6★ Specialists#
Exusiai the New Covenant#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | S++ | S+ |
 | S3M3 | S+ | S++ |
For any meta-minded player, there is no answer except the M6 with Exusiai the New Covenant. She is one of the best units in the game, nearly universally ranked in the top three as of her release in all types of content. She is an absurdly good total package, packed with insane DPS and insane (and unique) utility. That utility is spread across both of her primary skills, so there is just no other answer than the M6. Do both.
But, Masteries are expensive and you have to start somewhere, so there’s still nuance to discuss. Since both skills have such good DPS, you don’t need to immediately do both either, and it can make sense to spread the resources out among multiple top DPS options.
There’s no definitive way to rank one skill over the other, but I give a slight edge to her S2. The thing most people notice (and that scares the unfamiliar) is her ally ASPD Steal, but don’t be afraid of it! The effects and damage of this skill are incredibly good and it’s so easy to work around. You can pass it off to DPS units that don’t need it (like her sister, Lemuen or Degenbrecher), a FRD, a Defender, anyone off skill (she cycles great with Mlynar who also always pulls the debuff), or even a robot! It’s really not a big deal and you can immediately restore it if needed by simply ending her ammo-based skill. In exchange you get some really powerful utility in the form of an absolutely massive Barrier (which by the way, applies to herself even if there’s no Steal target). Seriously, her Barrier is huge and is easy to overlook if you’re unfamiliar with it. At max, it’s 6400 HP. She can easily tank Patriot’s spear like it’s nothing. Mastery is quite good on S2 too. It improves her ATK of course, which matters on her best DPH skill (significantly so), but it’s also a huge improvement to her Barrier.
Not to be outshone, her S3 is just as good, if not better in advanced content, and definitely flashier. Her shots turn into 5 round bursts, which turbo boosts her Talent sustain. It has even better base DPS than S2, although much lower DPH (but still fairly strong). The real highlight is the redeploy beacon which just straight up gives you a free deployment of anyone, which subverts one of the fundamental basics of the game. It’s ludicrously powerful. Don’t get trapped by thinking it only works on units like Surtr or Mlynar either. The utility here is incredible. You can generate double Flag DP, or double activate Yu’s S2 for just two easy examples, and there are many many more.
So why the S2 suggestion over S3? Well, as said, there is no real choice but the M6. We’re nitpicking for those with limited resources here! However, it ultimately comes down to the fact S2 has better DPH and the utility on her S3 works well at SL7. You can survive with S3 at a bit lower Mastery for a while, but it should absolutely still be on your planner.
Last is her S1. It’s a pretty solid skill in its own right, but lacks the insane utility of her other skills, so it’s a fringe choice for waifu or niche players. The neat thing about it is she can mag dump by deactivating her skill, which results in a huge on-demand sustain and a very fast cycle. There are some niches that will find it useful, but for most players, it’s just carpel tunnel for worse effects than her other skills. DO NOT fall into the AFK-skill trap here. Even if you absolutely refuse to actively think, Exu2 is just too good of unit to use her worst skill. If that’s your line of thinking, you’re better off just not rolling in the first place.
Thorns the Lodestar#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | A+ | A |
 | S1M3 | C+ | B |
 | S3M3 | Breakpoint - S3M1 | |
| C | B- | ||
Thorns the Lodestar is a creatively minded unit, and as far as Mastery investment goes, he can either be rather simple and cheap, or rather daunting and expensive, depending on how far you want to take his usage. This is because his main skill, S2, is far and above the others in terms of general usage, while his secondary skills, S1 and S3, are both valuable but tend to be much more fringe. So anywhere from M3 to a full M9 is a reasonable investment to consider!
His primary skill, and the one most people will be interested in, is his S2. It is far from a high DPS skill, however its DPS is very high value. Alchemists tend to have high uptime already since they begin recharging SP as soon as the alchemical unit is thrown (as opposed to waiting for the skill duration). Add that onto a charge based skill at a fairly low 20 SP and you have an incredibly high uptime. Then it stacks on a ridiculous range with good healing on that same uptime and you have a very solid day to day general use skill. Mastery is valuable too. It has a fairly large damage gain, but also drops 4 SP off the cost, which on a low-SP cost charge-based skill is quite a large difference in his uptime.
That will be where almost everyone should start, and probably where a large majority will want to end Mastery investment. However, both of his other skills are considerations for secondary skills.
If you do choose to invest further with Thorns2, most would probably consider his S3 next for Mastery, but it is remarkably clunky. So clunky in fact, many may want to pass on it despite some good results and consider his S1 instead. It can be daunting to read at first, but he basically forms a debuff field using the outline of your deployed Operators in his range. Any enemy in this field takes a massive hit to their DEF, RES, and ATK, plus some hefty damage. The RES debuff here is particularly notable since RES debuffing is generally pretty rare.
There’s lots of notable details with S3. First, the SP cost isn’t as bad as it looks. Remember that Alchemists begin to recharge SP immediately, so compared to a typical skill, the downtime is an actually pretty impressive 34 SP at S3M3 that gets even better with his Module. Second, there is a breakpoint at S3M1 which expands the size of the shape he can make (by allowing more targets). While the base three is usually sufficient, the expansion to four can open up many more options for the cost. Third, remember, the RES-shred will benefit the skill’s own damage, so Thorns2 can actually dole out pretty meaningful damage himself against tough targets using S3. It’s not just a debuff skill!
Now that said, as noted, it is extremely clunky to use or it would be graded much higher. He needs at least one other Operator in his expanded range¹ but that forms a simple line and he needs at least two for expanded coverage. It requires a lot of thought to optimize and is still primarily a debuff field, meaning additional damage is also needed to take advantage of it. With so much broken DPS these days that simply doesn’t need the help, those are actually pretty sizable requirements when you could simply add more DPS units for the same or better effect most of the time. His debuff is very powerful, but simply, debuffing itself is not the typical meta choice.
If S3 seems like too much to bother with, consider his S1 instead which has its own merits that can often be more useful. The effects might seem a bit meager at first since his S2 has a similar rate of healing, but the thing to remember here is that he can actually stack multiple instances of S1 on top of each other thanks to the low cooldown, especially with his Module. This results in some pretty strong total healing effects, which give it a pretty decent situational use. It’s also more reliable as a healing skill than S2 since it doesn’t drift, and happens to be one of the best available skills for healing enmity OPs like Juggernauts or Reapers. Mastery is valuable too since M3 adds both duration and reduces SP cost, greatly increasing the potential uptime.
¹ Technically he can form it on himself alone but that’s of very limited value since he’s a ranged OP.
Crownslayer#
* Note that Crownslayer’s S3 is graded assuming she has her EXE-Y at level 3. If you do not plan to get this Module fully upgraded, treat the priority of this skill significantly lower. Crownslayer needs both to function.
Oh Crownslayer. On her release, she was a joke of a welfare, which was sort of funny given her history as an enemy unit. She was the sort of bad where it was hard to even make a skill suggestion for Mastery since they were all so terrible! Mercifully for her though, HG blessed her with a Module that actually gave her a meaningful niche. Pretty lucky given how rare these things are for off-meta units!
In any case, a bit of caution is still warranted. Crownslayer is now a pretty good unit, but not a meta one either. A lot of the flaws of her kit still remain, such as low damage and troubles with swarms. She’s also really expensive, requiring both S3M3 and a fully upgraded EXE-Y Module to reach that threshold. However, if you’re willing to make that level of investment, she’s quite usable now!
As mentioned, she requires both Mastery and Module. The key is that her S3M3 applies a 4 second Stun, but only every 6 seconds. The mod3 effect of her EXE-Y Module extends that Stun by 50% though, so now she can Stun at 100% uptime (minus a few animation frames) against up to three targets. A 3-target 100% uptime Stun on a 18 second downtime is pretty good! She absolutely needs both investments to make it work though, thus accounting for her relatively high Mastery grades, or it is far less effective and she returns to her old malaise.
Somewhat interestingly, her Mastery gains on S3 are actually absurdly good which is usually a matter that warrants extra discussion in this guide. However, in this case it ends up being academic because the only number that matters is the final M3 number. Anything less than the 4s number is unusable, so big gains or small, the suggestion would have been the same!
Her other skills are not really worth considering. Her special value is in that Stun duration. However, they may find some occasional use if you really love her. S2 has a breakpoint at M1 that will be worth grabbing. However, its main use is in her dodge field which doesn’t improve beyond that breakpoint. Only the damage improves which is terrible, so don’t invest further unless you just want to show off the M9. Meanwhile, S1 used to be the old suggestion simply due to lack of options, but now that S3 is viable, it’s just a typical DPS skill with some dodge, things better found elsewhere for less cost.
Ascalon#
Ascalon is a powerful unit, mixing some of the best control available on top of strong lingering DPS that often sees enemies dying as they walk, with no further interaction, allowing you to focus on more pressing threats. She is a high value and comfortable unit that’s useful in a wide variety of places. But she has one major knock against her which is that Ethan is even better at control while being a third of the price and free to recruit in IS. That isn’t to say Ascalon isn’t worth raising. Far from it! She cycles much better and does a lot more damage that makes her far more valuable in general content. However, among the top meta units she is one of the easier to replace as well.
The main skill to that effect, and Ascalon’s only Mastery of special note, is her S2. It is her strongest DPS skill and reinforces her movement speed debuff on top of an absurdly good cycle. The Mastery gains are significant as well with a large improvement to damage, an additional 20% to the movement speed debuff, and dropping the initial windup to only 5 SP. Note that one reason S2 is so effective is that the DoT from her Talent scales off of her current ATK, so S2’s ATK improvement provides a double dose of improvement, especially considering the skills massive uptime.
There isn’t a lot of need to pursue a secondary Mastery with Ascalon since her other skills are somewhat flawed. Many people look towards her S1 for its hard hitting AFK-value, but it probably isn’t worth expensive Masteries unless you’re exceptionally lazy. That may catch some people off-guard. After all, in Mizuki’s case the situation is reversed outside of IS. For Ascalon though, there’s very few places her S1 is actually better than her S2. At S2M3 the SP cost is only 20 SP which isn’t even three full charges at S1M3. Considering how costly Masteries are, the main value of S1 is just that you are violently opposed to pressing the red button every now and then! Plus, it works pretty well at SL7 already. Nevertheless, many people will find it appealing and for that purpose the Masteries are pretty good on it. Just be aware that this is one of those cases where you give up a lot of ceiling for a small amount of convenience.
