Limited Units

E7: Abigail

By far the most dominant and versatile limited unit in the entire game, Aoi is a unique tank with an unparalled amount of utility.

Her prime feature is her Backline Protection passive: When the unit on position 4 takes fatal damage, Aoi prevents their death and gives them 1 turn of Unremovable Undying and Lifesteal. This is extremely valuable in PvP to protect a key unit.

Second, Aoi casts a "curse" debuff on the enemy with the highest ATK. Cursed units take damage when other units in their team are hit with single-target attacks. (This creates damage, it is not a redirection.) This lets you bypass evasion units, counter fighters, and even nullify the enemy aoi's protection. First place Curse on the enemy unit, then use your single-target nuker to attack another (safer to hit) unit, then at the end of turn, the Cursed unit will also take damage.

Third, Aoi constantly self-pushes whenever enemy units take turns, meaning her turn cycling is incredibly fast. Not only that, her S1 attacks have a 35% chance to push the whole team, improving everyone's turn cycling along with hers. Aoi can screw up turn orders in long battles.

And finally, Aoi's skills apply Injury to the target, decreasing their max HP, and her ultimate is a non-attack strip followed by a DEF Down, especially handy against shutting down evasion units or targeting the enemy's key unit (such as their own Aoi).

Strengths

Insane Utility: Aoi has nearly three units' worth of skills in one, and her deck-thinning potential is plainly unmatched. 

Backline Protection: This is the key aspect of Aoi's domination: You can place anyone on Slot 4 and Aoi will make them very hard to blitz down. Whenever a problematic solo-carry brawler showed up on the meta, Aoi followed: Erica, SSJ, Julia, and more. Making it plainly impossible to kill dangerous units immediately raises their threat level considerably, and only Aoi can provide this utility.

Great for Offense and Defense: The fact that Aoi's S3 has a nonattack strip and a DEF Down makes her perfect for offense teams: She provides insurance for your Slot 4 and also helps them kill a problematic enemy unit. The Backline Protection ability can also be used to "bait" enemy AI by placing element disadvantaged units on your Slot 4 to lure aggro onto them without killing them. 

Weaknesses

No solo potential: Aoi is entirely reliant on her team, and she has no ability to fend for herself.

Unbuffable debuff: If the unit on Slot 4 has Unbuffable and takes fatal damage, they won't receive the Undying buff. This is hardly an actual weakness though since the "prevent death" part of the passive still activates; Unbuffable only stops the undying buff from applying, but the unit will still survive at 1 HP, and will require another attack to be killed.

Build Guide

Offense-oriented: Speed/Revenge + Immunity/HP. Build for high HP (18k~), very high SPD (200~), and some EHR to get through tanks.

Defense-oriented: Speed/Revenge + Immunity/Resist/HP or a mix of HP and Resist. Build for very high HP (20k~), medium to high speed (180~), and build RES if your gear allows it. 

Right side HP% + HP%/RES + SPD.

Bond: By far the most popular choice is Reluctant Compromise for the best durability bonus. Otherwise, Feliz bond (Lead) also has damage reduction, or Bart bond (Wild) provides RES.

E7: Lua

Lucia is a high-speed non-attacking opener who runs like Claire on crack and is one of the best openers in the entire game.

Lucia opens the battle with her S2 which puts a unit to sleep and then generates an extra turn.

The core of her immense value is in her S3, which is a nonattack skill (cannot be evaded), can be soulburned to ignore RES (cannot be resisted), removes one buff (cannot block with Immunity set), and pushes cooldowns by 1 turn (cannot fight back properly).

As a cherry on top, her S1 (while inconsistent) applies DEF Down, perfect for finishing off stragglers.

In E7, Lucia's Original used to be one of the most oppressive openers of her time, with nearly 96% ban rate in RTA. Her reign of terror continued for two seasons before she was finally outclassed by new units. While she doesn't have the same level of dominance in Recode due to meta differences, she is still undeniably one of the most versatile and reliable openers for cleavers.

Strengths

Very little actual counter exists for her S3. While many units can react to it and maybe even seize the next turn, they usually can't do anything with that turn as their skills are in cooldown. For cleave teams, one turn is all you ever need to create your win condition.

Good base speed of 120. For reference, Lana's base speed is 117, and Claire's is 115.

