Introduction

It’s like HG designed Titi for me. I quite enjoyed Pepe’s event and the dynamic between Pepe, Papyrus, and Titi was surprisingly good, so I’m happy to get Titi in the game finally. I also quite like events that tread new ground like Minos! More so though, they knew that me ever spelling Medjehtiqedti Nashtu Mashaer (without copy paste) was hopeless and basically called me and my ilk out on it! Better, it sounds like titties, so with that in mind, I will proceed to write 5000 words about the various titties of this patch (man titties included).

Q: If the tittie patch is named for Titi, why does Perfumer have the bigg-

Err, OK maybe this is better saved for a fanfic. It’s a shame this patch wasn’t closer to April Fools…

As always, you can find the full Mastery guide here.

Should You Pull

No. Although I love Titi and would love to come up with some good reason to consider pulling here, there really is very little reason value-wise. Titi is a fine unit, but not a great unit, and the next banner is one of the most (if not the most) powerful in the history of the game. If your main concern is meta-power for your pulls, don’t pull here.

For Titi herself, she continues the trend from Reed the Flame Shadow where, despite being a Medic, she’s basically a Caster instead. However, while Reed2 tends to lean into that raw damage aspect to a very effective degree, Titi is a bit more nuanced, which tends to be a nicer way of saying “situational” (or even bad). Her kit revolves around Sleep, which is simply not a good form of control. While it isn’t valueless by any means, the fact allied units need specifically coded abilities to interact with Sleeping enemies means Titi (and other Sleep units) tend to lack synergy with the rest of the team. This puts her S3 in a weird spot where it can be a reasonable DPS skill solo, but gets a little awkward in teams. Meanwhile her S2 is a nice bit of utility that can sometimes seem like one of the best skills in the game, but is extremely situational so still doesn’t justify the cost of rolls.

For the banner competition, the next banner is the limited banner of Wang and Ch’en the Dawnstreak, expected around a month after this banner (mid to late July). I’ll save rambling about those two in detail for now (check the lookaheads), but all you really need to know now is Wang is probably the best unit in the game right now, and Chen3 isn’t that far behind. Looking over the next 4-5 months after that, we have two banners that are probably skips as well, but still better than Titi, then another powerful limited banner, then a collab banner, then the Yato2 rerun! While it’s not quite as bad of run as the gauntlet of banners from Mon3tr to Sakiko, it’s still pretty tough. When you consider Titi’s relatively low value, it simply doesn’t make sense to roll here.

FAQ and Discussion

Q: Any other thoughts on Titi?

A: Not a lot, but there are two things I’ll mention that don’t especially fit in elsewhere.

First, her S2 has gotten a lot of “highlight” clips for its value against the IS#6 ED2 boss (the Sui foot). With her S2 she can put herself and another unit to sleep, and like when operators Sleep enemy units, enemies can’t damage the sleeping operators, which entirely avoids the powerful stomp damage. It cycles almost perfectly with the stomp too, so she can be a great solution for one of the toughest IS bosses.

This might trick some people into thinking she’s a must-pull, but this is a situation that requires caution. There are a ton of bosses in the game right now, and the foot is just one of many. While there will certainly someday be another boss with a similar gimmick, there are very few overall that have this sort of recurring burst that isn’t avoidable in some other way. In other words, while this is a nice use case, and definitely makes Titi draftable if you have her, it doesn’t justify special pull consideration. It’s just one solution of many to one boss of many.

Second, she can be a pretty nice beginner unit. Before I get into why, this DOES NOT mean you should roll for her if you’re new! Wang is an even better starter unit! However, if you’re starting right now and looking for a reroll target, or she spooks you later and you’re reading this article post-release, Titi’s S3 is a pretty strong “carry” sort of skill. The combination of control and damage on a fast cycle can hold a lot of lanes on her own. It doesn’t have a particularly high ceiling (or she’d be a better general consideration), but if you’re just starting out with relatively few options at your disposal, she’ll be surprisingly effective early on.

Q: You mention Sleep units tend to lack synergy with the rest of the team. With that in mind, is a Sleep-themed team effective?

A: No not really. It is a niche that some people do, but the problem is most of the Sleep units are old now and weren’t even that good when they were new (sorry Blemi fans). Titi, even though she is relatively weak by modern standards, would still be something like 90% of the power in such a team by virtue of being the only even sort of recent one!

