Masteries for Medjehtiqedti Bound#
Full Articles#
Titi#
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#
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#
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.