6★ Supporters#
Nasti#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S3M3 | A- | A+ |
 | S2M3 | Breakpoint - S2M1 | |
| C | B- | ||
Nasti is one of the most unique units in the game. Her primary gimmick is creating a high ground tile anywhere that’s deployable on the map, a tool that can really open up certain strategies. However, there’s a lot of caution to be aware of before heavily investing in her. First, she can’t do it all on her own. Her personal effects are pretty weak, so if your roster is limited, early investment into Nasti may not make sense. That leads to the second point, where her lateral value is pretty low for a modern 6★. While her high ground tile is great, and she has some side value in very Advanced clears as an SP battery, she does little else. And last, her Masteries are quite low value. That may actually serve as a counterbalance to the first two points, because only E2 is required for her to be an effective high-tile slave! In any case, it does mean you should be wary before pursuing her Masteries if resources are tight or you have other good options.
Be aware that for all of Nasti’s skills, there are gains beyond what is displayed on her skill box. All of her devices improve too, with differing effects depending on the skill. That will be discussed per skill below, but you can find the full information here for S1, here for S2, and here for S3.
S3, of course, is her main skill. It’s the skill that makes the high ground tile, which is almost the entire reason you’d consider raising her at all. How it works is that she can deploy up to two devices pointed at the same tile (she can only have one high ground tile at a time). The devices grant 1 SP per second each to the tile, and that rate doubles during her skill. When the tile receives 50 SP, it becomes a high ground tile. At another 50 SP, the tile grants an ATK and HP buff to the unit on it and improves the stats of the tile itself, and at a final 50 SP, the buff doubles, the tile stats improve again, and it remains on the map even if Nasti is retreated.
Her S3’s activation time is important for getting the tile on-line in a timely manner, however Mastery doesn’t have a big influence here. The uptime doesn’t change, the SP cost only drops by 2 SP, and the initial wind-up only drops by 5 SP. Those changes can matter, but likely won’t. Instead, the main improvement of Mastery is actually to the buff, which is semi-hidden since it’s only displayed in-game in the device’s skill box during a stage. At SL7, it grants +15% HP and ATK per stack. At S3M3, it grants +20% HP and ATK instead. Keep in mind those values double on a fully upgraded tile, so this buff can actually be a significant improvement. That makes Mastery on her S3 still worth pursuing, just keep in mind that the tile building itself will barely improve. As for her personal buffs, those do improve as well, but just don’t matter on an Artificer, a problem that plagues all of the archetype.
Her S2 has some value as well, but it’s a much much more situational skill and only tends to really be used in some extremely min-maxed scenarios. As far as general SP buffers go, it’s far from the largest total recovery, but is unique in how fast it applies it on top of a Barrier. This lets her cycle some extremely powerful skills, like Tragodia’s S3, in extremely dangerous situations. What happens is the device, if allowed to sit, will recover “HP” every few seconds, up to a total of 8. When Nasti activates her skill, this HP is rapidly converted into SP and Barrier. This means some wind-up time is required to maximize the effect.
This is a relatively fringe skill since the total SP recovery is relatively low, nor can she cycle multiple devices rapidly, but in those extreme places it is used, Mastery is very important. There’s three key reasons. First, there’s a hidden breakpoint at S2M1 that drops the cost of the HP recovery from 6 SP to 5 SP. That drops a lot of time off the wind-up, in situations where every second matters. Second, the Barrier improves pretty significantly at S2M3. And third, the SP cost and initial SP improve relatively significantly as well. On many skills, these levels of gains wouldn’t be too important, but in places where her S2 is used, they matter quite a bit. Which leads to a weird balance of priority. If that extreme type of gameplay appeals to you, S2 Masteries can seem vital. If you don’t, then there are better SP skills to invest in.
Last is her S1, which probably isn’t worth considering. It might matter for some maximalists, such as the “Supporters w/o Summoners” niche, and there are probably a few places the additional block could matter, but the cost of a 6★ Mastery for that sort of use is hard to justify for most people. The gains on it are on the low-side in either case, so it becomes the sort of skill most people shouldn’t bother with.
Astgenne the Lightchaser#
Astgenne the Lightchaser is a novel and fun unit with a pretty interesting kit, however as is tradition with most 6★ Welfare units, she isn’t all that special in terms of meta so most people shouldn’t be raising her. Her damage is unimpressive, her control can be unpredictable with poor uptime, and the things that make her kit “interesting” may in fact be frustrating to a lot of players instead. However, she isn’t a bad unit either, and she is useful in a handful of niches, so will still be an appealing promotion for some. If that might apply to you, she also happens to have some pretty valuable Masteries,
She’s the sort of unit where it’s hard to make a definitive suggestion for the skill you should start with since her S2 and S3 do very different things, or if you’re a pessimist, are both flawed in different ways. We have to start somewhere here though, and her S3 is her skill that more people are likely to find useful. With it, she locks on to two targets, which will be Slowed for a 100% uptime (if she has her base DEC-Y Module) and causes them to share some Arts damage. This gives her best DPS, her best range, her more reliable (as in, predictability) control, and her more useful unique feature. Most notably for Mastery, the amount of Arts damage that is shared between the targets improves at S3M3 which can be a strong improvement when paired with other strong Casters on top of her own DPS.
