar to Item Tacking at Rank 5, Treasure Hunting will now also display every treasure chest on your map in dungeons. This is once again useful to spot if you’ve missed any during your exploration or if you want to plan a route.

Comrades in Battle is the star of the show for Catherina’s Bond abilities. When you enter a side dungeon (no story dungeons unfortunately), you may notice that Catherina has tagged along for the ride (she’ll let you know, don’t worry). Throughout this dungeon, every time you start a Squad Battle, she will deliver a powerful attack on the first turn. It’ll never outright kill an enemy, but it’ll leave a regular enemy near death and put a huge dent on bosses. It’s not uncommon to see 5,000+ HP to some of the tougher bosses in the game.

Rank 8 Abilities - Brawler Archetype: Elite and Scion’s Essence¶

The final Archetype in the Brawler Tree is the Martial Artist, an Archetype that has damaging skills that will inflict debuffs or remove buffs from your enemy, while also getting skills that can heal themselves. Most importantly though, they get access to two of passives that are useful on other Archetypes, Battle Master and Unyielding Blood. The first will prevent any physical status ailment, while the second, Unyielding Blood, will let your survive one fatal attack once per battle while also restoring them to full HP.

Scion’s Essence is the final Scion skill that increases your Skill Inheritance Slots. With four slots at your disposal, you can really customize the Brawler to fit your desired playstyle.

There you have it; all of Catherina’s Bonds and Abilities in Metaphor: ReFantazio. While she has many useful abilities that make dungeon exploration easier, it’s her Rank 7 ability, Comrades in Battle, that is the real highlight.