If you like the units, then by all means. I think niche play is the most fun way to play the game! However, if you do it expecting some powerhouse team, you’ll be very disappointed. It’s a “for fun” choice, not a meta choice. Any value from the synergy that exists between the Sleep units is far surpassed by just using better units.

Incidentally (well, probably intentionally), Blemishine is in the cert store when Titi’s banner goes live. You should not buy Blemishine to compliment Titi unless you are trying to build this niche team. Blemishine is not a good use of your gold certs.

Q: Should I raise Perfumer the Distilled?

A: Probably not. Even if you personally waifu her, her 4★ base form is the better unit (to be fair, her 4★ version is one of the best 4★s period), although personally I like her new 5★ form a decent amount.

Abjurers are a weird class. They have good HPS, but their “switch” nature is fundamentally bad, and it’s only when they circumvent it that they become usable. Tsukinogi, Nine-Colored Deer, and Xingzhu¹ are some of the worst units in the game because they do nothing a large chunk of the time, but Quercus and Haruka are great units because they have infinite-duration skills! Perfumer2 brings a new approach to this problem. Instead of an infinite-duration skill, she has a helidrop skill, with the intent that you retreat her rather than try to wait out the useless downtime. While this does give her a very long effective cycle-time, the helidrop nature of her strong effective-HPS and buff does give her some passable value that the low-tier Abjurers don’t have. She’s not as good as Quercus still, but it’s a significant improvement over the basement dwellers!

However, while she’s a nice bit of design work, that’s still not great value for your resources. With the current high power floor, the need for utility like this is pretty low. Many healers (both 5★ and 6★) are just as effective without the excessively long downtime too. So while Perfumer2 is decent with some niche potential, she’s still pretty “middle of the road” in terms of value². That’s a tough sell in the current meta, so most people should simply stick to her 4★ form, who is also decent value in IS.

¹ Xingzhu’s S1 is mostly different from this, but is still bad for other reasons. You don’t need to tell me in the comments. I just didn’t want to make the paragraph bigger for one exception that’s still bad. ² Even ‘middle of the road’ is probably some personal cope out of me, but I do prefer units that do something “unique” over a sea of easily replaceable roster fillers.

Q: Should I raise Varkáris?

A: Only if he particularly appeals to you. Varkáris isn’t a bad unit at all, and for a welfare 5★ he’s pretty decent! However, there’s a few strikes against him for general purposes. First, Centurions really need their E2 to function. In this way, they’ve aged a little poorly compared to more modern archetypes. At E2 they gain +1 block, which is a massive difference to their value since that ties into their DPS and laneholding ability. This means Varkáris is the type of unit you can’t really get away with lower investment levels on. There are a lot of recent 5★s where you can get value out of them at a relatively inexpensive high E1, but that is not really the case with Varkáris.

Second, there’s a lot of competition for the role these days. Laneholders like him are typically low value to begin with, but even at the same rarity, the OG Specter (who is a common recommendation on 5★ selector tickets) is significantly better.

Third and related to the last point, Varkáris doesn’t do anything particularly unique either. There’s no part of his kit that’s a unique thing only he can do. He’s yet another 5★ Guard that can fill in some basic duties, but he doesn’t bring any special value to any niches either.

So Varkáris is a good unit for his rarity, who can do decent damage with solid self-sustain. If you like him and can spare the resources, he’ll be more than functional! However, he’s simply not an ideal use of resources and won’t return any long-term value.

Q: Any early thoughts on the MH2 collab units?

A: As always, the full lookahead will be in the next update as I prefer to give units some time to simmer. However, like last update with ep17, I know this will be a question in the comments, so I’ll give my initial reactions here. Just know that these are just my snap reactions and could change by the time I do the full lookahead.

Zinogre S Catapult is a relatively disappointing unit for me. Hadiya showed some potential for the Mercenary archetype, but Catapult2’s implementation is lackluster. Her DPS is ok, and her hit-count actually may be useful, but trading DP for mediocre 5★ DPS and nothing else just isn’t an appealing mechanic. If she’s going to have a steep additional cost, she should at least be in the upper crust of 5★ DPS! Why not just use Mutsumi who doesn’t have the drawback? Basically, while Catapult2 isn’t bad per se, she could have been a lot better too and is instead just kind of uninteresting.