However, her S2 is also a useful skill. It’s much harder to predict, but can result in better and more consistent (as in, total uptime) control. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but basically at S2M3, she’ll target two enemies. Each target is Slowed for a relatively long time, and will each drag three surrounding enemies to them. The primary targets are not shifted by their own trigger, but can be shifted by the other target’s trigger. This can be very chaotic at times, especially with hoards of lighter enemies as they get tossed every which way every few seconds, but it can also be reasonably effective depending on the circumstance. However, it is fairly poor for stalling solo enemies since, as noted, the primary target isn’t shifted unless there is a second target.
Unusually, her S2 is probably the first skill ever to have a breakpoint at all three levels. At S2M1 she gains an additional target, at S2M2 the SP cost drops, and at S2M3 she gains an additional link target. That makes S2 quite valuable for Mastery if you plan to use her at all, however only S2M1 is given special note in the gradebox here, owing to the general value due to her off-meta nature.
Pass on her S1 unless you’re a true maximalist. It doesn’t have any particular defining feature like her other two skills, and the Slow isn’t especially high uptime. However, it does have her highest burst DPS, so it might be distantly useful for the simps.
Haruka#
Like Quercus before her, Haruka bypasses the main problem Abjurers suffer from. The toggle nature of Abjurers makes them very unreliable as healers, but when their skill durations are infinite, that’s not so much a problem! Haruka then amps it up with the modern power-creep 6★ numbers, resulting in one of the best and easiest to use healers in the game. This makes Haruka a relatively high priority upgrade, but a bit lower than others of her caliber. Healing is the lowest priority of the core roles, and the easiest to optimize out, so for as great at the job as she is, Haruka ends up less essential than many recent 6★s.
Haruka’s main skill, and far and away her best investment, is her S2 which has that mentioned infinite duration. The low SP cost means it comes online much more reliably than many similar skills like Eyja2’s or Quercus’ S1s, and the effects when it comes fully online are very strong. Mastery gains are on the low-side, with only an approximately 12% improvement to HPS and a negligible SP improvement (since the wind-up is already so fast), but for skills of this caliber, value isn’t a huge consideration. Even a modest improvement on one of the best healing skills is still worthwhile, although it does reinforce the idea of treating Haruka on the low-end of the high-tier units.
Meanwhile, Haruka’s S3 is a slightly weird skill. It has an extremely good effect, but hasn’t proven to be all that valuable. The primary reason for this is that it falls into the old trap Abjurers typically do, but made worse by an extremely long SP cost. While she is slightly better than other Abjurers during skill downtime thanks to her Bubble Talent, she is still much lower value during skill downtime than regular Medics, which means there’s a high opportunity cost to use her S3. So her S3 is a surprisingly low priority investment for the impact of the effect. It will likely be worthwhile for niche players and simps, since it has an absolutely massive burst HPS and strong control, but for meta-minded players, sticking with just her S2 is sufficient.
Finally, pass on her S1. The effect is decent, but in addition to the Abjurer downtime problem, the effect isn’t all that different from her S2, meaning there’s very few places it’s the best choice, even for simps.
Raidian#
Radian is currently completely unique in that she is raised entirely via playing IS#6. In fact, you quite literally cannot raise her by traditional means even if you want to. This means Raidian does not have Mastery priority. There’s no value consideration here because you can M3 all of her skills doing nothing but playing the game. However, a write-up is still provided here for general guidance.
She is an extremely powerful unit, both in and out of IS#6. Unlike the previous iteration Welfares, only her Module is specific to the mode. Her Module is a great boost too which makes her one of the top picks in the iteration, but it means she still has all of the rest of her kit in the remainder of the game. As a general unit, she is the most powerful Summoner (which is crazy to think about as an older player). Like Ling before her, she can solo much of the game herself if that’s your desire, making her a great newbie unit as well. Although it is worth noting that with the rising power ceiling, as with Ling, it’s still best to bring a normal team.
In any case, Raidian’s “main” skill is a fairly even split between S2 and S3, with the difference being entirely dependent on the map needs. It’s a good thing her promotions are free because she’d be quite expensive otherwise! Both have strong DPS and range, so S2 is favored for Physical and Melee tiles and S3 is favored for Arts and Ranged tiles.