So that in mind, you may want to consider her S3 as a secondary Mastery instead, particularly if you are more Advanced-minded. It’s an awkward skill, largely playing into a role Ambushers are not very good at no matter how much HG seems to try, but not a valueless one. It turns her into what is effectively a ranged tank (from a melee tile) with a solid amount of dodge and sustain. That can be useful now and then if you’re dedicated to using Ascalon or favor niche and unusual runs, but is rarely the best choice either. While it does have a range advantage over her S2 and also applies Talent stacks faster, it loses most of her control effects, ultimately making it far more situational. Mastery on it isn’t too crazy though. The improvement to her dodge can certainly lessen the pain of grinding RNG, but that’s ultimately a convenience thing and the other benefits of Mastery aren’t all that important either.
Ela#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S3M3 | Breakpoint - S3M1 | |
| S++ | S++ | ||
 | S2M3 | Breakpoint - S2M1 | |
| C | C | ||
Despite being a Trapmaster, Ela is more akin to a modern Marksman. She specializes in high DPS via dealing rapid fire hits at a low DP cost. But unlike the older Marksman, she hits hard and brings strong team utility via her mines which allow her to place Fragile and control almost anywhere on the map. In total, it makes Ela an extremely meta and powerful Operator for both everyday and Advanced use.
While there is a lot of nuance with Ela’s total kit and optimal usage, her Masteries are straightforward. S3 is by far her best skill and is the key to why she is so good, and likely the only one most players will want to spend their resources on. Her fully upgraded Module should be your target after Mastery instead of a secondary skill! Her S3 has so much going for it that it’s hard to address it all in a write-up this size, but suffice to say, it deals a boatload of damage (with ammo!) on a rapid cycle, with tons of utility. The gains on it are not actually too crazy among the S++ tier of skills, but Ela is so good that it is still a top priority skill.
Note that she does have a breakpoint on her S3, although as far as breakpoints go, it’s fairly low value. At S3M1 the Fragility gains 5% and lasts a second longer. Those differences will be somewhat tough to notice alone. Were these gains on her off skill, this guide probably would not note them. However given how strong Ela is and that S3 is her best skill, it’s worthwhile to grab ASAP regardless.
Ela does not really need a secondary skill, although they are an option as we’ll get into in a moment. Instead, consider her Module next. While this guide usually avoids Module recommendations, her TRP-Δ Module is one of the more valuable meta ones in terms of damage output and makes far more sense as the next investment after S3M3.
As for secondary skills, go with her S2, however within the realm of secondary skills on meta units, it’s a rather unusual one. In most cases, secondary skills provide some lateral use to what the unit fundamentally does, but in Ela’s case, she’s essentially a different unit with her S2. Even that form is very unusual with few comparables, but ends up being relatively situational, largely due to how versatile her S3 is already, so the extra investment is not required. However, it does have some pretty nice gains, especially in initial windup, so it can still be a nice option if you like using Ela. Also be aware of the S2M1 breakpoint that extends the Stun duration. That alone makes S2 fairly valuable even for occasional use with a portable AoE Stun that can be deployed almost anywhere.
Pass on her S1. While the skill itself may have some occasional value, the Masteries are fairly unessential. If you are in a situation where you are attempting to make use of the accuracy hit, it’s unlikely the extra time or probability will matter as opposed to just running it again. In other words, it’s cheaper to grind RNG than it is to Master a third skill you might only use a couple times ever.
Swire the Elegant Wit#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced | IS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | S3M3 | B | B+ | A- * |
 | S2M3 | B+ | B | C * |
 | S1M3 | Breakpoint - S1M1 | ||
| C | C+ | B- * | ||
* Swire the Elegant Wit’s IS grades assume Her ISW-α Module. This Module is inexpensive, but is given special note here to draw attention to the gap in value between the modes.
Swire the Elegant Wit bothers me personally to no end. HG apparently took the wrong lessons from the Ch’en the Holungday controversy and made another summer unit (should be a skin) but instead of good, made her mediocre. As a Swire fan, I will always hold this against them! Anyway, Swire2 isn’t that bad, but she certainly isn’t good either. Like most Merchants, she has a very creative kit that can be a lot of fun to play around with, but it also means she’s tricky to use for suboptimal results. Add on the fact there’s tons of good Specialists already and massive amounts of powercreep, Swire2 is ultimately a low priority unit and even her ISW doesn’t save her.
Now that out of the way, if you are one of the based people looking to get the most out of the gao, there isn’t a great answer other than to do the full M9. That creativity doesn’t come free, and all of her skills have potential within that realm, ultimately making for a very expensive unit without a clear winner among her skills. She’s also a unit where the skill priority has changed over time!
On her release, S2 was the recommendation since it allowed her to deal fairly consistent damage and she could solo a decent number of stages with it. However, as enemy stats increase and stage design gets more complex, it’s a lot harder to take advantage of. It also constrains the rest of your team, a problem Merchants already have, since it requires a lot of tile space to use. It also doesn’t work well with her ISW Module, and on top of all that, the Mastery gains on it are on the weaker side too. While it used to be her best use case, it’s fairly weak now and you sort of have to purposefully want to use it, although it is still her best skill if your goal is to solo stages with her.
Instead, her primary skill now tends to be her S3. When activated, she does solid consistent DPS which gets boosted up pretty significantly with her ISW Module. Then she can spend the coins to blast something pretty far off. In most of the game, the damage is a bit weak compared to more modern units, but in IS, it becomes pretty incredible! While a bit gimmicky at times, it can be quite powerful in others. It also happens to have far more important Mastery gains thanks to a Force increase at S3M3, so ultimately tends to be her most valuable use these days.
Last is her S1, which these days may actually be more valuable than her S2 depending on what your goals are. She becomes a fairly strong healer with it on her FRD(ish) cycle which is a use that can come in clutch at times. Notably, she can heal at any time and doesn’t have to be actively attacking an enemy to trigger the heal (it just works off of her ATK interval). However, since she is limited by her coins, there’s a limit to what she can sustain as well. It has a breakpoint at S1M1 that will be worth grabbing, raising her coin cap, but beyond that only affects the heal amount, so further Mastery can be an expensive proposition for the return.
As for her ISW Module, as alluded to in the rest of the write-up, it’s on the weaker side, but fortunately, nowhere near as weak as the basement dwellers. It’s merely “ok” instead of great or broken like many of them are. As said, her S3 is her primary skill there thanks to how high her ATK can get, but S1 also becomes more viable due to how fast coins generate. S2 can work as well, but those mentioned tile restraints can be killer, so is the more fringe option.
Kirin R Yato#
At the time, there was a lot of debate on who was better since they came out so close together, Kirin R Yato or Texas the Omertosa. The time since has handed that victory pretty clearly to Yato2. Her crazy range and invulnerability have just held up better as powercreep has gone wild. Texas2, of course, has held up fine, and more FRDs are never bad, but this section isn’t about her. To the point now, Yato2 is one of the highest graded M6s in this guide, and has remained so even after the large scale guide overhaul, and that seems unlikely to change looking ahead too.
There is no good answer for which of her skills to prioritize. Both S2 and S3 are absurdly powerful skills and the simple answer is, just do both. Some may not be happy with that answer. There’s a segment of people who prefer to have a clear primary skill, but that simply isn’t the case here. Yato2 is just too good of a unit!
That said, her S3 does tend to be her primary skill, although only barely. She can reach very far out using it, even if the tiles are otherwise undeployable or inaccessible, and she’s immune to both damage and any form of control too. She will always trigger and get full effect out of her S3 which makes it uniquely valuable. The damage gain over Mastery on it isn’t actually that crazy, but that’s largely irrelevant with skills of this power. You want every bit out of it you can.
Her S2 meanwhile has less range but significantly more DPS. Like an absurd amount more. While she isn’t immune to damage like she is with S3, she’s similarly immune to control still which adds significantly to the value. Since her range is more restricted, it’s slightly more situational, and you have to use a little bit of brains to avoid her instantly dying at times, but the results are well worth it. The DPS gains are better than S3, but similarly, the skill is simply too powerful to give that a lot of weight.
Last, her S1 has some interesting applications that make it a fringe option to consider. It can be thought of as something like a Fast-Redeploy Exusiai1; it has insane DPS and total damage, but only against relatively low-DEF targets. However, places that it shines over her other skills are rare so Mastery investment is a luxury. On top of her frailty that will make it hard to exploit in the first place (she is not immune to anything as with S2 or S3, the base damage at SL7 is usually strong enough already.
Texas the Omertosa#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S3M3 | S+ | S+ |
 | S2M3 | A+ | A+ |
Texas the Omertosa is a powerful unit, although one that has declined ever so slightly as the power levels of the game have increased. While Kirin R Yato has maintained nearly all of her value, Texas2’s DPS and utility don’t look quite as good as they did on her release. That perception at the time was absurdly high with her. She really marks the beginning of the modern powercreep era. So this isn’t a huge knock against her and you should not come away from this blurb thinking she’s bad! She most certainly is not! FRDs are an eternally useful archetype, and Texas2 is still very powerful with strong damage and great utility. It’s just not as strong as it used to be is all.
To that end, her S3 has pushed ahead in terms of Mastery priority. She used to be one of the highest graded M6s in this guide, but really it’s her S2 that’s declined more while her S3 has retained its value. That’s because, while it has lower damage, it has a ton of control. The micro-stuns from her sword-rain occur fast enough that she interrupts most attacks, allowing her to effectively stop a lot of incoming damage while also dealing still strong Arts damage. Mastery is very valuable too because in addition to damage, she gains an extra target at S3M3, so her S3 Masteries are still extremely valuable.
Her S2 meanwhile has typically been her DPS skill, but that DPS is the part that doesn’t look as great as it used to be in an era where every other unit has absurd levels of DPS, especially since most of it is restricted to a single target. Her damage is still solid though and Texas2 is a good enough unit that it’s still a relatively high priority Mastery. After all, most of those new absurd DPS units aren’t FRDs! However, these days S2 is often used more for its RES-shred as opposed to its damage, which is more situational. Mastery on it is very valuable though. The DPS gain isn’t actually as big as you might think from the numbers, but she gains significantly to the RES-shred which alone is worthwhile.
Pass on her S1. It does worse damage than her S2 so the only upside is the Silence effect. That might be useful now and then, but not useful enough to justify an expensive Mastery, even despite a 2 second extension at S1M3.