Violet Mizutsune Orchid is April powercreep, therefore she is the worst unit in the game and you shouldn’t roll. Expect a long rant in a few months! Actually, that’s entirely me memeing. I’ve gotten a lot of messages from people who think I’d actually be upset about this (for newer readers, I’m a famous April simp), but not so! For one, April is a 5★ and not a collab unit so she still has an availability advantage, nor would I expect her to be better. For two, I love almost all FRDs, so having another FRD Sniper is a good thing to me! Third, even though there hasn’t been a direct powercreep to April before this, the higher power ceiling has effectively already devalued most 5★s regardless. And finally, it took over seven years for a legitimate direct (sorta) powercreep, so it’d be hard to complain anyway. That’s a lot better than most 5★s manage!

Anyway, you probably aren’t here to hear me ramble about my wife (but I absolutely will ramble about her anyway). So setting that aside, Orchid2 I think is pretty cool. She’s not as wildly strong as some recent 6★s are, and I think it’s pretty debatable if she’s even better than Kirin R Yato. It seems like she pays a small bit of DPS “tax” for some of her features. It’s either for being a FRD which tends to suppress the skills a little bit, or because the skills are reusable, unlike most FRDs. In any case, it leads to a slightly less impressive looking outcome compared to other recent 6★s. I don’t think that’s bad, however, and her net effect is still really good. She probably won’t be a top meta unit, but she has enough flexibility in her kit that I think she’s still high value. But we’ll see how she looks in a month or so, especially with CCB5 coming up.

Q: Any Module thoughts for this patch?

A: As always (or more recently anyway), this isn’t a full Module review of every option. Check out Mal’s articles for those. These are just the ones I found particularly interesting or worthy of noting.

EN: Medjehtiqedti Bound

This patch is one of the worst for Modules. There’s basically nothing good here. Yea, Entelechia fans will be mad at me for saying that, but it’s true. None of the new units have an especially impactful Module, Entelechia’s is good, but not good enough, and the rest are sidegrades or downgrades to off-meta units. Woop de do. I send my sympathies to Mal for having to write a full article about this motley bunch.

Anyway, that’s all to say I have nothing really to say here except don’t overreact to Entelechia’s. It’s a good Module to be sure, and definitely better than her first. If you like using her, it’ll be a big help. But it doesn’t change anything in terms of her evaluation.

Oh and I guess Hoederer’s is good, albeit a sidegrade, but he occupies a weird blind spot for me in general and I don’t feel like rewriting this section for that. Check Mal’s article!

CN: Critical Phase Transition

How crazy is it that we have a major anniversary patch with no new Module branch? Just new unit mods, a handful of 2nds on off-meta units, and two mid ISW mods. I’ve speculated for a while now that it seems inevitable we’ll get some sort of new upgrade system soon because Modules are close to a dead end at this point. What’s coming out now makes major patches like this feel quite a bit less meaty than they should! But I’ve been speculating this to happen for a couple years now and still hasn’t so…

• Specter the Unchained - If I had a nickel for every early 5★ Guard that was an early game waifu for me, and later got a 6★ Specialist alter that was initially panned as bad, but later got an IS mod that was alright, but not meta, and suffers from how stacked the ticket is, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it is super weird it happened twice.

  Anyway, Specter2’s ISW Module is a bit of a miss, sadly. It’s not awful, but it’s not especially great either. There’s the ever present problem of the Specialist ticket competition, of course, but more so it’s just not a terribly powerful effect. The shared doll rescue is cool and can come in clutch, but we have shared invuln units already who don’t see any use, so it’s a bit like Ho’olheyak’s Module in that the fundamental behind it is “bad play”. However, unlike Ho’olheyak, she gets a pretty significant personal buff which makes her more viable. Sadly though, she does lose the cycling that comes with her base mods, so it’s an awkward situation where her new one isn’t even always better than one of her standard mods. All in all, it’s not bad, but just a touch too awkward to be a general consideration.

• Typhon - When it was first announced, I was a hater on Typhon’s IS mod. I’ve warmed since, but only slightly. She loses some of her DEF-piercing potential, but trades it for a global nuke that’s similar to an S3 burst. However, that burst doesn’t have especially high DPH, requires (usually) another source of control to trigger it, and has a relatively long internal cooldown. However, the neat thing is that cooldown is per target meaning that if the originally marked target dies, she’ll retarget and get another trigger. This can lead to some nice cascading wave clear moments. It’s still a bit clunky to use, and very situational, but it’s at least usable, which is more than I initially thought! Don’t expect any major changes to her evaluation though. She still doesn’t compare well to the top tier Snipers, but it’s not nothing either.

