Maelle is the third-party member, found fairly early in Act 1. Maelle switches stances with every attack, boosting attack power or defense, depending on the stance she is in. Importantly, she cannot be in the same stance two turns in a row, unless an ability explicitly states otherwise. If you don’t swap, Maelle becomes stanceless, which does not provide any bonuses. That means, even if you really only ever want to be dealing more damage, you will still need to pick abilities that can flow between stances. There are three stances: offensive, which increases damage dealt by 50%, but also increases damage taken by 50%, defensive, which decreases damage taken by 50% and increases AP generation on dodge or parry by 1, and Virtuose, which increases damage by 200%.

For maximum damage output, the goal should be to get into Virtuose stance using your abilities, and then maximizing by using an ability that deals high damage and deals break. An early ability to pick up is Fleuret Fury, which not only deals three heavy hits that can break, but if you use it in Virtuose stance, you will stay in Virtuose stance. Maelle is also a character you will want to parry with–although you should always be trying to parry–but her counterattacks are impacted by her stance boosts, so Virtuose stance counterattacks hit extremely hard.