Dorothy#
Dorothy is one of those units whose priority will depend on the sort of player you are. She is a high cost and high effort unit for results that can usually be found elsewhere. Most players likely won’t want to invest deeply into her at all. However, if you’re one of those players that finds satisfaction in that sort of gameplay, Dorothy can be extremely valuable with near mandatory Masteries. Trapmasters are generally reliant on renewing their traps to be effective, so the reduced SP cost alone is worthwhile before even looking into the effects, and Dorothy has big gains to the effects as well.
Should you be one of the few brave enough to pursue Dorothy, she is a very strong M6 consideration. Both S2 and S3 have strong use cases, and regular Dorothy users will definitely want both. However, give a slight favor to her S3 which has a slightly higher damage ceiling. While S2 has similar damage, S3 is still higher, is Arts, and can be chained for more immediate output at range. It oftentimes requires extensive planning to optimize, but the results are as satisfying as they are effective. The gains from Mastery are massive too. In addition to the previously mentioned renewal rate, Mastery is also a well above average improvement to both damage and control.
S2 is a similarly solid skill. Its control is significantly better. As mentioned it has fairly comparable damage, but is still lower, is Physical (which tends to scale worse than Arts at Dorothy’s amount of ATK), and doesn’t chain which makes it slightly more situational than her S3. However, it is still a great skill and the Bind that can be placed anywhere on the map will often make it the more useful skill. Mastery is again very valuable on it thanks to some pretty significant Bind uptime improvements, on top of more damage and that ever important cycle time.
You likely won’t want to bother with her S1. It’s best focused on single hard targets, which just isn’t the value of her kit as well as being hard to execute. It will likely only ever find value with hardcore Dorothy users. However, it does look a bit more appealing if you also plan to maximize her Module. The higher multiplier gets more value out of the crit mines, which does increase the value of that fringe potential.
Specter the Unchained#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | A * | A * |
 | S3M3 | B * | B * |
* Note that Specter2’s skills are graded assuming she has either Module (favor PUM-X) at level 3. If you do not plan to get either Module fully upgraded, treat the priority of these skills significantly lower.
Specter the Unchained is a decent unit in the modern game thanks to strong damage, invulnerability, and the ever valuable archetype, although a portion of her meta value is carried by the rather popular Abyssal Hunter niche. She’s interesting historically because she was broadly panned as the worst 6★ on release, but was one of the earliest benefactors of the Module leveling system. Modules used to be just the base level, but the patch right after her introduction, the upgrades were introduced. HG understood what she needed, and in rare fashion, actually gave it to her. Which is a long winded way of saying, Specter2 has vital Module considerations. Two, actually! This interconnection can make for a rather expensive unit to maximize, especially as the power ceiling rises, although fortunately one does tend to be much more valuable than the other.
Her best use case (in both regular and AH teams) is her PUM-X Module along with her S2, which should be your first focus for Mastery. With PUM-X, her doll is actually useful which gives her S2 double value. Her invulnerability is a unique niche, and the predictable nature of the doll activation allows for good area control. The combination isn’t quite the powerhouse it once was though. After all, we have lots of laneholding, tanking, and DPS options. However, Specter2 does combine them all in a viable way that still keeps her at relatively high priority. As for Mastery specifically, S2M3 adds a significant amount to her damage and uptime, both of which are quite important to using her.
Her second best use case is her PUM-Y Module with her S3, however she isn’t as reliant on her Module here. S3 will work fine with PUM-X as well, making PUM-Y the lowest priority of the four investments. The difference here is that S3 isn’t reliant on her doll like S2 is, so it’s a bit more flexible in that regard. However, it comes up short in terms of ceiling. It lacks her invulnerability niche and actually does worse damage than her 5★ form, who is also 3-block, if she can’t take advantage of the HP threshold gimmick (which is made easier with PUM-Y). The real problem here though is that her S3 doesn’t really have any special feature, so it becomes the sort of skill you use because you want to use Specter2 and not because it’s the best option. It doesn’t really take advantage of her archetype at all. It can deal more damage than S2 and hits a lot harder, but that’s about it, and there are now dozens of units who can do that too with more utility.
Last, is her S1 which is mostly a gimmick and thus a skip. In theory, she can swap with a low HP ally, which is safer for her since she can swap to the doll, but in practice the range is restrictive and you lose all the value of her other skills. It’s almost never worth the trouble.
Lee#
The fishman is a weird unit, but now a kinda bad one too. He was already weird on his release, which at least is expected with Merchants, but his gimmicks look a lot weaker than they used to. Not that they were ever terribly strong which leaves Lee as a desire only tier of 6★ in the modern game. He’s not unusable, and can still be a powerhouse when things line up well for him, but that’s rare and we have lots of other solutions now too. Further, as far as this guide goes, he doesn’t need Masteries for most of his value either.
Should you want to do a Mastery anyway, his main skill, and defining feature outside of his Talent 2 reflect, is his S3. With it, he can permanently stall a large group of enemies by constantly pushing them away, but it’s quite situational. His Shift Force never improves from the lowest level so it only works on the lightest enemies, which are often the weakest. He also can’t stall his main target, which can be trouble since he’s not especially bulky, and while someone else can technically do the blocking, things get awkward quickly due to his short range and the Shift angles. It all makes it quite gimmicky in the modern game. Worse, at least as far as this guide is concerned, the Mastery gains are fairly bad too. The improved stats and wind-up will matter sometimes given the downsides discussed, but don’t fundamentally improve the skill either.
His secondary skill is his S2 which has a lot of words for what’s basically just a DPS skill. At the time, the DPS wasn’t bad on it, but by modern standards it’s pretty weak, especially considering the Merchant drawbacks. It also works best in swarms and can be really unimpressive against solitary targets. Even at the time it was a fringe consideration for Mastery, but now it’s husbando-tier only. The Mastery gains on it are decent at least though, with a sizable improvement to his damage and wind-up (which happens more frequently than with S3).
Pass on his S1 entirely which has no upside compared to his other two skills. It’s only 10% more ATK than his S3, and if you needed DPS, you’d be using his S2 anyway. That just leaves the Arts dodge which his S3 does mostly better and is situational in the first place. There’s basically no place it’s the best option.
Mizuki#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced | IS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | B | B | S+ * |
 | S3M3 | None | B * | |
 | S1M3 | Breakpoint - S1M1 | ||
| B+ | C | C * | ||
* Mizuki’s IS grades assume his ISW-α Module. This Module is inexpensive, but is given special note here to draw attention to the large gap in value between the modes.
Mizuki is relatively interesting as far as Mastery priority goes. He got a powerful IS-specific mod, but his skill selection is quite different between IS and other modes. However, he’s pretty poor by modern standards in the story modes while he’s quite powerful in IS, so it makes the most sense to make that your point of decision. If you don’t plan to use him in IS, then you probably shouldn’t use him at all! The Ambusher space is quite stacked, and he just doesn’t have the utility to warrant meaningful consideration in the normal game. But he’s absurdly powerful in IS, so if that’s your poison, he should be a very high priority!
So that in mind, his primary skill in IS is his S2. His IS Module has a lot of perks, but the most valuable one is his Shift which creates some pretty massive stall, which is ultimately what his skill selection revolves around. His S2 makes the best use of that since it’s his only skill that reduces his interval, plus it cycles incredibly fast too. It is far more reliable for this task than either of his other skills. Mastery on it is quite valuable too. It has a huge difference in cycle between SL7 and S2M3. Plus at M3, it gains a valuable reduction to his interval, which is the whole reason it’s the best option in the first place! It also happens to be a competitive skill in the rest of the game, so it makes for a pretty easy first choice.
However, things split between IS and Story after that. For IS, his S3 is the secondary Mastery. It’s a worse skill than his S2, but the extra range it has can sometimes be the optimal play, depending on the stage (IS#5 ED2 is a good example). For people playing at high difficulty, every bit of Mastery matters too, and the Mastery gains on it are fairly strong too. However, it ultimately ends up fairly low priority. S2 takes so much of the work, it’s less necessary outside of high difficulty, and it’s very weak in the general game due to its long cycle, so it ultimately ends up closer to a luxury investment
Last, his S1 is the skill that straddles a big divide between IS and Story. Historically, it’s often been his favored skill because it has a really high DPH and a quick charge time. His other skills being weak in the general game gave it plenty of room to shine. That’s still true there, but in IS it’s his weakest skill. Of course it can synergize well with certain high roll relics, but that’s a luxury thing. It ultimately doesn’t synergize at all with his IS Module, so there’s really very little place that it comes out ahead in that mode.
So the ultimate suggestion with Mizuki is to treat his S2 highest regardless of which mode you favor. After that, favor his S3 if you prefer IS and favor his S1 if you prefer story. However, neither S1 or S3 Masteries are necessary, unless you’re interested in high difficulty IS, in which case give a stronger consideration to S3.
Gladiia#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S3M3 | A * | A+ * |
 | S2M3 | A * | A+ * |
 | S1M3 | Breakpoint - S1M1 | |
| B+ * | A- * | ||
* Note that Gladiia’s HOK-X Module at level 3 is more important than any skill Masteries and should be pursued first.
Gladiia is an incredibly powerful Welfare unit, but is surprisingly tricky when it comes to Masteries. Her HOK-X Module is by far her best upgrade and the reason she’s so special. Even lacking the other Abyssal Hunters, it makes her an incredible tank on her own, but it gets silly with them, Ulpianus especially. The problem is though, she is often more of a “cheerleader” sort. That’s not to say her own skills are bad. They’re solid actually and Gladiia is a pretty strong M9 candidate. But they aren’t the defining feature either. You mostly use them because you’re already bringing her and that makes the priority tricky. Further complicating matters, she’s a Shifter who generally have incredibly valuable Masteries! All three skills get a Shift Force increase at M3!
So in total, it’s hard to make a clear suggestion with her. There’s reasonable arguments to be made for all of her skills. I can’t even tell you that it just depends on how far you want to go with her because the usage is so different! So we will walk through all of them and you should pick the one that sounds most useful for your needs.
First up, her S3 is probably the skill most people think of with her. She creates a tornado that can stall the enemies around it for the uptime which can be pretty powerful. Mastery is important here since, as mentioned, the Shift Force increases at S3M3 which can make a big difference. However, the DPS on it is surprisingly weak, as is the cycle time. The fact it’s Arts damage can be helpful at times since the AHs generally lack that outside of Specter2’s doll, but it’s ultimately a skill that can feel anemic.