Being a Sniper, she has several great bonds, including Cosma's bond (Gift) which cloaks her at the start of battle making her completely immune against single target counteropeners.

Certain units are especially vulnerable to cooldown pushes: Chaldea and Clone Janis instantly lose evasion when their S3 isn't available, and Sora and Chloe lose their constant self-pushing passive.

Weaknesses

Since S3 only strips 1 buff, it can be "blocked" using Shani in Despair's shield placed in front of Immunity.

Neko will become immune to all debuffs, including cooldown pushes, if Lucia uses S2 first to create an extra turn.

Units who can resist the cooldown push can still counteropen against Lucia, such as Saku who usually builds for very high RES. Not a problem for attacking teams that soulburn Lucia's S3, however.

Units with very strong or high-value S1s can still pose a problem even after being CD pushed: Sora for example can randomly stun one of your important units.

Build Guide

Typical opener build, extremely high speed + EHR if you can.

Right side ANY + ANY + SPD, optimized HP% + EHR% + SPD.

A variant fit is Crate + EHR/ATK% + SPD, giving her a little bit of damage so that she can threaten squishy units by herself. Not very popular.

Feel free to neglect EHR if you plan on bringing a seperate Book mage.

E7: Benimaru

Neko is a counteropener and nuker who is designed for one purpose only: Countering extra turn openers.

When an enemy generates an extra turn, Neko's passive activates. She will become immune to all debuffs, gain +50% base accuracy, and push herself. After doing so, she can use S3, which is a strong single target nuke, followed by an AOE extra attack.

Her only viable game plan is to be drafted against an extra turn generating opener (there's a ton of them: Bunrica, Heidi, Berrica, Mitsuki, Ith, Lucia...), steal the next turn after activating S2, then wipe the enemy team before they can actually follow through with their strategy.

Strengths

High versatility for a counteropener: She's used quite often especially in Guild War, mostly because a lot of extra turn openers are currently meta, but still useful.

Base accuracy: Allows her to counter evasion units like Julia paired with extra turn openers. Also allows her to guarantee hits against water element units.

Useful attack order: S3 is a single target attack that can paint DEF Down. This is then followed by an AOE. If someone is protected by Aoi, using S3 on her can kill Aoi and whoever she is protecting in one go if the conditions are right. Otherwise, S3 can be aimed at high-priority units to ensure kills.

Weaknesses

She is one-dimensional. Neko is used in exactly one scenario and nowhere else. She does not have the agency nor initiative to be used on her own with no regards to the enemy team's lineup. She is entirely reliant on the enemy team doing a certain thing. 

She MUST KILL on her very first S3 and secure a win or else she does not work. She immediately runs out of steam after spending her skills. She cannot sustain herself to wait around for the next cooldown either. To that end, she requires top-notch DPS gear with low or no speed to ensure maximum damage and secure kills reliably.

Build Guide

Destruction + Crit/Pen. Maximum ATK, maximum CDMG, 100% crit rate, dump all other stats.

Right side CDMG + ATK% + ATK%.

Some amount of speed is not harmful, and EHR can help paint DEF Down on tanks, but they aren't necessary.

Her own bond is the best unless you have other source of ATK Up. Otherwise, use any damage bond such as Hello Customer.

You should almost always pair her with Aoi unless you don't expect Neko to get hit.

E7: Ocean Breeze Luluca

Saku is an anti-nonattack counteropener who cares for her allies and controls enemies.

When an enemy uses a nonattack skill, she self-pushes 40% and gains 2 focus. Then, she uses her ultimate, which removes 2 debuffs AOE and applies DEF Up and Morning Dew. The ultimate grants 3 focus, which combined with the 2 focus from earlier, lets her immediately follow up with an AOE attack that strips 2 and applies Silence and ACC Down.

When activated correctly, Saku will undo the enemy's debuffs and ruin their followup turn with Silence. Very strong effect as far as counteropeners go.

To that end, Saku is usually built for extremely high RES to shrug off everything the enemy can throw at her to make sure she can use her skills.

Strengths

Weaknesses

Build Guide

E7: Melissa

Luna is a solo carry brawler with high potential. The core of her strategy is her skill chain:

1. S3 a key enemy to strip, damage, and paint Curse (the debuff from Aoi)

2. S2 another unit which will then do extra damage using Curse.

3. Using S2 will also give Luna immunity and undying. Killing any enemy will reset the cooldown of S2, allowing her to continuously refresh her undying buff.