• Texas the Omertosa 2nd - At long last, Texas2 gets her DP refund Module. About three years too late for it to have any actual meta relevance, but better late than never? I guess? Looks even worse now that we know Yato2 is getting a rerun too. In any case, it’s a really nice 2nd mod for those that still use her. Generally speaking, the FRD DP Mod (EXE-X) is the better one, but the nice thing here is that Texas2’s EXE-X also gets some damage which closes the damage gap that would otherwise exist. Y still has the higher damage ceiling, but you aren’t trading anywhere near as much for it, and she gets some redeploy reduction too. It’s a relatively rare case where a 2nd mod is the clear better of the two, and those who still use Texas2 will probably want to pick it up. However, Texas2 is no longer particularly meta, so the general player who is tight on resources should still probably pass on it if you’ve already done her first.

Masteries for Medjehtiqedti Bound

Titi

Rarity: 6

Titi

Medic

Incantation Medic

RangedRanged

Skill

Mastery

Story

Advanced

History's Bloom

Manual TriggerPer Second Recovery

Mastery

Story

Advanced

S3M3

S-

A

Sealant

Manual TriggerPer Second Recovery

Mastery

Story

Advanced

S2M3

B+

A+

Relative to her contemporaries, many of which are exceedingly overpowered, Titi can feel a bit weak. Incantation Medics tend to have high HPS and DPS, but she is reliant on the Sleep mechanic to make full use of it which tends to be an awkward form of control on an already awkward archetype. There are immunities to deal with, especially on bosses, but more so, Sleep doesn’t interact well with allies, which tends to make it the worst form of control. Still, as a modern 6★, Titi has more than enough power behind her kit to still be viable, and the Sleep that is her major drawback also gives her some endgame value, albeit situational.

The Masteries to pursue with Titi will heavily depend on the type of player you are, what you want out of her, and the general strength of your roster. For most players, that will settle on her S3. It’s a fairly powerful wave-clear type of skill, which will put most enemies that enter her range to Sleep while doing heavy damage and healing. This is a more “typical” 6★ use, where your goal is to kill or heal as much as possible. That is, if your intent is to use Titi as much as possible, be it because you like her or because she is one of your best options, it is the skill you’ll get the most use out of! Mastery on it is surprisingly powerful too. She has a lot of multipliers spread across her kit which means that the +30% ATK over Mastery actually has an outsized impact, on top of a big improvement to the Sleep pop damage. It’s the type of Mastery that is close to essential if you plan to actually use the skill.

However, as noted, Titi isn’t particularly near the top of the meta. Players who already have high-powered rosters may instead find S2 to be the better skill. S2 has some special endgame value because enemies interact with our Sleeping allies in the same way our allies interact with Sleeping enemies. That is, they don’t. With her S2, Titi puts herself and an ally to Sleep, which makes them both essentially immune to almost everything. This can be a great tool against any consistently repeating mechanic that would otherwise have no mitigation. The most prominent example of this is the foot stomp of IS#6 ED2, which normally needs to be played around with precise timing, but instead can just be bypassed with Titi’s S2.

This means her S2 could be the better starting point for some players. However, in such a case, you’ll probably want to do both skills anyway, especially for that IS#6 usage, as you’ll likely be using her S3 instead on most stages leading up to the boss. For the less Advanced players, investing into S2 may not be worth it at all too since it’s very situational. There’s very few bosses in the life of the game where Titi’s S2 is the best solution, and the rest of the skill just isn’t as good as her S3!

As for the Masteries themselves, they are again quite powerful on her S2. The damage increase is significant, but that’s not really the reason to use the skill over her S3. Instead, the main value is over the SP costs. The base SP cost improves from 25 SP to 20 SP over Mastery, which is a massive improvement for a skill who you absolutely need to have available as needed. The initial SP also gets a strong improvement, dropping from 13 SP to just 5 SP. Those can be subtle improvements for more casual players, but are vital to others.

Last, pass on her S1 which has almost no upside compared to her S3. It’s a bit perplexing actually. It does worse damage, has worse uptime, and adds RNG to her control. It’s an unusual case of skill with virtually no real usecase, where most filler skills at least have some sort of fringe advantage if you squint. The only reason to pursue it would be to show off your max investment.