Next up, her S1 which is more situational, but is very valuable in those situations when her other skills may generally falter. If your goal is to put enemies in holes, then this is a fantastic skill. The charge based nature means she does that job better than any other Puller. It also has the most valuable Masteries thanks to an extra charge at S1M1, reduced SP, and of course that extra Shift Force at S1M3. In terms of viability to the skill itself, its Masteries are the most important. However, it’s the worst of the three if there’s no hole to put stuff in and she also doesn’t get a range extension on it so it isn’t universally the best Puller skill either.
Finally is her S2. She’ll do the most damage with this one and on the best cycle. The expanded range and constant pulls means it will often perform better than her S1 even, albeit only for the duration instead of constantly. S2 is probably the best choice for general purpose usage, but the damage on it still isn’t especially good. Again, Masteries are valuable here due to that Shift Force increase at S2M3, but her damage noticeably improves too.
So, Gladiia is a unit with no easy answers if you can’t afford to do them all. All of her skills are good, but all situational, and all also a bit flawed. The only real advice I can give to that end is none of them are essential. Her Module is the special part of her and you should prioritize other high-value 6★s for Masteries instead. Even if you want to do one with Gladiia for completion’s sake, you can largely get away with any of them. So she isn’t an easy unit, but she isn’t one I would stress out about either!
Weedy#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S3M3 | A+ | S- |
 | S2M3 | B+ | B+ |
 | S1M3 | Breakpoint - S1M1 | |
| C | C | ||
Weedy is one of the classic “Story vs Advanced” units. In fact, she’s the original reason there are two different grades in this guide. Remarkably, that’s still true today. She does her job of pushing so incredibly well that she has been persistently valuable at the high end of the game. But at the same time, she’s fundamentally situational and less valuable in day-to-day Story stages. She’s a unit that most people can get away with not promoting at all, but others will find her to be one of the most valuable members of the team! So if you’re a less experienced Story-centric player looking for the best bang for your buck, you should probably pass on Weedy for now. However, once you’re more established and start to look for more Advanced tactics, Weedy becomes one of the most valuable.
That said, some aspects of her kit have changed in value over the years. She is still a well graded M6 candidate, and maybe even an M9. Advanced players especially will want both of her main skills. However, her S2 doesn’t find as much work as it used to either, making the Mastery priority with Weedy more linear than it’s been in the past.
These days, her main skill is her S3 and it will be valuable to both Story players and Advanced players alike, although the latter will get more out of it. While her S2 is valuable, it’s more replaceable than her S3 which absolutely blasts most enemies. Her Shift Force with her cannon at S3M3 is as high as it gets, so if your goal is putting tough things in holes, this is her main skill and the most valuable Pusher skill overall. The big benefit of Mastery is of course the Shift Force increase at S3M3, but the wind-up improvements are also important. At SL7, it’s a rather long 21 SP but drops to a more manageable 13 SP at S3M3. That may still seem high, but it can make all the difference with skills like this. The damage improves too, which can matter in places, but is mostly an afterthought. However, while her S3 is really the pinnacle of Shifting skills in terms of Force, the SP cost is rather high for skills like this, so it’s not the be all and end all of Pusher skills either.
Next, her S2 is a unique value among the Shifters since it’s the only infinite duration one (as of this writing, although Gladiia’s S1 can be thought of in a similar way). At any rate, the wind-up is quite long, but once up, the Force and extended range means she can infinitely juggle a lot of dangerous enemies. However, this is her skill that’s aged the worse. These days we have lots more options for control as well as powerful DPS, meaning these sorts of stall skills aren’t as essential as they used to be. The Shift Force on it is also relatively small, limiting the targets it’s useful against.
Last is her S1 which is a more classic Shifter skill. That can be useful since it fills a gap her main skills can’t cover, but it’s also an expensive option without as much upside. The much cheaper Shaw has the same push Force and SP cost, meaning Weedy’s S1 is mostly a luxury or desire tier of Mastery (i.e. you want to specifically use Weedy instead of Shaw, if you even need it in the first place). It does have a Stun on it though which can occasionally come in handy, but even then will work just fine with only the S1M1 breakpoint that reduces the SP cost.
Phew. I made it through that entire write-up without making a Push Stroker or a PUS-Y joke! It’s really incredible that both of those terms are on the same unit. I’d swear HG was doing it on purpose…
Phantom#
* Phantom’s IS grades assume his ISW-α Module. This Module is inexpensive, but is given special note here to draw attention to the gap in value between the modes.
Before he was the ridiculous god of control he is now, Phantom was our first 6★ FRD. That’s a value that has declined dramatically over the years, but even at his release, he wasn’t that well received. It was questionable if he was even better than the 5★, Projekt Red! However, he was blessed with an ISW Module. It’s not among the strongest there is, but it’s solid, and given that his direct competitors are both generally unavailable (Texas the Omertosa is a limited and Kirin R Yato is a collab), this means that Phantom can actually be reasonably valuable to some people. Although even with that in mind, the Specialist ticket is the most valuable, so Phantom’s value is still questionable. And to be clear, his value is still quite low outside of IS, with or without Texas2 and Yato2!
In either case, Phantom has two good skills. In IS, they’re pretty close in value, but outside of IS, S2, his DPS skill, takes the crown. It can be tempting to view Masteries as low value since each level only increases the ATK buff by 1%, but remember that applies to each stack. Further, the additional stack at S2M3 is a big increase, adding a full new layer of ATK buff and extending the duration. Outside of IS, the damage is on the weaker side now (it was on the weaker side at the time too) but it’s still his best usecase. In IS though, he can use the ISW effect to stack multiple layers of the skill by deploying his clone again and again. It’s certainly not typical FRD usage, but with some planning, you can deal some pretty incredible damage with him.
However, doing that requires a lot of setup that may not always be possible, and as said, the damage on the skill is not too impressive at base. His ISW mod does help there still, but it also gives room for his S3 to shine. His S3 has never been a bad skill, but it’s also been a weird one. It has an RNG selection on the control which makes it unreliable, and the uptime compared to his redeployment has never been that good. Outside of IS, that all continues to be the case, making it both a situational skill and a frustrating one. But in IS, it gets new life. Since the ISW Module improves his redeployment time (on both himself and his clone) it alleviates a lot of those uptime problems. Further, the clone refreshing his skill gives even more activations. It still has RNG which can be frustrating at times, but it’s now a pretty good effect in cases where his DPS is unnecessary, can’t be stacked, or is just insufficient. Mastery is pretty good here too, particularly for IS usage, since the uptime improves by 50%.
Pass on his S1. It’s not worthless exactly, but is rarely the best choice. In the general game, the cheaper Gravel will do the job better. In IS, you’ll get more value out of his other skills. Since he’s limited to Physical damage mitigation, it’s just too situational to be useful, even with the ISW buffs.
Aak#
Oh Aak. OGs will remember a time when he was the co-rateup on the very first limited banner, which didn’t even have a spark. This left an extremely sour taste in many’s mouths. Going for the hot dragon lady limited unit only to get an awkward-to-use furry did not ingratiate him to many. These days, he’s pretty firmly powercrept in all regards, so has little to no meta justification for promotion, although he’s usable enough if he appeals to you, especially thanks to the indirect buff courtesy of Exu2. So most people shouldn’t raise him, but all of his skills can be potentially valuable if you do.
His main two skills are S1 and S3 and have very different use cases. Traditionally, S3 has been his main skill which is his buff skill. It’s a pretty strong buff, so entire team comps would sometimes revolve around mitigating his inflicted damage. But now you can just use Mon3tr who has a better buff and heals instead of requiring an entire team to make work! Mastery on it is pretty good since both buff aspects improve, which is the whole point of using him in the first place. However, even when he was new it was just a meme, and now it’s a powercrept meme too.
Instead, you may consider his S1 instead. Although basic, it’s always been a reasonable skill. His Talent 1 is pretty potent, so the high amount of ASPD has meant he can do decent damage and control. It’s not a special quantity, but it frees him of being shackled by the buff constraints that may or may not be usable (more often not) in any given situation. The fact Geeks no longer kill themselves also means he’s now no longer as reliant on always having a target, and the slower loss of life means he can maintain his GEE-X Module buff longer for better uptime. It’s still not a great skill though. It has a super low DPH and frustrating RNG. It’s firmly the class of skill where you have to want to use Aak in the first place, but supposing that, it’s decent enough at least.
Last, his S2 is a buff skill similar to S3, but defensively focused. That might be useful on rare occasions if you’re dedicated to using Aak, but defensive buffing is rarely a viable strategy so it’s an extremely fringe consideration.
5★ Specialists#
Mutsumi Wakaba#
Dollkeepers are one of the natively good archetypes, so Mutsumi’s doll gives her a lot of inherent value already, but then she ramps it up further with some pretty serious upside. She is the best Fever generator, her Talent gives her some pretty extreme bulk¹, and she does some pretty strong DPS! While her rarity ultimately means she isn’t a must-raise (neither the bulk or DPS compares to a meta 6★), she’s one of the better possible options if you’re looking to expand beyond top-meta units.
If she interests you, both of her skills are potential options since they fill different roles, but her S2, the DPS skill, is pretty significantly the better choice. While the DPS skill will usually win by default anyway, Mutsumi’s is extremely strong for a 5★, and also has some extremely strong gains which makes the choice easy. Since the skill hits three times, Mutsumi gains more out of the damage increase than you might expect. It gives her some of the best DPS of the rarity, only held back by a bit of RNG. Then further, it’s extremely buff receptive, and the minor self-damage even acts as additional Fever generation!
Meanwhile, her S1 is a really interesting skill that Ave Mujica hyper fans and bunny enthusiasts might find interesting, but doesn’t have much practical value. Maintaining the skill effect through her doll is a pretty cool thing and in some cases, she can be near unkillable while still blocking. The main flaw though is that after the initial doll recovery, she has no additional bulk for the 20 SP cost, meaning she can’t often be used as a consistent tank. If she can survive the 20 seconds without skill, the threat probably wasn’t that serious and wouldn’t put her in doll form in the first place, and if she can’t, she’ll just leak on the second doll swap instead. Still, for as bulky as she is as a 5★ and as a Specialist, that may be useful for some people.
¹ It’s beyond the scope of this guide, but I like this wonderful schizo-bunny enough to briefly comment on the Necrosis here. The doll swap does not reset the build up, but it builds fairly slowly and in many cases will be completely negligible. She does not need a Wandering Medic babysitting her! In fact, it can even be a benefit to trigger it at times because the resulting damage will further trigger her Fever gain.