4. If she receives fatal damage while S2 is available, she will "spend" her S2 cooldown to gain immunity and undying (similar to Aubrynn's passive).

In theory, Luna strips and paints Curse on a high priority enemy, then one-shots supporting enemies one at a time, constantly refreshing her undying, and resetting her skill cooldown.

Luna is also buffed compared to Melissa in E7, her "prevent death" S2 passive is new, her force-trigger Flanking on S1 is new, and she self-buffs ATK up before firing S3, which ignores element disadvantage.

Strengths

High carry potential on paper, she can dismantle enemy units one by one just like Mirabelle can while having some survivability on her own.

S3's strip is considered a nonattack and thus cannot be evaded (the attack can be evaded, but the buff strip will never miss as it is not part of the attack). Handy for setting up Curse on evasion units.

Weaknesses

She must score one kill per S2 or lose her tempo. She will require extremely good gear, with very high offensive stats as well as high speed for turn cycling.

She is vulnerable to any debuffers who strip.

While she has Immunity after her first skills fire, she has no self-cleanse. This means that she is highly vulnerable to debuffs (especially CC) at the start of battle.

When fighting an Aoi-protected unit, if S3 does too much damage, it may trigger the enemy Aoi's passive which applies an unremovable Undying buff to the enemy. This can massively complicate the match.

Build Guide

Destruction + Riptide/Pen/Crit. Since she can rely on her Undying and passive to stay alive, feel free to neglect durability for maximum damage potential.

Right side CDMG + ATK% + SPD.

Build for high speed for tempo, or mid speed if you have supporting units who can push her.

As a mage her best bond for offense teams is Book (Flutter), but any other damage bond will also work.

E7: Lethe

Mikael is an HP scaling brawler who does very little damage upfront, but brings the pain with a nearly unblockable penetrating damage mechanism.

Whenever Mikael attacks someone with S1 or S3 on her turn, the target will gain 1 stack of Sigil. Sigil application ignores evasion and RES, and goes through Immunity - the first and only debuff that does so. The debuff does nothing on its own. When a target has 3 Sigils after Mikael attacks them, she will followup with Luminance, an HP-scaling, noncrittable attack that penetrates 100% of defense. Expect more than 10k damage for a typical build.

If Luminance kills, it also applies Extinction so that the target cannot be revived.

Mikael's first soulburn is also free thanks to her passive, meaning she can chain S3 > S1 on her first turn, stacking 1 Sigil on all enemies and 2 stacks on one target, so that they can be attacked with the Luminance attack on Mikael's next turn.

S3 is a noncounterable AOE that reduces buff durations by 1, and applies Frostburn (Damage redirection disabled) and Restrict (Cannot receive Gauge pushes). 

Strengths

Sigil accumulation is absolute, and cannot be blocked in any way. This lets Mikael ignore most damage mitigation tricks.

Luminance is a non-crittable HP scaling attack, meaning it will do reliably high damage even against units who evade it.

Being an HP scaler who do not need to build for crit stats Mikael can build for very high HP and can be hard to kill.

Weaknesses

Her tempo is a bit slow - she needs 2 turns to activate her first Luminance against 1 target, and 2 more turns each for every additional target. She can snipe one high-threat unit upfront, but if the enemy keeps up their threat profile, Mikael can get out-brawled.

Her damage isn't high enough to one-shot high HP units like tanks and HP-focused healers.

Build Guide

Triple HP or Speed/Revenge+HP. High HP, high speed, dump all other stats.

Right side HP% + HP% + SPD.

A variant fit is using her as an opener, with extremely high speeds. Fairly niche and conditional.

Mikael must be protected so that she can stack Sigils. The whole team should be centered around her pace. Aim to outlast the enemy.

Bonds with "Increase damage%" effects can increase Luminance's damage. Bonds that increase HP work well with her as well.

E7: Blooming Lidica

SDawn is an off-turn cleave component that spams debuffs and follows up with a single target nuke. 

She is activated when any ally attacks an enemy that has a debuff at the end of the turn. This means that attacks with a debuff will count, assuming it is not resisted. Attacking an already-debuffed enemy will work as well. She will fire an AOE that reduces buff duration by 1, and applies Unbuffable and Restrict. 

