May 13

New Banners

Chrono Agent Aoi event banner

Limited Combo Banner (New: Saku, Silbal, Marsha, Dawn, Luna, NO SORA)

Recommendation For Newly Starting Players

This is currently the best time to start/restart.

Reroll for the Limited Combo banner and choose Aoi, Saika, and Mirabelle. Aim to get one of them during rerolling, two if you are patient.

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

The Combo Banner has priority over Time Aoi.

LIMITED COMBO PRIORITY: Check out the Limited Units page.

Time Aoi is decent, but the correct thing to do is to wait 1 week for the free tickets, obviously.

New Event

Elite Mode

Neko (Boss) + Jocelyn + Urd

HIGH single target damage from Neko. She will not use her AOE unless any of your units generate an Extra Turn and her passive activates. If she does, expect very high damage.

Jocelyn will spam stuns & burns.

Urd will constantly heal her team if you keep using AOEs.

Recommended Strategy

Actually a very hard Elite Stage.

DO NOT BRING any units with an Extra Turn unless you are explicitly prepared to deal with Neko's AOE.

Neko doesn't actually have that much HP, but Urd gets in the way of a quick kill. There are two recommended paths:

1. Quick Kill: Manually fight the battle. Bring buff strips, DEF Down, huge single target damage, and some way of dealing with Jocelyn. Blitz Neko as fast as possible.

2. Brawl: Tanks and healers + single-target brawler. Do not use an AOE brawler as Urd will constantly heal. Squishy units like Julia are not recommended as she can die to the raw damage even if she evades.

Event Shop

Featured 5*: Darlene

Darlene is not very useful. She can be used as a frontline (slot 1) for Red Hunt.

Buy for rainbow value or skip.

New Unit: Chrono Agent Aoi

or Time Aoi

E7: Choux

Aoi was so popular they did a second collab. Time Aoi is the newest addition to the "bullshit RNG counter slop" line of brawlers with the added ability to RNG resist your critical hits.

Time Aoi's damage scales with her max HP making her an HP scaling brawler.

Time Aoi has the "Erica Passive," AKA 20% chance to counter when allies are attacked. Her S1 is a single target attack that self-pushes by 20%, and has a 40% chance to followup with S2.

S2 is a single target attack that penetrates 70% DEF, with an innate lifesteal, and the added ability to increase damage and reset its cooldown when used with full focus. The skill text wrongly describes it as being an AOE.

S3 is another AOE that also applies Crit RES Up and Immunity to allies.

Compared to Erica: Erica is still better for PvE (more damage and offensive team buffs), but Time Aoi has far more PvP utility.

Compared to SSJ and SSN: Time Aoi has no debuffs, but she protects her entire team unlike SSJ/SSN who focuses more on solo brawling potential.

Compared to Julia: Time Aoi doesn't have evasion but Crit RES functions somewhat similarly, and is able to counter when allies are hit unlike julia. Time Aoi also has AOE attacks, unlike Julia.

Strengths

Forced RNG: In a defense team, Time Aoi creates uncontrollable variables with her counters, unless the enemy disables her first.

High potential damage: If her S1 triggers S2, she can do scary amounts of damage, especially owing to its 70% DEF penetration.

High survivability: Being an HP scaler who is built tanky & having Crit RES buff makes her hard to kill.

Weaknesses

Unreliable: In an offense team, her inherent randomness turns her RNG against your favor.

No Debuff Care: While she does have Immunity, she cannot cleanse existing debuffs, making her weak against debuffers (and especially controllers) with a higher tempo than her.

Reliant on Buffs: She must S3 first to gain Crit RES Up. She is vulnerable to damage until then.

Vulnerable to Injury: Usually not a problem, but there are a few odd units in the meta with inherent injury. Reducing Time Aoi's max HP also reduces her damage.

Build Guide

Counter + Pen/Crit/Health. 100% crit, as much CDMG and HP as possible.

Lifesteal build is possible, but trades counter proc chance for staying power.

Do not neglect speed. She needs the tempo, and having speed works as insurance for when her counters fail to proc.

Her own bond is great on her. Any of the lifesteal bonds can improve her staying power without having to use Lifesteal sets. Otherwise, any damage bond or even Gluttony for tempo works great.

Other News

New Gear Set: Riptide

Riptide is a new 2-piece set that increases damage dealt by 10%, but reduces max HP by 10%. This can be stacked.

The set drops from Yellow Hunt, which also drops Revenge, Penetration, and Injury sets. This elevates Yellow Hunt's importance considerably, since it now has 3 viable sets out of 4 instead of 2 out of 3.

Riptide is best used on low HP nukers who must deal maximum damage at all costs. The set competes with Crit, Pen, and Immunity:

Crit: 12% crit rate, good on hard-to-build units

Pen: Good on single target brawlers who can't give up HP

Immunity: Good in general, essential for certain units

Riptide: In theory highest possible damage, reduces tank

New Pink Gear in Arena Shop

Six pieces of crit set gear has arrived. They are nearly perfect, but has DEF% instead of ATK% or HP% in some spots, necessitating the use of converters.

New Guild Bond

Submissive Nemesis: ACC +20%, Damage +16%. Straight upgrade of Just the Two of Us. Give it to your base accuracy nuker such as Akaoni.

If you don't have the previous guild bond (Reluctant) either, Reluctant +30 takes priority.

Bond Shop Updates

Each new event will now add 1 copy of the featured event unit's signature bond in the bond shop for 240 shards. Definitely a great feature, but makes it harder to save up shards.

Banner Milestones

New banners will now feature a milestone system that gives you rewards for reaching certain number of pulls. The most significant is a copy of the bond at 140 or 145 pulls, which, assuming you pity the banner, is effectively selling a bond for 100ish tickets. Definitely worth considering.