Umiri Yahata#
Texas3 is our first double alt-¹ Wait, a black-haired Lupo ice-queen with mob ties isn’t Texas? I find it so funny that when all these teenage girls got isekai’d to Terra, Umiri decided to just become a mob enforcer. After watching the anime, I am not at all surprised either. It’s a great fit personality-wise! It’s also the only way that it really makes sense she’s an Ambusher, but I suppose that’s not a matter we need to get bogged down about here.
At any rate, Umiri is a pretty decent iteration of the archetype, which may be mildly surprising since her effective cycles are pretty long. While she definitely doesn’t stack up to the 6★ Ambushers, she’s got enough going for her to be viable, particularly an up-sized range. However, unlike her more meta bandmates (Sakiko, Uika, and Mutsumi) who can function well on their own, Umiri is a bit more reliant on the others. Her personal Fever generation is negligible, and without Fever, her S1 looks less impressive.
Speaking of, S1 is her main skill, however outside of the S1M1 breakpoint, it has incredibly low value Masteries, which accounts for her grades being much lower than her unit value. On the matters of the skill, it has a very long effective cycle (4 SP * 3.5s interval = 14 seconds for one activation, bit less with Module), however it’s saved by the fact it’s a Charge Based Manual Activation. This means even without Sakiko, it can be very effective since it can be easily timed to maximum effect, which mitigates the impact of the long cycle. She can place control and good damage on demand for maximum effect.
It has some further special value when paired with Sakiko’s S1 as well. The additional trigger will happen every time Sakiko’s S1 auto triggers which makes for a strong hands-off effect. However, before pursuing, keep in mind that Sakiko’s S2 is her better AFK skill, so this actually doesn’t add much value, but in any case, it’s her stronger skill even without it.
Finally, it’s notable that during Fever, her S1 continually activates which can be quite valuable, although, as mentioned, she’ll have trouble ever triggering Fever without the other girls. If, for some reason, you don’t intend to raise any of them, you should likely treat Umiri a bit lower in priority.
You could consider her S2 as well. In fact, it has the better gains by far, so although her S1 tends to be her primary skill, it’s viable to favor her S2 for Mastery instead. The uptime on S2 is quite poor, with 15 seconds up compared to 40 seconds down which can make it a frustrating skill on many stages, especially if she isn’t being run with her bandmates. However along with her extended range, the effect can be reasonable in situations where burst is needed, at least if you can afford her doing relatively little in the long downtime. This makes it mostly a waifu or niche-tier skill, but still a reasonable choice given S1’s weak gains.
¹ This joke was written before Ch’en3. I am prophetic.
Tippi#
Our second Skyranger is a bit of a miss. While not exactly bad, she doesn’t do the basic job nearly as well as the cheaper 4★, Contrail, so the priority should go to her instead. That leaves Tippi as pretty much a niche or desire-only unit. If that’s you, both of her skills have value, depending what you want out of her.
In most cases, her S2 would be the starting point since it’s the most different to Contrail. Tippi takes advantage of the Skyranger’s general targeting immunity while airborne thanks to two layers of guaranteed dodge. She negates the first hit, which then sends her airborne, during which her Talent can come into effect, which will likely stay in effect when she lands. This allows her to tank another hit while her skill recharges, beginning the cycle anew. It’s not a bad use case, and she can be a relatively durable source of damage, although it’s still rather situational and while it has decent DPS, the DPH is rather low. The DPS gain over Mastery on it is on the low-side, but she needs every bit she can get. More important is the cycle improvement which matters much more to keep her alive.
Meanwhile her S1 is just a worse version of Contrail’s S2. There’s not a lot of reason to pursue it unless you have specific reason to not use Contrail, such as waifu reasons or in some rarer niches (5★-only, Liberi-only). But if you find yourself in one of those situations, it may even be the better option than her S2. The DPS is far lower, but it has a very long cycle and Manual Activation which are more useful for the times you actually want to block a drone, which her S2 does rather poorly. Mastery on it is decently valuable too. It has a larger DPS gain than her S2 does on top of a relatively good improvement to her uptime. It’s ultimately a very replaceable skill, but a few people out there may find it useful.
Wulfenite#
It’s not just tails that are THICC now! The 5★ Trapmasters have lost some of their luster between Ela and an ever expanding general power ceiling, but all of them have a quite nice variety of technical value that creative minded players will enjoy, and Wulfenite is no exception. She takes a bit after Ela in that she has fewer but more impactful traps, but she also brings the new niche by having them be manually activated, allowing for more precise timing.
Both of her skills are worth Mastery for those creatively minded players, with the difference mainly being in the sort of clears you like to use. Most people will probably find her S1 to be the more useful choice. The remote and controllable Stun is something that can be really valuable, even in more meta-oriented clears. However, her S2 does more than twice the damage and the -DEF can be really appealing if you play in a niche where many nails (problems) can be solved by a Kroos2 shaped hammer.
However, it’s worth noting that neither of her Masteries are all that valuable. They will certainly matter for the highly technical clears that she favors, but if you find her unfun to use at SL7, Mastery probably won’t make the difference here.
Tin Man#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced | IS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | A- | B+ | A+ * |
 | S1M1 | Breakpoint - S1M1 | ||
| None | ||||
* Note Tin Man’s IS grade is specific to IS#5 due to his iteration specific Talent. He does not have special value in the other iterations.
Much of Tin Man’s meta value is tied to his IS#5 specific Talent, which is quite potent and alone makes him worth using. However, as it happens, he’s pretty good on his own merits too. His blend of healing and damage on a big range and a startlingly good uptime makes him a pretty decent unit, even outside of IS#5! Although it’s important to note as we move on from IS#5 that he is ultimately held back by his rarity. While he’s perfectly usable in the general game, that’s mostly in niche value as opposed to strict meta value.
His value is primarily tied to his S2 which blends both solid damage and healing in a charge based skill, and should be your first target for Mastery. It improves most aspects of his kit, but most importantly, extends the duration by 25% which results in quite a bit more damage and healing. It’s worth noting that, like Shamare, Alchemists begin to recharge immediately since the uptime is tied to the summon itself, so this improvement to uptime does not affect his cycle time at all, but rather greatly improves his net uptime.
His S1 may be worth a look as well, but probably not beyond the M1 breakpoint. The breakpoint here may not be obvious since it is not tied to an explicit number in his description, but the reduced SP cost combined with the improved duration at S1M1 allows for 100% uptime if consistently attacking. This can let him act as a consistent source of ATK-down which can be helpful in a variety of stalls. That is quite situational, however, so most people won’t even need the breakpoint.
Iana#
Iana is an interesting iteration of the Dollkeeper archetype, which is already natively interesting! But before evaluating Iana’s skills, it is extremely important to note there is a part of her kit which is not stated in her in-game descriptions. If her S2 is ready, then it automatically triggers when her Talent is triggered. Also, regardless of how it is triggered, the substitute lasts for 20 seconds, but S2’s duration is only 10 seconds, so she must wait out the second half of the substitute before triggering again. This also means S2’s effective charge time is 25 seconds with 15 seconds of downtime. Further, if S2 is triggered manually, the Fragile from her Talent does not apply.
Finally, be aware that even though flavor-wise, “she” is the “doll” that comes in, mechanically, the swap is still considered the doll. This has some nuanced effects on various stat increases, but that’s beyond the scope of this writeup.
OK, that out of the way, we can finally discuss her skills! Iana’s S2 is her main skill, and if you are not a niche player intent on using her, probably the only one worth Mastery. It’s the sort of skill that’s useful for solving a specific troublesome problem. She can be placed aggressively and do high-DPS but low-DPH without dying, which it turns out is very useful for killing a lot of highly dangerous ranged typed enemies which tend to have lower DEF. Of course, that is rather situational and in a lot of cases she’ll seem incredibly weak instead, but is still pretty valuable. Mastery is subtly important here. The gain to her DPS is meaningful, but ultimately not the highlight. Instead, it’s the teeny tiny drop in her SP cost. Why is 1 SP important? Because it means she can be effectively helidropped! Few enemies are able to land an attack within 1 second, which allows her to charge S2 first and get the full effect, even if dropped on their heads, but most can land that hit in 2 seconds instead. However, if you’re not being too aggressive with her, that can also seem unnecessary, so the priority will depend on how vital she is to your strategy. In a lot of cases, she’ll function pretty well at SL7 already.
Niche players may find some value in her S1 as well, although it’s nowhere near as special. It can only be triggered via her Talent which requires her being attacked, but when it does trigger, the boom has a global range. That’s a useful tool against long range threats. However, only the initial boom is global and it doesn’t do all that much damage. In other words, against a lot of targets it won’t actually do much, and you have to wait the full 20 seconds for her doll to cycle before using it again.
Enforcer#
* For a general discussion of Shifter priority and skills, check out these discussions.
There are a lot of Push Strokers available, and most aren’t worth the additional cost. That’s true for Enforcer, who also tends to be generally worse than the gacha options, but he has three key features that give him some niche value. First, his skills don’t deal damage which lets him Shift certain enemies without triggering on-hit effects like damage reflects or alert triggers. Second and more important, with S2 he always Shifts according to the direction he is facing compared to most other Pushers who usually push according to the direction the enemy is relative to them (that’s not exactly true in all cases, but the details are complex and don’t matter here for evaluating Enforcer). This means he’s able to accomplish hole drops that are otherwise impossible, such as pushing enemies forward that he blocks from behind, which can be a useful tool, albeit a niche one. And finally third, his S2 pushes all targets in his range which is subtly different from most other Pusher skills that only push the targets in a splash around the impact point.
That directional Shift and all targeting are only available on his S2, which makes it his primary skill. As with almost all Shifter skills, it gains a Force increase at S2M3 which alone is worth the cost of Mastery if you plan to use him. That’s lucky though because the Stun improvements are pretty anemic, so the SP cost reduction is the only other part of Mastery that particularly matters. It’s notable that his S2 does tend to be worse than FEater’s comparable S2 if he can’t take advantage of his niches, which tends to make her the better general choice. However, considering she is a kernel gacha unit while Enforcer is a freely available Welfare, it can still make sense to Master his S2 since Shaw’s S2 doesn’t have the same Force level and Weedy doesn’t have a comparable cooldown skill.
That isn’t the case with his S1 though. All of the Pushers have this type of skills, but Enforcer’s tends to be the worst since they all have the same Force level and SP at M3. Remember, his S1 doesn’t have the directional Shift, so its only advantage is the lack of damage which is much more situational. Even lacking the other options, Shaw’s S1 is the more efficient use of resources, if you do any at all. However, if you like Enforcer, it’s still perfectly functional for that role, and has typically valuable Masteries as well.