Dawn's S3 is a single target, HP scaling, non-crittable, 50% DEF penetrating attack that also applies skill nullifier to all allies. The DEF Penetration effect increases the higher her speed is compared to the target, which, combined with the fact that her speed increases proportional to the number of debuffs on enemies, can result in extremely high damage in the right circumstances. This can be used to eliminate one problematic enemy unit, especially DEF scaling tanks like Rubi.

The Skill Nullifier from her S3 can force the enemy to waste a tempo, and can ruin time-sensitive cleave comps.

SDawn is most commonly paired with units like Sora to take maximum advantage of her debuffs, or built with crit rate to activate Sweet Dreams Anheeun who is dependant on allies inflicting critical hits. She can be more versatile than expected under a skilled commander.

Strengths

Off-Turn Activation: Her flexible activation condition allows for a wide variety of team comps. A creative example is pairing her with Swimsuit Janis, and using her random counterattacks that carry Unhealable and DEF Down to activate Dawn.

Debuff Spam: An off-turn AOE that strips and applies Unbuffable and Restrict that is fired when the enemy is already debuffed allows Dawn teams to stack multiple debuffs to overwhelm healers who "cleanse 2" like Saika or Urd. 

Non-Crittable S3: High amounts of raw damage that does not rely on critting makes her S3 good for dealing with a wide variety of targets, including evasion units.

Weaknesses

Passive skillset: Needs a seperate unit (usually an opener) who has debuffs and has an attacking skill.

No Self-Push: Cannot gain a tempo by herself, her speed increase passive helps a bit but isn't very consistent. Her own bond pushes the enemies back, which is an unreliable way to indirectly gain tempo

Easy to Counteropen Against: AOE will trigger Urd (Can be worked around by applying so many debuffs that Urd's S3 cannot keep up). Debuff spam will trigger Obsidian.

High RNG: Skills are likely to be at least partially resisted by 15% absolute resistance as she has 3 debuffs per target (strip, unbuffable, restrict). Anyone who is familiar with using Cosma will know how inconsistent this can be.

Build Guide

Speed + Health/Acc.

Right side HP% + HP%/EHR + SPD.

Build for very high speed and very high HP. Build EHR if going against tanks.

A popular variant fit builds for Crit Rate (not necessarily 100%, but enough to get at least one crit per AOE) in order to activate Sweet Dreams Anheeun. This sacrifices S3 damage potential, however.

If paired with Anheeun, Crate + HP%/EHR + SPD unless you can get enough crit rate from substats.

E7: Summer Break Charlotte

Silbal is a peculiar AOE sub-DPS who force-triggers her own flanking. As a reminder, Flanking is normally a random (3%) chance attack that triggers when another ally uses a basic skill (S1). Instead, at the start of battle and when your allies take 4 turns, Silbal self-buffs Flanking Boost which guarantees that her Flanking triggers when an ally uses S1. This flanking attack is an uncounterable AOE that paints DEF Down (75%) and boosts your team's gauge by 20%.

This skillset is normally designed to be paired with a cleave team. You take the first turn, grab the initiative, giving plenty of opportunity for Silbal's flanking to occur. You could even play around her 20% gauge boost.

Silbal's S3 also self-cleanses all debuffs, and stuns or outright kills a unit with 70% DEF penetration.

Strengths

An off-turn AOE that paints DEF Down is fairly useful in theory considering how strong DEF Down is.

At the start of battle, if anyone in your team uses S1, Silbal will flank and push everyone by 20%. You could build around this for a cleave team. Just be mindful that this is an AOE skill, and while uncounterable, will still trigger units like Urd.

She gains 45% free crit rate from her passive & 12% from her discipline, making her very very easy to build for 100% crit.

Weaknesses

As a Defender, Silbal suffers from extremely low base ATK, but does not have any HP scaling. She must build for high ATK despite starting with very little of it. In addition, her selection of usable bonds are limited.

She must build for ATK, Crit Rate and CDMG like a normal DPS, and has no stats to spare for durability despite being a defender. Her S3 self-cleanse is useful for offense (remove annoying debuffs like ATK Down or ACC Down) but doesn't help her against crowd control or with actual survivability.

Her reliance on flanking poses another serious problem - most units are focused on their S2 and S3. You must employ units with high S1 value to be able to trigger Silbal's flanking, which greatly limits the synergy potential.