Perfumer the Distilled

Rarity: 5

Perfumer The Distilled

Supporter

Abjurer

RangedRanged

Skill

Mastery

Story

Advanced

'Temple Embers'

PassiveAlways Active Recovery

Mastery

Story

Advanced

S2M3

C

C+

'Mountain Delight'

Auto TriggerPer Second Recovery

Mastery

Story

Advanced

S1M3

None

None

Perfumer the Distilled is an unexpected mix-up of the Abjurer archetype. Before her, they all fell into two groups. They were either bimodal (bad) or infinite duration (good). Perfumer2, however, has a single-use helidrop skill that makes her unique among the group. That’s enough to elevate her above the “bad” group and can make her a viable niche consideration, since she acts as an emergency button with her relatively strong effective-HPS, but she’s still well behind the “good” group, and thus still a relatively fringe consideration. Even for the waifu players, her original 4★ version will very often be the stronger choice!

So most players shouldn’t be raising this version of Perfumer2, but if you choose to for whatever reason, both skills can be options depending on how far you want to take it. However, her S2 is by far the better choice. It’s the skill that has the aforementioned helidrop so it comes out ahead by that virtue of uniqueness. It has some decent gains as well, although they aren’t exceptional either. The Sanctuary effect improves by 4.2 to 6.6%, depending on potentials and Modules, on top of a roughly 12% HPS improvement from the ASPD. It also gets a strong improvement to the buff effect, although the net impact of that aspect is relatively low. These improvements are far from earth shattering, but considering the situations such a skill would be used in, they can make all the difference.

Meanwhile, her S1 may appeal to those who really want to get the most out of Perfumer2, but it is much less special (and her S2 isn’t all that special to begin with). Since S2 is single use, it has a long effective cycle, so the consistency of her S1 may occasionally come out ahead. The burst healing on it is very strong and on a short cooldown, and she can maintain 100% uptime on the DEF buff which might give it some niche applications. However, it is Auto-Activation, meaning that most of the time, a large chunk of the healing will be wasted. If the DEF buff isn’t needed, it can be a very frustrating skill on an already fringe unit.

Varkáris

Rarity: 5

Varkáris

Guard

Centurion

MeleeMelee

Skill

Mastery

Story

Advanced

The Will of His People

Manual TriggerPer Second Recovery

Mastery

Story

Advanced

S2M3

C

C

Varkáris is one of those units you have to be a little cautious about, depending on the type of player you are. He’s actually a pretty decent unit since Centurions are a “high floor” sort of unit, meaning that their baseline performance is pretty good. He can hold a lane, do decent damage, and has good self-sustain. That’s not too bad for a Welfare! But at the same time, with few exceptions, Centurions also tend to have a “low ceiling”. So while he’s decent, he’s also rarely the optimal choice and has little long-term value, especially as a 5★. If what matters to you is optimal use of your resources, you’ll get a much better return on your investment and value out of your team slot elsewhere. Even lacking stronger units, most players will get better results sticking with cheaper stop-gaps, especially since Centurions really need their E2 to function.

If you do choose to raise him, his S2 will usually be his better skill. Burst skills are generally better in the first place, but it also has his self-sustain, which his S1 completely lacks. The gains over Mastery aren’t that special, but are still respectable. It has a relatively standard DPS gain, plus an additional 700ish HP of sustain, which is rarely lost thanks to his Barrier conversion. There’s a noticeable improvement to his wind-up too, although it is still fairly long even at S2M3. Considering Centurions generally need their E2 anyway, going the extra mile with his S2 Masteries, which is also relatively inexpensive, can make sense if you plan to use him.

If you really like him, you could consider his S1 as well. Since his S2 has a fairly high 45 SP cost, the consistency that his S1 brings can be a decent alternative. However, it doesn’t have any sustain attached to it, meaning he’ll generally need to be babysat by a healer of some kind, so it is a far more generic and sub-optimal solution. It’s also worth noting that while most skills of this type get an SP improvement over Mastery, Varkáris does not. It remains at 4 SP from SL7 up to S1M3, nor is the damage gain especially strong. That ultimately leaves his S1 as a strictly husbando-only tier of skill.

