With 14 Follower Bonds to find and unlock, your time management skills in Metaphor: ReFantazio will be pushed to the limit. While not every Bond is simple to unlock, some are as simple as recruiting a new ally to your cause and Strohl is one such character. Indeed, your Bond with Strohl is one that will start from the outset and blossom into a friendship that will stand even the greatest tests. Keep reading to learn how to rank up Strohl and what abilities and Archetypes he unlocks.

Table of Contents¶

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Unlocking the Strohl Follower Bond¶

Strohl is an ally who will join the Knights early in the adventure and travel with the protagonist to the Northern Border Fort. While you’ll gain access to him in that very dungeon, you won’t be able to control his actions and he won’t fully unlock until you reach the Nord Mines and defeat the boss not far into the dungeon where Strohl will join officially, along with the Bond system itself unlocking. You’ll also gain Gallica’s Bond at the same time, nice!

Beyond him joining as part of the story, the rest of his Bond Ranks are all optional, requiring you to speak to him out in the world and on the Gauntlet Runner while traveling for certain events so keep an eye on that. Additionally, you’ll have to complete a Side Quest for one of his events, this requires you to have your Imagination at Rank 3, so keep this in mind.

Strohl Rank up Events and Abilities¶

There is a total of eight Rank Up events for Strohl and as mentioned above, beyond the first rank, all of them are optional. The table below will detail how to get each Rank for Strohl and the ability it unlocks.

For the most part, Strohl’s Bond Rank Up events are pretty simple, you’ll only have to simply speak to him on free days, outside of one event on the Gauntlet Runner while traveling (when you pick an area to go visit).

A Noble’s Legacy is the one exception to all of this, and although you can accept the quest, the first Merchant you speak to requires you to have your Imagination at Rank 3, so keep this in mind. You’ll find the first Merchant in Grand Trad’s Grand Regalith Cathedral area, in the market, who will then direct you to the man standing at the front of the market who will complete this simple quest.

Rank 1 Ability - Warrior Archetype¶

Strohl’s Archetype Tree is that of the Warrior, and as you may expect by the name, it focuses very heavily on melee Slash attacks. You’ll want to ensure you’re at the front of the field to make the most out of the damage it does and Slicer in particular is a great skill to use against a single target, provided they don’t resist it.

Rank 2 Abilities - Warrior Enlightenment and Undaunted Spirit¶

Especially earlier in the adventure, MAG can be quite tricky to come across, so unlocking this ability will make it so that every Archetype in the Warrior Tree (so Warrior, Swordmaster, and Samurai) costs less MAG to study. Considering some other Archetypes require the Warrior Tree, you will be dipping into it with other characters.

Undaunted Spirit will see Strohl have a greater Critical Hit Rate against any Human-type enemies. Although this appears to be relegated to just bosses early on, you will soon start coming across these fearsome foes on a more regular basis as the adventure continues, so be sure to place Strohl in the party for any of those encounters.

Rank 3 Ability - Warrior Archetype: Adept¶

This will unlock the second Warrior Archetype available to study, the Swordmaster, a powerful melee class that is focused on using multi-target skills to hit all of their foes. While you had to rely on Synthesis Abilities to hit all foes at once before, the Swordmaster will make this much easier and you can use it to easily wipe out packs of dungeon beasts in one fell swoop. Just beware of the heavy MP cost of these skills, especially early on.

Rank 4 Ability - Scion’s Skill¶

The first of the Scion skills will increase the Skill Inheritance Slots to 2 whenever you’re on a Warrior Archetype (any of them), this gives you more freedom in how you build your characters (such as grabbing other physical skills from Archetypes such as Brawler).

Rank 5 Abilities - Warrior Veneration and Battle Aura¶

This is the upgrade to Warrior Enlightenment and as such, significantly decreases the MAG cost to study any Warrior Archetype. This will make it so the base Archetype costs very little to unlock while the higher ranks become a bit more manageable (still expect just under 20,000 MAG for the Elite Archetypes however).

When you have more than four party members, you’ll have to leave some in reserve (although you can swap them in at the cost of half a turn) where they will get less EXP than the normal rate. Battle Aura, then, will increase the rate at which Strohl will gain EXP in the reserves, try to keep Strohl in your main party until you get at least this ability.

Rank 6 Abilities - Scion’s Merit and Battle Hypnosis¶

Scion’s Merit is the next in the Scion series of abilities that increase how many skills you can inherit on the Warrior Archetypes to 3. Seeing as there are plenty of useful abilities you may wish for Strohl to carry over (such as increasing his HP), this is a handy boon.

Battle Hypnosis is the upgrade to Battle Aura from the previous rank where Strohl will now gain EXP at the same rate as the main battle party, even if he’s in your reserves. This makes it much easier to prevent characters from becoming underleveled, especially when you have a large party to deal with.

Rank 7 Ability - Warrior Archetype: Elite¶

The pinnacle of the Warrior Archetype, the Samurai comes with some incredibly useful skills that make Strohl (or anyone else who studies this Archetype) a melee beast. While skills like Thunder Blade are useful, it’s the new Synthesis Abilities that he gets access to that really make the difference, allowing you to one-hit kill or deal massive damage to some of the tougher enemies.

Rank 8 Abilities - Scion’s Essence, Slayer of Humans, and Grand Fantasy¶

When you finally max out Strohl’s Bond, you’ll gain three abilities for the final rank, starting with the final Scion ability that will give you four slots for skill inheritance. Slayer of Humans will further increase Strohl’s Critical Hit Rate against Human-type enemies while Grand Fantasy will remain a bit of a mystery to begin with if you max this Bond earlier. Following the events of 9/24, the Royal Archetypes will become available for any character that has maxed their Bond, in Strohl’s case, this is the Royal Warrior. These are incredibly powerful Archetypes, but they do lose the ability to inherit skills, so there’s trade-off to consider. You’ll also need to bring your Samurai and Warlord to Rank 20, along with a whopping 30,000 MAG to study.

There you have it, all of Strohl’s Bonds and Abilities in Metaphor: ReFantazio. Although any Archetype can be used for any character, Strohl favors the more melee-style Archetypes, especially if you’re looking for Royal Warrior which requires you to fully max out the Commander Archetype Tree.