Kazemaru#
Kazemaru is one of the better general purpose 5★s and a personal favorite of mine. She’s a great general implementation of the Dollkeeper archetype that gives her low cost, strong damage, and good survivability. That’s both good and bad because it means she’s extremely easy to use for good results if you’re looking to lean into non-meta clears, but it also means she’s not all that special in terms of things only she can do. That makes for a tricky general suggestion though because it’s hard to assess your personal value of such things compared to promotion costs, especially as the power ceiling continues to grow. Kazemaru can be a great promotion for you, but she could also be ultimately wasted resources for a temporary stand-in.
At any rate, her main skill is her S2 which drops a big nuke and allows her to hit twice at high DPH for some pretty good total DPS for her rarity. The key here that may not be obvious is her clone’s ATK is based off of her own, so the skill’s ATK enhancement affects her Talent nuke, her own attacks, and her clones subsequent attacks, so Mastery can be quite valuable despite being a relatively standard ATK gain.
Her S1 is ungraded due to it being quite a bit more niche on a non-meta unit, but it’s something to consider for those who particularly favor Kazemaru. In addition to strong gains and superior single target damage, it is a rare example of a Dollkeeper skill that is available immediately after the doll summon ends. Since the doll doesn’t gain SP, it can make skills like her S2 have deceptively long cooldowns. A majority of people won’t find what her S1 brings to be terribly useful, but for a few, the gains will be worthwhile.
Bena#
Bena is a pretty decent Welfare unit, although far from an essential one. She was the first Dollkeeper, which it turns out is a great archetype. There’s a decent amount of them now, but Bena’s special value here is the DR on her doll via her Talent, which makes her damn near unkillable. That can be pretty useful, however her damage is on the weaker side, and as the first Dollkeeper, her skills have long effective cooldowns. One of the problems with the archetype is that they don’t generate SP in doll form, meaning they effectively add 20 seconds on to any additional downtime. Since Bena’s main skill, S2, will frequently kill her without outside help, it can ultimately make for a clunky to use unit if her unkillable nature isn’t called for.
As said, her main skill is her S2 which has a far higher DPS in most cases. While S1 has a significant chunk of DEF-ignore, it only out competes S2 between around 1100-1500 DEF (after which the difference no longer matters in either case). This means S1’s value is mainly that it isn’t guaranteed to kill her, however since the base SP cost is 10 higher, the difference ends up being entirely situational. So given that, her higher DPS skill will tend to be the favored, although both will be useful depending on how much you actually want out of her. Mastery also happens to be a lot more valuable on her S2 as well since both ATK and ASPD improve, while S1 only gets a smaller ATK improvement and a token amount more DEF ignore, which makes the ultimate choice, supposing you don’t just do both, fairly straight forward.
Mr. Nothing#
* Note that Mr. Nothing’s MER-X Module at level 3 is more important than any skill Masteries and should be pursued first.
Mr. Nothing is one of those odd units who has proven to be quite valuable over the years, but almost entirely due to his Talent. It turns out there’s a lot of cases where he might not attack for three seconds which makes him a pretty reliable source of Stuns and thus a good solution for a lot of stalls. For just a few examples, in IS#3 ED2, the boss counter-Freezes, which means Mr. Nothing can constantly Stun him. He combos well with Sleep units since he can’t attack during the Sleep. He even works great with Exu2’s S2 debuff! However, as far as Masteries go, they make almost no difference there! They can matter in places though, and he can actually be halfway decent as a general unit if you’re a niche player.
In super rare form for a 5★, his Module is actually the most valuable upgrade. The base effect is essential for Merchants in the first place, mod2 gives him a longer Stun, and mod3 reduces the time required, all of which are far bigger upgrades to his main value than anything his skills do!
Anyway, S2 tends to be his main skill. The RNG component of it can be extremely frustrating and a lot of time you’ll be turning his skills off and on, trying to tell the difference between blue and purple (hint, the purple makes his Block count 2 in the stat screen). However, the effects can often be worthwhile. The red (ASPD) can be helpful during Sleep-stalls since the enemy can often move during the attack wind-up which ASPD improves, while the purple (block and dodge) can help his bulk if there’s other dangerous enemies around. Mastery on it is on the weaker side though. All aspects improve, but none of them by a particularly dramatic amount. The ATK can also scale decently with his Talent, but is far from his defining feature. The gains can matter given the min-maxed places he tends to be used in, but are mostly irrelevant to his core usage.
His S1 is probably a pass, although it can be interesting if you plan to make regular use out of him. With S1 he’s the only FRD-type unit with 2-block, the turtling can make him an effective ranged-tank too, and it lasts just long enough to trigger his Talent. However, he has no combat improvement using it and can leak if you aren’t careful, so it’s a very situational option.
Kafka#
Kafka is one of the most troublesome units for me in this guide. She’s a good unit, but for reasons completely unrelated to her Masteries. In fact, many people keep her at E0 for this reason just for the lower DP cost. This is because her main value is in the Sleep on her S1 which surprisingly doesn’t change in duration at all. Then she’s retreated immediately for a faster cycle so the damage aspect never even triggers. So for many, even E1 can seem like a waste, if not a downgrade, let alone E2 and Masteries!
I’ve never liked that though. Aside from not being very aesthetic, she isn’t a terrible unit outside of her Sleep, just a bit awkward to use. Certainly, the general investment isn’t a high priority suggestion. Masteries on Kafka are very much a waifu or niche thing, but there is some value here.
Both skills are potentially options, although both have a problem to be aware of. Generally, I’d lean towards her S1 which is still her primary skill. The gains on it aren’t too wild, but aren’t nothing either and can matter on niches. The thing to be aware of though is that for Sleep purposes, it’s still best to retreat her immediately for faster cycling, so the damage gains may never be realized depending how you use her.
Instead, you could consider her S2. It has a lot better DPS and a lot better Mastery gains, plus Arts damage on FRDs like this is rare. In fact, the initial pop is almost as much as S1’s without the wait! However, the range on it is really awkward so it requires some planning to use, and may just not be usable on some stages. It definitely leans more towards the waifu-tier of skills, although among them it could be worse.
Frost#
Frost came out very close in time to Robin of the same archetype and rarity, which resulted in a lot of comparisons between them. Frost is a collab unit though and no longer available, but lest you be concerned, worry not, because Robin is generally better. Frost is the more damage-oriented of the two. In a lot of archetypes, that would give her the favor, but Trapmasters are really good at control, something that has given Robin a lot of value even in the modern game, value that Frost lacks, relegating her mostly to situational niche clears.
Although that isn’t to say Frost is bad. Her damage can actually be pretty good which makes her decently valuable in niches (if you have her). The main skill for that is her S2 which has quite a bit more DPS. Mastery is pretty good in that regard, but the real value is that which most non-Ela Trapmasters have, the reduced SP cost which allows for much faster cycling of traps.
Probably pass on her S1. While Stun is a generally valuable form of control, the fact it can only be triggered by an enemy walking onto the tile removes a lot of the value. It will rarely, if ever, result in an interrupted attack, so Robin’s S1 Bind traps are better for 5★ control, and her own S2 Bind traps too will suffer less immunity problems. However, the traps do more damage when they’re outside of her range, so it can be useful in some niche clears.
Robin#
Robin is a rare case where a 5★ has actually seen her value go up with time. While nowhere near as strong as the 6★ Trapmasters, Robin has proven to have quite a bit of value as a lower rarity control option, particularly in niche clears. That control is situational though, and a lot of people don’t find the micromanagement required to be an appealing type of gameplay, so Robin is still not a general promotion consideration. However, if you’re a braver player looking for flexible options, Robin is a pretty good choice.
Both of her skills have value, with the best just being situationally dependent. By default, most Trapmaster skills are worth Mastery for the SP cost reduction alone since it allows them a much greater access to their traps. While 4 SP may not seem like a lot, it adds up over the course of a map. For Robin, both skills also get pretty big control improvements which makes her Masteries particularly valuable to using her.
As said, there isn’t a clear answer between her skills, but S1’s Bind will probably be a little more generally valuable. It will require some thought and planning to make effective use of them, but the net stall effect can be very valuable in places. On top of the mentioned SP improvements, she gets an additional second over Bind over Mastery, which can make a big difference in net effect.
Her S2 meanwhile can potentially be even more powerful, but is more situational. The Bind effect will usually be better for stall purposes, but the Shift on her S2 mines can additionally be used for dropping enemies into holes that may be inaccessible to more typical Shifters. For example, mines can be placed from a much safer position that might otherwise get a unit like Shaw killed. If you get really fancy, the mines can even be chained to great effect, although this is particularly advanced. At any rate, she gets a Shift increase at S2M3, which on top of the SP cost reduction, makes the Mastery especially valuable.
Cliffheart#
* For a general discussion of Shifter priority and skills, check out these discussions.
Any of the 5★ Shifters are luxury promotions, but among them, Cliffheart has the most value. This is because she actually has some useful value beyond the Shift itself. She has a good on-demand Stun on a good cycle and also a dash of True Damage, both of which can occasionally be helpful, albeit primarily in niche clears rather than meta ones (Gladiia is the much more powerful general promotion).
That value is primarily tied to her S2 which has both of those mentioned features. While Cliffheart isn’t a meta consideration, her S2 Masteries are extremely valuable if you plan to use her or play in a niche. There is of course the Force increase at S2M3 that most Shifters get. That alone is worthwhile, but she gets more on top. Her Stun increases by 1.5 seconds, a 100% improvement, and her SP cost drops by 4. Those numbers may not seem like a lot, but significantly contribute to her reliability as a stunner.
Most players shouldn’t bother with her S1, but it may have some value to low rarity niche players. Of the Puller skills in this vein, Gladiia’s S1 is far superior so should generally be most players’ choice over Cliffheart’s. However, if you play in niches that exclude the 6★s, Cliffheart’s is the next best option. It has lower SP than Snowsant’s or Rope’s and more Force than Almond’s, generally making it the best choice for the role. Mastery on it is typically valuable too with the Force increase and SP cost reduction at S1M3, although again keep in mind this is a very fringe need.
FEater#
* For a general discussion of Shifter priority and skills, check out these discussions.