Having to wait for 4 allied turns for her passive to recharge is also very slow tempo unless you are specifically built around that limitation.

She is also awful in defense unless paired with very specific units, as normal AI skill priority puts S1 at the very bottom. In addition, her AOE flanking is liable to trigger units like Urd or Petra.

Build Guide

Pair her with units who generate extra turns & units with high-value S1. Ith is a great example, and she is probably the greatest synergy unit that you could pair with Silbal.

She can build with Lifesteal for added staying power, speed for tempo, or destruction for maximum damage. Depends on what you're looking to get out of her.

Right side CDMG + ATK/ATK% + SPD/ATK/ATK%.

HP% main ring or boots can also be considered.

E7: Baiken

Drizz is a Bleed-based single target nuker. Her skill chain is S2 > S3, where S2 applies up to three stacks of Bleed onto a target, and S3 deals heavy damage, along with igniting the Bleeds (applying the latent damage of the remaining Bleed stacks, based on their duration). 

Despite being buffed once and gaining Uncounterable status to both of her skills, Drizz is still an underpowered unit, with no clear application. Being reliant on debuffs yet having no buff-strip, her lack of utility, as well as her ridiculously long skill cooldown, limits her usefulness.

She is sometimes used as the main damage dealer for Blue Hunt Oneshot teams thanks to her ability to deal a lot of damage with S3.

Strengths

High single target damage, if the situation allows. Her damage is big enough for her to be used in a Blue Hunt oneshot team.

S2 and S3 are uncounterable, meaning she could be used to safely defuse counter fighters.

Weaknesses

Unlike other single target nukers who simply deal straightforward damage, Drizella must set up bleeds first (which can be blocked by Immunity) then attack, which mostly just gets in the way of herself.

Since the Bleeds are an attacking component, they can be evaded by red element units or evasion fighters.

Her cooldown is very long and she loses steam after her first turn.

Build Guide

Since she is reliant on debuffs anyway, she is best equipped with Rage set, because she can set up the conditions herself. 

Right side CDMG + ATK% + SPD.

E7: Illynav

Memoria Marsha is a severely underpowered unit both in E7 and in Recode. Very little theorycrafting information exists and it is extremely rare to see anyone using her in battle.

Details for this unit will not be provided unless someone else does the write-up for me. I'm not going to research this unit myself lol

E7: Dizzy (Reworked)

Sora is a debuff-heavy AOE nuker. She has been significantly changed from her E7 version, making her somewhat "original."

At her core, Sora is an AOE nuker. All of her skills are AOE attacks, her hits are guaranteed to crit, and she has a built-in Rage damage bonus. However, what makes her special is her debuff ability: Her S3 has a nonattack component that reduces buff duration by 1 turn, and applies SPD Down, ATK Down, and ACC Down, before attacking enemies. This means that she can strip and debuff fire units or evasion units reliably to completely shut down their ability to fight back meaningfully.

Not only that, when S3 is available, Sora constantly pushes herself whenever enemies take a turn. This forces the enemy to deal with her: Take too long, and Sora will steal the initiative and neutralize everyone.

Even her S1 is valuable, as it is an AOE with a stun, perfect for forcing randomness to the enemy and creating variables. This also means that pushing Sora's cooldown with Lucia or Claire doesn't work as her S1 can still stun important units.

Strengths

Strong Control: ATK Down and ACC Down removes the enemy's ability to do meaningful damage. Not quite a crowd control, but almost as good.

Debuff Spam: Three debuffs pose a problem vs healers and counteropeners who only cleanse two (Urd, Saika, Saku, etc).

Looming Presence: Her constant self-pushing makes her an extremely high-priority threat who cannot simply be outsped by cleave teams. She must be dealt with, or she will deal with you. She is a ticking time bomb that heavily restricts the enemy's options.

Weaknesses

Can be Counteropened Against: Debuff spam is vulnerale against Obsidian, and Urd still can be used even if she can't cleanse all debuffs.

AOE Spam: Feeds counter-fighters like SSJ and Julia as well as units like Gariel.

S3 has no Crowd Control: Units with debuff-cleansing skills will shrug off her S3, and the lack of actual CC fails to prevent them from using such skills.

Build Guide

Speed/Destruct/Counter + Acc/Immune.