Starting with her S2, the summons are Melee tile deployable and do Physical damage. They have a higher per-target DPS than S3, albeit with a relatively low DPH, and have a long range. This, along with some basic blocking (they have 2-block) makes it a great option where Raidian is largely doing support, holding basic lanes and handling the lower caliber enemies so you can set up the rest of the team against the harder ones.
Next, her S3, the summons are Ranged tile deployable and do Arts damage. The unique thing here is that they can chain their attacks, meaning tile restrictions aren’t nearly as big of a problem, and allowing extremely high and focused ST damage, making it great for harder targets (especially since S2 has a lowish DPH). It is very costly to set up though and she has no blocking ability while using them, so can be somewhat more situational than S2.
Last is her S1. It’s much more situational than the other two, but still useful. It’s basically her defensive skill. While her summons are expensive DP-wise, they are shockingly bulky for summons, with more stats than many actual Defenders. The damage on it is quite bad though so it’s the skill that depends most on the rest of the team to be viable, but that flexibility is very nice for a skill that doesn’t cost anything to Master!
Tragodia#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | S++ | S++ |
 | S3M3 | Breakpoint - S3M1 | |
| A | S | ||
 | S1M3 | C | C |
Tragodia is an absurdly broken unit. He has multiple layers of control which individually would still see him be a meta mainstay, but instead he brings them all together along with great damage. He’s the sort of broken that will be difficult to powercreep too, so Tragodia should be a top Mastery consideration and should remain that way for a long long time.
His primary skill is his S2, and there is a lot to note about it. It requires a wind-up before he can get to the good stuff, but it’s a fairly short 25 SP, improving by 5 SP over Mastery. Once up, his ASPD improves, again improving over Mastery, this time by 10 ASPD. It’s not a huge amount, but is still a significant improvement. That alone would already make it a solid skill given NIs strength, but the real feature of the skill is he can now summon a cat-bomb. The summon has a game-breaking Lure mechanic that will pull any non-immune enemy off of its path to try and pet the kitty and get bombed. When it explodes, which can be triggered early by retreating it, it does a massive amount of Arts damage, which again improves significantly over Mastery, Slows, and nearly instantly triggers NI. To give you a sense of how powerful it is, the Arts damage alone is about as powerful as Texas the Omertosa’s S3! If that weren’t enough, the redeploy timer on it begins to count down from deployment rather than expiration too!
It’s further notable that the amount of NI applied by the cat-bomb also improves at S2M3, and this opens up an important breakpoint that allows him to trigger NI burst against bosses in a single cat-bomb instead of two. However, be aware that reaching this also requires other investment into various combinations of high levels and Module upgrades. Mastery alone is not enough.
His S2 is one of the most ridiculous skills in the game but if there’s any knock against it in terms of Mastery, it would be that it’s already broken at SL7 since many of the best features don’t improve over Mastery or need other expensive investments. So that could be a tie breaker with the other top-tier skills, however the damage, wind-up improvements, and potential boss breakpoint more than mean it remains one of the highest priority considerations.
Meanwhile, his S3 is also absurdly broken, and would also be a top-tier Mastery consideration, were it not for the fact that it has some surprisingly unimportant gains. There’s a lot of details with this skill too so I’d definitely suggest checking out the wiki entries if you’re interested in all the nitty gritty details, but the key point is that his S3 summons/renews blockers when NI burst triggers. They absorb three hits. When you consider the paralysis effect, the rapid NI application (the NI duration reduction means he can reapply NI faster), and the fact they renew, it effectively means a complete stall to everyone in range over the duration.
However, for Mastery only two things improve, his ATK and the initial wind-up. That ATK means applying NI faster, but only S3M1 (assuming mod1) actually influences anything. Supposing level 60 and mod1, elites and bosses never improve from SL7 (2 hits and 4 hits respectively), but basic mobs improve from 3 hits to 2 hits at S3M1. More than that will only ever matter when there are ATK debuffs, which are rare outside of CCs. That does matter, so it’s not a skill that should be totally ignored, and Advanced players will find the wind-up makes a big difference. However, for casual use, beyond the S3M1 breakpoint is a bit of a luxury compared to other top-tier units.
That all said, the above discussion assumes an enemy “Effect Resistance” (RES vs filling the circle) of 0. To date, and looking ahead as of this writing, very few enemies have any, and only in small amounts when it is there. However, that could change in the future so Mastery on S3 could be considered a bit of “future-proofing” as well.
Last is his S1. This guide doesn’t usually suggest AFK skills for their own sake, and indeed that is still the case here. Absolutely start with his S2! However, Tragodia and NI are so strong that a lot of people will find value in his S1. It boosts the NI from his Talent1, and at only 2 SP at S1M3, allows for very reliable and consistent application. That NI rate improves over Mastery, but rather than worrying about what breakpoints apply when and at which levels/modules, the main reason to Master the skill is actually the SP reduction at S1M3. That may be worthwhile for the truly lazy among us, but again, his S2 is far more potent (and can also be used AFK), so please please please do not skip it to start with his weakest skill.