Any of the 5★ Shifters are luxury promotions. FEater has had some value at various points throughout the game’s history, but that value isn’t terribly consistent and is ever declining as more stall options become available. This means she’s a relatively fringe consideration these days, and will mostly only be useful for niche players. However, she isn’t awful either and can be a reasonable Pusher promotion if you like her (mmmm panda PUS-Y¹). If she appeals to you, both skills are potential options, although both are pretty replaceable in the modern game too.
Her S2 is likely her best use case in the current game due to the fact it has a better Shift Force than Shaw’s similar S2, and a shorter cooldown than Weedy’s S3, which gives FEater at least some niche that can’t otherwise be covered. The snare effect and longer range means it can be used effectively for general stall too. Mastery is important as it is with almost all Shifter skills. It gains the typical Force increase at S2M3 that alone is worthwhile. The snare and SP improvements aren’t particularly large, but since the Force bonus is important alone, they’re a nice bonus anyway.
Her S1 is more replaceable, but still good if you want to maximize her. Historically, it’s had a lot of value as a stall skill, but that’s just not a common niche anymore. The problem is really that Shaw’s S1 has the same SP cost and Force value, so FEater’s S2 just looks very expensive in comparison, meaning that these days FEater’s S1 is only really used because you don’t want to use Shaw instead, if you use either of them in the first place. But if you want to use FEater specifically, Mastery is again valuable due to the Force increase and SP cost drop. That SP drop is at S1M1, but is not labeled as a breakpoint since the Force increase is the real prize for Mastery.
¹ Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. FEater was my OG waifu in the game
Manticore#
Manticore is one of those units that is good, but what she does is far from essential. Worse, she’s a relatively rare case where the 4★ in her archetype is significantly better. Ethan is one of the best 4★s in the entire game and is easily accessible, which makes Manticore a desire or niche-tier of unit despite otherwise being pretty decent.
What Manticore does best is control via her S1 which is a rare control skill with 100% uptime, no RNG, and no wind-up. It’s actually an odd early design choice because the rest of her kit is centered around DPS, seeming to suggest the idea that HG didn’t originally view Ambushers as control units. In any case, Mastery on her S1 significantly improves the MVSPD reduction, which is the entire reason you may want to raise her in the first place, making it relatively valuable.
You could consider her S2 for Mastery as well if you really love her, although it is far less special. The idea behind it is that her interval extends just enough to always trigger her Talent. That’s a pretty flavorful choice, although it turns out to not be terribly practical. Even in ideal circumstances, her DPS is low, and the longer interval makes the Stun unreliable, plus she loses all of her S1 MVSPD control she’s known for. Still, she does Stun in a True-AoE on a great cycle, so it can be a viable investment for the min-maxers or the simps.
Finally, it is amusing that part of her character gimmick is being invisible to people, yet she is the only unit I managed to completely forget to update as part of the general guide overhaul. Oops…
Projekt Red#
Projekt Red is a somewhat tricky unit because she’s the sort of unit that’s invaluable in niche clears, but doesn’t quite have the oomph to hang in the meta anymore. For many people, just E1 for an occasional stun-bomb will be sufficient investment, but for others, Red is a valuable M6 mod3 consideration. If you exclude the giga-powerful limited/collab 6★s, Red is still one of the most valuable Executors (although appropriately, CS is at least giving her some competition now)!
Now to be clear, this does mean expensive Masteries are largely unnecessary on Red. Even lacking Texas2 and Yato2, there will generally be better use of your resources, and Red will work mostly fine at E1. Further investment is primarily for niche or waifu players in the modern game. In such a case, both of her skills are viable considerations with different uses.
In a lot of cases, her S2 is probably the better general choice. Notably, her Stun triggers instantly which has given her some use even in a meta context since a vast majority of other units have some sort of delay associated with activation. This makes her a great tool for things like interrupting attacks on demand that can be tricky with other units. However, for this purpose Mastery is also unnecessary. The Stun duration does increase, which is important, but for interrupting things, that duration doesn’t actually matter.
Meanwhile, her S1 plays into her minimum damage Talent. That used to be pretty valuable, but a lot of powerful DPS units these days will actually do more damage even if they’re only dealing the “minimum” (which is always 5% of ATK). In some ways, it’s an absurd commentary on the state of powercreep! At any rate though, that minimum damage can still be useful if you want to use Red or play in a constrained niche. It’s not special anymore, but still perfectly viable.
4★ Specialists#
Contrail#
Skyrangers are a pretty weird archetype, and it turns out to be a pretty good one too, just not for the reason most people think. Blocking aerial enemies is what catches most people’s eye, but the actual power comes from the fact they can’t be targeted while airborne and have some really strong uptime. This makes Contrail one of the better 4★s in the game as she can take off and rain some solid DPS down upon your enemies, while being almost entirely safe herself.
However, from a Mastery perspective, she isn’t that high in priority. There’s two reasons for this. One is that she is still a 4★, and while what she does is powerful, it is still replaceable by more meta caliber 6★s. Second though, she is very functional at E1 already. Her E2 Talent improvement is small, and she has her great cycle already at SL7. This isn’t to say her Mastery gains are poor, which is a more common problem in this guide. It still has a standard +30% ATK, but rather you will often get more net gain elsewhere as opposed to heavy investment into Contrail. Still, her Masteries are worthwhile, and if you opt to invest further into her, stick with her S2. While her S1 does have a few benefits that may occasionally creep up in a niche clear, her S2 is broadly better in all regards.
Jaye#
Jaye is one of those funny units. On his release, he seemed absurd, and one of the most common community debates was if you should raise him or not due to his base skill. That’s a pretty dated debate now since there’s a ton of better TP combos though, so there’s really no issue with raising him. However, his power seemed ridiculous for his rarity, and still sort of is. Even now, few units have the sort of sustain Jaye does. However, as enemy DEF ever increases, which Jaye struggles with, and the power ceiling continues to rise, Jaye declines significantly from his peak. He is still an amazing and will help a lot of people early on, but these days Ethan is the far more powerful long term 4★ Specialist. For a vast majority of purposes, including IS, Jaye will work perfectly fine at E1 SL7.
If you want to promote Jaye further, be it because you like him, play in a niche, or just find him especially valuable, the first promotion should actually be his MER-X base Module. The effect is just so great in terms of usability of the archetype, although his upgrades are pretty valueless.
After that, S2 is his only skill really worth Mastery, which is the skill all his value comes from. The gains are pretty significant too. He gains more ATK of course, which helps with his DPH problems, but further gains a significant improvement to his heal and wind-up, both of which very much matter. For the low 4★ costs, they’re among the more powerful potential Masteries, although again, are broadly optional for how he is typically used.
Pass on his S1, although it may have some rare use for 4★ niche players. It doesn’t have the sustain of his S2 which is defining feature, but it winds-up much faster and the 4★s don’t have a lot of Silence options either. Those are very fringe considerations though, and situations that it’s better than his S2 are rare.
Ethan#
* Note that Ethan’s S2 is graded assuming he has his AMB-X at level 3. If you do not plan to get this Module fully upgraded, treat the priority of this skill significantly lower.
Ethan is one of the best stall units in the game, which is weird because he’s a 4★. He’s one of very very few 4★s that justify general investment for almost any player. While he lacks the damage of higher rarity comparables like Ascalon and Mizuki, his control is actually better. At S2M3 and Mod3, he has an 84% chance per attack, in a True-AoE, to Bind, which lasts his entire interval, meaning he has high odds to permanently Bind everyone in range for the duration.
It’s still hard to exactly call him essential though. There’s still a frustrating amount of RNG at times, and generally, you can just DPS your way through most problems. Early on, that should be your priority too. But once you feel confident in your core roles, Ethan is one of, if not the best option to expand your roster with.
Both his S2M3 Masteries and AMB-X Module are essential to this. The boosts of these together are what give him that consistency, mod2 especially since without it the Bind doesn’t last long enough. He’s still functional at lower investments, but it’s nowhere near the same, so for the low 4★ costs, both are relatively no-brainer investments.
Looking beyond those, his S1 could be an option too, although it’s more situational and Mastery on it isn’t needed. The reason is that it’s already always active and its main value is for hit-count based mechanics. The damage on it is very weak, even at S1M3, and is the only thing that improves over Mastery. Instead, it’s just used to chip away at hit-count mechanics in a True-AoE for which Mastery is unnecessary.
Shaw#
* For a general discussion of Shifter priority and skills, check out these discussions.
Shaw and Rope are probably the only units you ever need as far as Shifting is concerned (not counting other value the 6★s bring). It’s fundamentally a map dependent mechanic, and while there is some value in the higher rarity Shifting skills to be found, the two 4★s are all you’ll really need. Further, as far as this guide goes, Mastery isn’t even necessary or even recommended on them! The return for the resources is just not that high so it becomes the sort of promotion you should only look towards when your core roles are all filled and you can start to afford the more situational sorts of skills.
To be clear, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to Master her skills either (well, one of them at least). Shaw herself is pretty popular, and 4★ Masteries are inexpensive, so it’s reasonable still for even occasional use, just on the lower end of priority.
Shaw’s only skill really worth Mastery is her S1 due to a flaw with her S2. Surprisingly, her S1 actually has the same SP cost and Force as the comparable skill on all of the higher rarities. Of course, the others also do other things, but purely for putting things in holes, Shaw actually makes the most sense due to the lower costs. As with almost all Shifter skills, Mastery on it is very valuable due to a Force increase at S1M3 on top of the SP reduction.
So why not consider her S2 when the comparable skill on the higher rarities are all graded? Well, I’ve you’ve read through most of the Shifter write-ups, you’ll probably have noticed I say “most” get a Force increase at M3. Shaw’s S2 is why that “most” is there because it’s exception that does not get a Force increase at M3. That makes it worse for the job than anyone else in almost all cases. The only things that change over Mastery are a small amount of SP and some damage that doesn’t matter (she’s not a DPS unit), so there’s really no reason to Master the skill outside of the 4★ niche. However, it’s worth a quick note to say that the skill isn’t useless either. It pushes in an AoE while her S1 is 2 targets. The higher rarity comparables generally hit multiple targets as well though, which still leaves the skill for niches only.
Rope#
* For a general discussion of Shifter priority and skills, check out these discussions.
Shaw and Rope are probably the only units you ever need as far as Shifting is concerned (not counting other value the 6★s bring). It’s fundamentally a map dependent mechanic, and while there is some value in the higher rarity Shifting skills to be found, the two 4★s are all you’ll really need. Further, as far as this guide goes, Mastery isn’t even necessary or even recommended on them! The return for the resources is just not that high so it becomes the sort of promotion you should only look towards when your core roles are all filled and you can start to afford the more situational sorts of skills.