Right side can vary tremendously, from HP% + EHR + SPD to CDMG/Crate + ATK% + SPD.

Many different build paths - she can be built fast as an opener, with maximum damage as a nuker, or even a counter-fighter build using her AOE stunning S1.

Bonds like Cruel Truth will maximize her ability to create variables and randomness in fights. Can also hold Book for an offense team.

Pairs extremely well with SDawn who activates when allies use attacks with debuffs & follows up with even more debuffs.

E7: Peira

Heidi is a debuffing opener who also acts like a Backward Knight.

She first opens by firing her S2 which strips, and applies Unbuffable and Restrict (Cancels all action gauge pushes) to all enemies. She then generates an extra turn.

Next, she uses S3, which cloaks her, grants her a very large shield, and gives her a unique Guard buff which redirects 40% of damage taken by her allies to herself. Her large shield will absorb this redirected damage, so she won't die from it.

While she has a Shield, her S1 has a 65% chance to stun.

Strengths

Very High Base Speed: Her base speed of 128 is only 1 less than Bunny Erica who is the fastest unit in the game. Makes it very easy to build her for opener-tier speeds while also building other stats (such as HP or EHR).

Maintains strong value after opening: S1 can stun, similar to Lana. Redirects 40% of damage taken by the team to herself, improving staying power. Most openers usually do little to nothing after opening, but Heidi keeps being useful. This is what makes her different.

Weaknesses

Extremely easy to counteropen against: AOE triggers Urd. Debuff spam triggers Obsidian. Extra Turn generation triggers Neko. Nonattack skill triggers Akane and Saku.

Shield Conversion: Olive will MURDER Heidi with her S2 Shield Conversion skill which turns shields into damage 1:1. Good thing she isn't very common.

Ignore Damage Distribution: There are quite a few attack skills that "Ignore Damage Distribution Effects," such as Mitsuki S3, Anastasia S3, and Mirabelle S3. They will completely ignore Heidi's Guard.

Cannot soulburn to ignore RES.

Vulnerable before S3: Since her attack comes before her shield, if she is attacked before then (for example, by counter-fighters like Neno or Erica or SSJ) she might die before she can S3.

Blue Element: Has a 50% chance to miss Green element units due to element disadvantage. Normally not a big deal, but watch out for green element units in the meta.

Build Guide

Typical opener build, high speed + EHR. Build for HP if your gear allows it. 

Right side HP% + HP%/EHR/RES + SPD.

A variant fit builds for RES to prevent the enemy Saku from stripping away Heidi's shield and Guard. This is only sometimes seen in Guild War defense.

Use her self bond for stability, and Rosalie bond (Sampling) to create variables.

Pair her with a strong solo-carry (usually brawlers and counter-fighters), or Mina.

E7: Benimaru

Neko is a counteropener and nuker who is designed for one purpose only: Countering extra turn openers.

When an enemy generates an extra turn, Neko's passive activates. She will become immune to all debuffs, gain +50% base accuracy, and push herself. After doing so, she can use S3, which is a strong single target nuke, followed by an AOE extra attack.

Her only viable game plan is to be drafted against an extra turn generating opener (there's a ton of them: Bunrica, Heidi, Berrica, Mitsuki, Ith, Lucia...), steal the next turn after activating S2, then wipe the enemy team before they can actually follow through with their strategy.

Strengths

High versatility for a counteropener: She's used quite often especially in Guild War, mostly because a lot of extra turn openers are currently meta, but still useful.

Base accuracy: Allows her to counter evasion units like Julia paired with extra turn openers. Also allows her to guarantee hits against water element units.

Useful attack order: S3 is a single target attack that can paint DEF Down. This is then followed by an AOE. If someone is protected by Aoi, using S3 on her can kill Aoi and whoever she is protecting in one go if the conditions are right. Otherwise, S3 can be aimed at high-priority units to ensure kills.

Weaknesses

One-dimensional and passive skillset: A weakness shared by most counteropeners but a weakness nonetheless. Neko is used in exactly one scenario and nowhere else. She does not have the agency nor initiative to be used on her own with no regards to the enemy team's lineup. She is entirely reliant on the enemy team doing a certain thing.

Zero followup potential: Neko MUST KILL on her very first S3 and secure a win or else she does not work. She immediately runs out of steam after spending her skills. She cannot sustain herself to wait around for the next cooldown either.