Pull Priority

June update: New this update, Closure and Kal2 make their debuts. Closure is an easy Strong Pull, but Kal2 actually isn’t quite as insane as you might expect. Of course, being a limited means for most people she’ll be a Strong Pull anyway, although I’m personally ranking her slightly lower here. Zima2 also gets kicked down to Lean Skip. A lot of people really like her, but I have a tough time seeing the value compared to the clear top-dogs due to her relatively low ceiling. However, she could creep back up after Wang if the general power trend continues down.

Orchid2 for the MH collab will be added next update, but since I know many people will be curious, initial impressions aren’t that great. She’s not bad at all, and I personally really like her (love FRDs) but the FRD tax means her skill impact isn’t as good as some recent units. She’ll probably be a Lean Pull, but if she wasn’t a true collab limited, could potentially slip to Lean Skip. The Yato2 rerun will probably be a Strong Pull, although I’m undecided where she balances compared to Orchid2.

Strong Pull: Wang (limited), Ch’en the Dawnstreak, Closure

Lean Pull: Kal’tsit·Esperanta (limited)

Lean Skip: Zima the Raging Tide, Bellone

Strong Skip: Titi, Necrass (rerun)

Meta-value 4-5★s: None

Niche-value 4-5★s: None

Pull Priority Blurbs

Wang - He’s been nicknamed Wangsdel and for good reason. He does a ton of damage, anywhere on the map. Don’t be afraid by the fact he’s a Trapmaster either. Since his damage is so good, and he gets a ton of traps, he’s stupidly easy to use too. He can solo most of the game, like his sister Ling did long ago, but unlike her, has plenty of ceiling too thanks to a huge chunk of RES-ignore. He is easily the best unit ahead of us, and may be the best unit in the game.

Ch’en the Dawnstreak - She hasn’t gotten as much attention as Wang, but I like Ch’en3 almost as much. She scales with enemy HP and her damage automatically toggles between Arts and Physical, depending on what’s better. She also has crazy good range and an abusable gimmick, which gives her both a high floor and a high ceiling.

Closure - Yet another extremely powerful Vanguard, Closure is the more powerful story-carry of the three. She has some really crazy damage and range, plus an extremely powerful DP skill that should see her viable even in advanced gameplay. The three top Vanguards all have different strengths compared to each other, but Closure is a more than worthy entrant to the competition.

Kal’tsit·Esperanta - Kal2 isn’t quite as powerful as we’ve come to expect, but she is still very good. She has AoE True Damage, with great control and healing, in addition to a potentially broken redeployment skill she can flex to. However, no single item (like her damage or healing) is really a top-dog among recent 6★s, so if you ignore the fact she’s a limited, she’s not as necessary as even her non-limited banner mate.

Zima the Raging Tide - She has a very powerful and easy to use AFK skill that will appeal to many people, with a powerful nuke skill to flex to. However, her ceiling is relatively low. There are a lot of AFK units now so her S2 is nothing new, and she does nothing off-skill when using S3.

Bellone - Bellone has really high ST DPS and strong DEF-shred, meaning he will rip up a lot of stages and enemies. He has a really high floor that will appeal to some people, with just enough high-end value to warrant at least a look. However, he is far less versatile than many other DPS units, including several upcoming ones. That makes him tricky to recommend. Older players will already have better options, and newer players will get better value from their pulls saving for the better options.

Titi - She has some pretty strong utility, but ultimately Sleep is one of the weaker forms of control. There are places she’s great in, but she’s ultimately a bit too situational relative to the other upcoming options, and a bit lackluster if she can’t take advantage of her gimmicks.

Necrass - She’s a powerful general unit, but has a much lower ceiling than the other upcoming top dogs. If her summon gets stat-checked, she’s just raw damage, and while her damage is good, it’s not special either. She’s a solid carry sort of unit, but we have a lot of those now with higher ceilings.

Lookaheads

All lookaheads can be found in their usual spot on the main guide here.

Crackborne

I like her visual design, but compared to the evolution from Philae to Cairn, Crackborne feels pretty uninspired. She’s really just Philae but with weaker damage in exchange for a faster trigger and cycle. She doesn’t have Philae’s delay between pulses, which results in the faster trigger, and she can begin recycling her SP immediately since the effect is treated as a “buff” (rather than skill uptime). However, the damage difference is large (5k on Corrosion versus 12k on Necrosis) and triggering it means she loses her bulk, so this is a trade-off that doesn’t often work well. Corrosion also doesn’t synergize with her role as a Defender at all. For an already niche 5★, being a sidegrade (at best) to a red cert OP isn’t great. However, it is still AoE true-ish damage on a relatively fast cycle, so she is still usable, and should still end up graded.

tl;dr S2 graded, but under Philae’s S2. S1 ungraded and is a waifu only skill since Philae’s S1 is also better and also ungraded.