To be clear, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to Master Rope’s skills either. 4★ Masteries are inexpensive, so it’s reasonable still for even occasional use, just on the low end of priority. However, keep in mind that Gladiia, the 6★ Hookmaster, is freely available and is a far more valuable unit, so Rope is a lower priority unit than Shaw is.
Both skills are viable options, depending on how much you want to use Rope, but her S2 is the more unique use case for her. Her skills have the typical Shifter split on S1 vs S2, but for Rope. her S1 is generally worse at the job than her higher rarity counterparts. Meanwhile her S2 is more comparable and can actually be better in some cases due to the range difference. It reaches out 4 tiles instead of the more typical 3, so there’s a few scenarios only Rope works (albeit rare ones).
In both cases, Mastery is typically valuable as it is with almost all Shifter skills. Both get a Force increase at M3 (unlike Shaw) so both are valuable if you plan to use them. Both also get SP cost reductions which can matter as well, although note that her S1M3 still has a higher SP than comparable skills on units like Cliffheart and Gladiia, thus accounting for the lower grade.
Gravel#
Gravel is one of those special units because she’s one that virtually everyone has used and is quite popular. But she does her job as a bulk FRD, which the higher rarities still can’t do, fantastically well already at E1 SL7. E2 and Mastery is simply unnecessary with her. However, because she’s so popular and widely used, many people do them anyway for no other reason than because she’s earned it!
I strongly encourage that. The best way to enjoy the game is like this without stressing too much about the meta context. However, there is some nuance here for those interested. Most of it is that it is unnecessary, as already mentioned. Gravel is very valuable, but does it well at low investments already. Especially in IS, where she’s still useful, it doesn’t make sense to spend more Hope on promotion costs with her. That’s why her grades here are on the low side despite her general value. However, her Mastery gains are really strong, so they can still make sense to do if you want to give one of our most loyal Operators the promotions she deserves for all her hard work.
In such a case, her S2 is really the only skill to consider. Simply, the HP total on S2 is more useful than the DEF total on S1. HP makes her more useful against all variety of threats, not just Physical, but importantly she loses less to the decay time, resulting in a better net effect. There’s very few places where her S1 is the better option, so pursuing it would primarily be a waifu matter. As discussed above, the value of her S2 Masteries is unnecessary, but they are a decent total which can have value now and then. Her HP shield benefits from her Module and levels as well, but all maxed out, the difference comes out to around 1.4k additional HP over Mastery which can add a lot of comfort to using our beautiful prairie dog.
4★ and 5★ Ungraded Specialists#
Figurino#
On first read of Figurino’s kit, it can be tempting to assume that he must have some use with his 50% uptime AoE Bind. But in practice, the costs are just too steep, particularly compared to Ethan who is functionally better without the Merchant baggage. There is a small amount of value in his kit, but for a vast majority of people, it just costs too much, both in terms of materials, in effort, and in mechanics.
As far as Masteries go, S2 is his main skill, but the situation is even worse since Mastery only affects his damage and a small improvement to his initial wind-up. That isn’t nothing. The initial windup can be important if you’re really trying to use him and his DPS is actually alright! But it also isn’t core to his value either, which makes it a questionable investment.
His S1 might be a very fringe consideration if you’re really dedicated to using him though. It’s a bit similar to Mr. Nothing’s S2 and boasts some fairly impressive consistent DPS. That short-windup, 100% uptime, on a FRD can have value. However, he lacks Mr. Nothing’s Talent, so it ultimately has no special meta value outside of a few niches.
Almond#
* For a general discussion of Shifter priority and skills, check out these discussions.
There isn’t a lot of reason to invest resources into Almond’s Masteries. Unfortunately for her, the Hookmaster archetype is a crowded one, and she comes dead last in value among them even before considering that all of her competition is given out for free. If you particularly like Almond, for whatever reason, or fancy yourself one of those extreme niche players, then both of Almond’s skills are viable options, and you will likely want to invest in the full M6 despite her otherwise poor performance.
Her S1 has the most potential if you’re aiming for a niche that doesn’t include Gladiia. Charge based Shift skills (such as Gladiia’s similar S1) are potentially very powerful, and at S1M3 along with her Talent, Almond can have as many as four charges immediately available. Unfortunately, she’s stuck at a basic Force level of 1 with no upgrade via Mastery that most other Shift skills get. This really limits where it can be used and Hookmaster’s are already quite situational. Gladiia’s S1 is just straightup better because of this.
Note that while her S1 does not get a Shift increase at M3, it does get a reduction in SP cost on a charge-based skill, so it’s still valuable if you’re planning to use Almond.
S2 is unfortunately rather awkward. It’s pretty significantly inferior to either Cliffheart’s or Snowsant’s S2, which both can catch multiple enemies and have much lower SP costs. Catching only one target is a huge usability problem, and she will often not hook who you want on top of far lower availability. The Bind uptime is pretty negligible as well for being single-target on such a long cycle. The one upside potential it has is the triple pull. This potentially can give it a leg up, but situations that’s useful in are quite rare due to how pulling works. The net distance an enemy moves when pulled actually decreases with how close the enemy gets, so the total distance pulled is not a simple 3x like you might expect. Mastery will still be worth a look if you plan to use Almond due to the Force increase, but the average player should strongly consider any of the other Hookmasters instead.
Spuria#
There is no unit in the game that I hate more from a design perspective than Spuria. She is the peak of the worst design era for 5★s. I already hated Windflit for his restrictive and subpar buff, then Spuria further doubled down on the formula of awful. Not only is she restricted to a single class, but her “buff” is a net loss on a vast majority of targets! There is only a small handful of units in the huge roster that even see an improvement, even before accounting for the suboptimal nature of buffing or the fact it’s worse than many existing options!
Many will insist on trying though, and the Laterano niche is increasing in popularity¹. If that applies to you, both skills are options and fill different roles depending on what you want out of her. S2 is her buff skill. As mentioned, there are few Snipers it actually works well on, but there are some out there so it can be usable depending on your other favorites. If you want to make more regular use out of her, you could consider her S1 as well. The effects on her Talent are actually decent, so the extra ASPD can make her a passable helidrop unit. However, the long redeployment cycle and frustrating RNG mean it’s definitely a waifu-only investment.
¹ Yes, Spuria works with Lemuen. However, Lemuen doesn’t really benefit from ASPD so it’s minimal.
Kirara#
Kirara is a unit I so badly want to work. Her design is so cool and she has some pretty great op recs, on top of her association with the ever popular Utage. Unfortunately, she’s just bad. Her design concept is as a forward facing survival tank, but that’s just not what Ambushers are good at, and her DPS is way too low to have any meaningful impact.
If you want to try to make her work anyway, which is ill-advised (she’s one of the worst ungraded units in this guide and has no niche either), both skills are options, largely due to both being so underwhelming that there isn’t a clear winner. S1 is the more consistent option, and it can be tempting to think the 2 SP cost is low enough, but the problem is the Ambusher interval is 3.5 seconds, so even at S1M3 it’s still a 12.5 second cycle for 1.5 extra hits. S2 meanwhile is slightly more impactful, but has a poor cycle time, and still does bad damage. I favor S2 a little bit since S1’s long effective cycle means S2’s longer cycle doesn’t look as bad for the effect, but neither is a good choice.
Snowsant#
* For a general discussion of Shifter priority and skills, check out these discussions.
Any of the 5★ Shifters are luxury promotions, and Snowsant suffers because there are not one, but two Welfare Hookmasters that are better. Gladiia is a crazy powerful Abyssal Hunter, and Cliffheart cycles better, with better range, and better side effects. So that means there isn’t a lot of reason to consider raising Snowsant, even in niches. However, she is a functional puller (unlike Almond) if she appeals to you more, and has some niche value too.
That niche value is in her S2. The niche value is that unlike any other Hookmaster skill, it can target an unlimited number of enemies. Usually, that won’t matter. Cliffheart and Gladiia both target a lot and are very effective at it. Further, as noted, it cycles worse than Cliffheart’s S2 which also has a lot of other benefits. However, there are places that unlimited targeting can come into play which makes it notable at least. Mastery is vital too, as it is on most Shifter skills, due to a Force increase at S2M3. For Snowsant, it pretty significantly improves her cycle time too.
Pass on her S1 unless you specifically want to use Snowsant over anyone else. It has the same Shift Force as the rest of the Hookmaster S1’s, but the same SP cost as the much cheaper Rope, not to mention worse than either Gladiia or Cliffheart. The Slow aspect of it isn’t useful on a puller (it is on a pusher though!), so there’s just no niche reason to consider it, leaving it a waifu-only skill despite the Force increase at S1M3.
Waai Fu#
There’s an old adage in the game that more FRDs are never bad. That’s a fact that has kept Waai Fu afloat since she’s typically been considered the least valuable of non-6★s, with some pretty unnecessary Masteries and a Talent that often causes trouble instead of helping. However, her effects are decent helidrop utility, so she is definitely not a bad unit! It’s mostly just that further investment beyond E1 SL7 doesn’t have a lot of value.
A lot of people like to maximize their units though, and Waai Fu is seeing an uptick in value with IS#6. In such a case, both skills are options, but strongly favor her S1 for Mastery. If you plan to use her in IS#6, it’s for this skill due to being able to helidrop an ATK debuff, and that debuff does improve over Mastery. It’s rare that the difference will matter (or justify the Hope), but it is her best use.
Meanwhile her S2 is helidrop Silence. That’s useful too (albeit less useful than the ATK debuff). However, in this case, the extra Silence over Mastery just almost never matters. Cases where 7 seconds aren’t enough but 8 seconds are, are almost non-existent, and the only other gain is a small amount of damage, so there’s little reason to pursue Mastery beyond completion’s sake, despite being a decent skill.
Verdant#
Verdant is a bad unit, and the only thing that saves him from being a true bottom-tier unit is his archetype. Dollkeepers are one of the rare archetypes where it’s hard to be truly awful because at the very least they’re effective bait. Which is about the only thing Verdant is good for. If you’re willing to go the extra mile of investment with him, he can reach a passable level of HP using S1. Along with his Talent, it can make him pretty hard to kill. But that’s about it. S2 would be his DPS skill, but his DPS is so negligibly bad even if it didn’t kill him. As it is though, his S2 will rapidly kill him for bad damage and a long effective cycle, so there’s very little reason to consider it.