High gear requirement: Sounds counterintuitive but it is true. She requires top-notch DPS gear with low or no speed to ensure maximum damage and secure kills reliably.

Build Guide

Destruction + Crit/Pen. Maximum ATK, maximum CDMG, 100% crit rate, dump all other stats.

Some amount of speed is not harmful, and EHR can help paint DEF Down on tanks, but they aren't necessary.

Her own bond is the best unless you have other source of ATK Up. Otherwise, use any damage bond such as Hello Customer.

You should almost always pair her with Aoi unless you don't expect Neko to get hit.

E7: Senya

Trist is an ATK scaling counter-fighter with an innate crit resistance and a little bit of crowd-control.

The core of her skillset is in her passive, which deals an ATK scaling extra damage to her attacker if the attack does not result in a crit (miss, normal hit, or strike all counts). She gets 50% crit resistance from her passive.

Her S3 is an AOE that paints ACC down (more chance to miss crits on her) and a 75% Taunt (force enemies to attack her to trigger the passive), then applies Counterattack (same buff from Belle) and ATK up+.

After using S3, Trist will counter with S1 every time she is hit, and when S1 is used outside of self turn, it has a 100% (minus resistance) chance to paint Taunt.

To summarize, the basic design is:

• Have crit resistance.

• Make enemies hit you.

• If the hit doesn't crit = hit back, paint taunt so they have to hit you again, and deal extra damage.

Strengths

Creates variables: Traditional damage dealers who nuke with high crit damage will have at least 50% chance to fail the attack against Trist, then get hit with an extra damage (and maybe even a counterattack). Fighters who don't build for durability at all will absolutely fold to several of these counters.

Unique "Uncrittable" synergy: If you put Crit RES Up buff on Trist she will have 100% combined crit resistance. The only way for her to be critted at this state is by being attacked with units whose attacks are "guaranteed to crit" AND also build crit rate.

"Hits are guaranteed to crit" is internally represented as a simple +100% crit rate, and this allows those units to partially or fully bypass Crit RES. Practically this isn't too big of a deal considering what kind of units do have this effect...

Strong against Lifesteal and evasion: All current lifesteal brawlers rely on dealing with high crit damage and healing based off the damage dealt. If a crit does not occur, not only can they not heal as much, but they'll also get hit with an extra damage that cannot be evaded. If you're thinking about Julia, your instinct is correct.

Weaknesses

Disappointing damage: This is the biggest problem with her. Her base ATK was actually nerfed compared to E7, and her multipliers aren't amazing. She will threaten squishy units just fine, but don't expect much more than that. In a tanky brawler matchup, she might run out of gas before she can do anything.

Wrong class: Trist is an ATK scaler, yet she is a Taurus Knight with horrible base ATK to the point where she prefers flat ATK mainstat pieces.

Wrong class 2: She's a counter-fighter and a brawler but is a Knight. Her bond choices are very bad.

Overreliance on self bond: There's vanishingly little alternative bond options for her due to her being in the wrong class, her bond is pretty much only useful for her, and it's chance-based, forcing +30 upgrade for proper usage.

S3 self-buffs: ATK Up+ and Counterattack are extremely high value buffs that will absolutely ruin the match if stolen by HKD. They WILL get stolen by HKD the instant Trist counters once.

Weak against debuffs and strips: If her buffs are taken away she can't counter anymore, and if she gets hit with ATK Down her damage craters. Hard crowd control will completely shut her down.

S2 "Nullzone" skill is a nonattack: Will trigger Akane and Saku. Problematic if you didn't intend to trigger them. Easy counteropener potential if Trist is used in defense.

High gear requirement: You might be thinking that a unit who can't crit and thus don't need to chase Crate and CDMG at all would be easier to build, but the problem is that Trist requires non-standard gear, and it's likely that you'll have to farm bespoke pieces just for her.

Build Guide

High ATK, high HP, high SPD, dump all other stats. DEF is okay but not a priority.

Right side can vary, with a mix of ATK% and HP%. Boots can be speed main or otherwise.

Some advocate for a low SPD build (stronger against HKD, more room to build for ATK and HP).

Excellent if paired with Crit RES Up units, mainly Rafael who has been extremely unpopular so far. Potential synergy with Time Aoi.