Vij / Viy / Вий

Vij (or maybe Viy, idk) continues the recent trend of 6★ Welfares which are not exactly bad, but aren’t really special either. He’s fine and functional if you like him, but expensive, and doesn’t do anything unique that can’t be found elsewhere already. In Vij’s case he just does damage, but doesn’t even do it as well as Ebenholz, so one has to wonder why he even exists as he is at all. I dislike his design too because his kit has a ton of words for what’s basically just damage! This all means he’ll be relatively low graded, likely a bit below Sankta Miksaparato and Astgenne the Lightchaser who at least have some niche value. Generally, his S3 will be his main skill since it does quite a bit more overall damage, but his S2 has better ST damage which will make it worth pursuing if you really want to use him. However, the damage isn’t impressive enough to be a general consideration.

tl;dr S3 (likely low-B) > S2 (likely mid-C). Pass on S1.

Closure

Closure is the most powerful unit in this patch (in my opinion anyway), and I think she’s one of the most interesting to discuss in quite a while. In addition to the comparison to the already existing extremely powerful Vanguards, there’s an interesting debate around her skills, with valid considerations in either direction! It makes her quite fun to think and write about. Alas, I am limited on space here!

For the comp to Ines and SA2, I’ll be very brief (for now) and say that I think Closure is the much better “daily driver”. Her downsides don’t matter as much in typical story stages and her DPS is quite a bit higher. For Advanced content though, I think the other two pull out ahead, although Closure will still have the potential for some great value there as well. It’s actually a pretty nice bit of design work that all three manage to be top-tier while being good at very different things.

For her skills, there’s two lines of thinking between her S2 and S3. One camp (the more populous one) favors her S2 which can practically dump out your entire roster in the first few seconds of a stage. The DP refund aspect makes the effective DP generation truly insane. However, it’s restricted to the 3x3 square around her drone which I think is more limiting than people realize. The other camp (the one I’m in) favors her S3 which has some great DPS (not even “for a Vanguard”, it’s just great!) on top of some really powerful and flexible range. However, that’s less about what Vanguards are typically used for.

Of course, the simple solution to this is “just do both”. Both are going to be high S-tier graded skills. However, if you can only afford one, it’s largely a philosophical question.

tl;dr S2 and S3 both high S-tier grades. I favor S3, but many favor S2. Plan to do both in either case. Pass on her S1 which just isn’t as valuable as her other skills.

Kal’tsit·Esperanta

Boy, I have some things to say about Kal coming back already. The game in general has had a problem with stakes for a while now, and even though her return was known immediately, it still makes me roll my eyes that it happened so quickly. So much for drama! That should make a nice story rant when the time comes.

In any case, Kal2 is a bit more muted than the recent wave of insane 6★s. That isn’t to say she’s bad, of course. Far from it! She is a very comfortable unit to use, and probably the best Medic we currently have. However, it’s a bit surprising given her story relevance that she is a little clunkier to use and not quite as bloated as you might expect.

There’s some interesting nuance to her skills, but unlike Closure, her best Mastery is clearly S2. There’s a mechanical clunkiness to it where shots can be wasted or spent where you don’t want them, but the numbers are high enough that it rarely matters. In the end it’s still a good amount of AoE True Damage, a long Slow, and a lot of healing. However, it does pay the damage tax by being True Damage so isn’t quite as crazy as we’re used to, so will likely be graded a bit off the top-tier (but still high S). Meanwhile, her S3 is an extremely powerful skill, but it’s much more situational. It won’t be necessary or viable in a lot of situations, and requires some thought to use. More important for the guide though, the Mastery gains on it don’t really matter for its main use. They aren’t nothing, and they will definitely matter in Advanced situations, but for a lot of players, Mastery will be a luxury.

tl;dr S2 (mid to high-S) > S3 (lower than the value of the skill, probably low-A or B). Pass on S1, although it may have some use if Take-Off ever becomes a more necessary mechanic.