June 10

New Banners

Ephemeral Love Darlene (Limited, Debut)

Confident Lana (Mysterious, Debut)

Combo Recruit (Non-limited only, Select 3)

Recommendation For Newly Starting Players

Reroll for Sora.

If you have the patience, reroll for Sora and RVR.

Simple Rerolling (Don't start with limited units): Same process as always (Link to guide)

Advanced Rerolling (Start with at least 1 limited unit): Use the Advanced Rerolling guide (Link) 

Recommendation For Regular Players

Always a good idea to wait 1 week before pulling any debut unit.

New Darlene is probably a decent RTA joker pick but her usefulness in Arena and Guild War is yet to be seen.

Lana was planned to receive buffs on release but lost them for some reason. I don't think she's worth more than 40 pulls to be honest.

New Event

Elite Mode

Mirabelle (Boss) does very high single target damage.

Recommended Strategy

Aoi + Green element bait + your PvE comp

Alternatively, just let your green element die, and let them swap with your borrowed friend unit.

Event Shop

Featured 5*: Normal Darlene

Not a useful unit. Can be used as a frontline in Red Hunt.

New Unit: Ephemeral Love Darlene

E7: Aria

Nickname tentative - probably just "darlene" because Larlene is taken and regular darlene is hardly relevant.

Darlene is a DEF scaling counter-fighter with a unique ability to cloak all of her allies (except herself) making her the only valid target against single target attacks.

As a passive she gains 30% crit rate making her very easy to build.

Her S1 attacks two targets just like Apathy, and gets stronger when used outside of self turn (which naturally plays into her role as a counterfighter). Her passive also gains 1 focus when fired.

Her S3 is a nonattack skill that self-buffs Counter (same one found on Belle) and DEF Up, and grants Cloak and Shield to her allies. The skill also gains 3 focus.

When her focus is full, she fires a strong AOE followup that strips 2.

The design is obvious - She uses S3, enemies are forced to hit her, she counterattacks thanks to her Counter buff, which accumulates Focus, and fires a strong AOE followup.

Strengths

Most DEF scalers tend to be a tough nut to crack. She also self-buffs DEF Up. Having good durability and damage is the basis of a good brawler.

If the enemy is totally unprepared against her skills and she is allowed to act freely, she can remove a ton of options from them. In other words, if the enemy is forced to play into Darlene's intended game plan, they are almost sure to fail.

Weaknesses

She has a ton of easy counter options:

A faster opener can shut her down.

Unbuffable on her or her allies will partially or fully nullify S3 which pretty much instantly neuters Darlene.

After S3 is used, an AOE buff removal skill will undo everything.

AOE damage dealers can simply destroy the shields and decloak everyone.

Anastasia can decloak everyone when she grabs her turn which lets her and any allies that follow to target enemies like normal.

HKD will gladly copy the Counter and DEF Up or the Shield the moment Darlene or her allies attack, then she can oneshot or cripple Darlene with her 10k fixed damage.

Frequent two target S1 counters and AOE followups will feed hard counterpicks like SSN, Gagarin, and Petra.

Build Guide

Sustain focus: Lifesteal + Def / Immunity/Res.

Initiative focus: Speed/Revenge + Def/Immunity/Res.

In both cases, right side CDMG + DEF% + SPD.

Best paired with units who can manage debuffs, or who can boost Darlene's initiative.

New Unit: Confident Lana

E7: Maid Chloe

AKA CLana.

CLana is a healer with the ability to revive allies and reduce fixed damage taken.

Her S3, which is a nonattack, is the first AOE revival ability in the game, which brings back all dead allies at 30% HP. The skill cleanses and grants Resuscitate to living allies and grants everyone DEF Up.

Whenever Lana takes a turn she will heal 2 allies with the lowest HP%. In addition, she passively reduces fixed damage taken by allies by 50%, meaning HKD's fully charged S3 will only do 5000 damage instead of 10000, and Belle's fully charged S3 will only do 6000 instead of 12000.

Her S1 carries a 40% stun which isn't reliable but is perfect for creating variables.

Lana's kit was changed a fair bit compared to her leaked version. She lost ATK Up on S3 but instead gained DEF Up, lost a teamwide RES buff, lost 10 base speed, but instead gained fixed damage reduction. These changes turned her much more defensive, and arguably less versatile.

Strengths

As long as the enemy doesn't have hard counters against revival and resuscitation, Lana can tremendously extend her team's staying power. She can bring back an entire team after they've been cleaved in one fell swoop.

S1 having a 40% stun makes her very uncomfortable for attackers because it is a relatively high activation chance hard CC on a healer who should normally be a low priority target.

Weaknesses

She is a bit too hard to use properly. First, Aubrynn must not be alive (prevents revivals for both allies and enemies); the enemy must not kill her allies with Extinction skills (most notably: Mitsuki S3); Lana herself must not die or get crowd controlled; if she buffs Resuscitate on her allies, the buffs must not be stripped away; and finally, if her allies have Resuscitate, they must die before the buff runs out to fully utilize it.

Her stat requirement is also quite steep, requiring at least 15k HP to ensure adequate healing amount from her passive, at least 200 RES to properly resist debuffs, and a good enough speed to take turns often and promptly aid her allies. The speed requirement is a cruel one considering that she lost 10 base speed that she was planned to have.

HKD can steal Lana's buffs which will complicate the match. She will only do 5000 fixed damage, but that is usually plenty enough to oneshot squishy units after accounting for the raw S3 damage (which is unmitigated).

Build Guide

Speed / Revenge + Health/Resist/Immunity, or a mix of Health, Resist, and Immunity.

Right side HP/HP% + RES + SPD.

Aim for 15k+ HP, 200+ RES, and 190+ SPD, the faster the better.

Other News

Bond Shop Refreshes

Darlene bond: One of the best options for Darlene herself, niche otherwise considering that mages almost always run Book (Flutter) for cleavers or Cruel Truth for controllers and the fact that mage class counterfighters are exceedingly rare.