Civilight Eterna#
Civilight Eterna (CE) is a rather unusual unit. She’s pretty great for a welfare, but her kit is extremely similar to a preexisting limited, Skadi the Corrupting Heart. Further, the Bard’s Inspiration buffs don’t stack, so they’re largely incompatible. Of course, CE has her own value too that makes her worthy of consideration regardless, but that value can be lower depending on if you have Skadi2 already or not. On her own merits, CE is pretty strong with a lot of utility built into her kit that makes her a highly flexible unit with a lot of potential use. However, amid the ever growing power ceiling, she’s hardly a must have quantity either since Bard’s are somewhat situational by nature.
CE’s main skill is her S2. It can be a little tricky to setup correctly, but if you can get the target you want to line up with the particle’s path (without outside interference) she can do pretty consistent True Damage with a 100% uptime Bind on multiple targets, then she gets a strong ATK Inspiration boost too, although be aware that it’s nowhere near as strong as Skadi2’s nor does it stack. Mastery on it is reasonably valuable too. No single improvement really stands out, but it totals up pretty neatly if you plan to make regular use out of her. Of particular note, that all important Bind will generally work just fine at SL7, although that extra half second at M3 does make it a bit more consistent to set up.
Her secondary skill is her S3. It’s a bit more situational, but is a very strong healing skill. Essentially the combination of the HP rebalancing along with the souped up Trait healing means it’s harder for an individual unit under pressure to die while also giving a strong total HPS. It can be really great to keep up high pressure HP loss, such as boss tankers or Surtr’s S3. Mastery on it is pretty good too. The biggest flaw with the skill is the SP cost, which gets a pretty drastic improvement and the Trait improvement too can total up really nicely considering it applies to everyone.
Her S1 brings up the rear. It can be a decent AFK healing skill if that’s your thing, but it’s a role that has no ceiling and can often just be filled by regular ol’ Medics. In other words, there’s no real special value that justifies all those resources other than wanting to specifically use CE over other basic options.
Virtuosa#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S1M3 | Breakpoint - S1M1 | |
| A | A+ | ||
 | S3M3 | A | A- |
 | S2M3 | None | |
Virtuosa is the sort of unit that gives me a headache writing this guide. Elemental burst triggers on a set amount of damage, so it’s not a case where more is always better. There’s a flat cap after which anything more is just lost. That complicates the value question because there are a lot of permutations. There are 90 levels, 2 Modules (at least, as of this writing), 3 skills, and even potentials make a difference! It all results in a lot of complexity that makes it hard to give a one sized fits all answer. Then add onto that the fact Necrosis has already been powercrept by Nervous Impairment, and they don’t stack!
So first, although rare in this guide to make a direct power comparison, if you intend to use Tragodia, I would not consider raising Virtuosa. Virtuosa can ultimately be a very expensive promotion, and Tragodia is significantly better, but most importantly, they can’t work together either. In many ways, Virtuosa is one of the biggest losers in the modern powercreep!
That said, if you plan to raise her anyway, she is a strong M6 and I would give both of her primary skills a reasonably high priority despite all the permutations. They aren’t as vital as other raw damage Masteries, but both of her main skills maximized make a difference. Virtuosa is a case where she doesn’t really have a “primary” skill in the sense most other 6★s do. Her job is to apply Necrosis, and all of her skills do that in different ways. Her main two are S1 and S3, with the main difference being whether you need a wave clear or something more consistent for big single targets.
Considering the prior points, S1 is likely the better starting point. This is because its charge based nature means that reaching certain breakpoints results in less charges being spent, while S3 “merely” gets faster. S1 has several breakpoints spread throughout which, as said, will depend on her level, potentials, and Module. Not all of them may matter for your specific setup, but many do involve it being maximized, which makes that decision relatively simple. Further, S1M3 allows her to deploy with a full 3 charges, something that can often make a huge difference to her viability.
S3 meanwhile is pretty effective at applying Necrosis already at SL7. The time to burst between SL7 and S3M3 is still quite large though, so it’s definitely still worth considering, but the difference also tends to be less vital than with her S1. Mastery also gives it a fairly significant uptime improvement which can matter for sneaking in a second burst effect in a single activation. However, the buff improvements are a rather forgettable component of the skill.
Last, you could consider her S2 if you really want to maximize your Virtuosa usage, but there are few scenarios where it’s better than her other skills. Its main value is in that she can create a large effective range by piggybacking on someone else. So if you really want someone to decay waaaaay over there, it can be a fun option that cycles a lot faster than her S3 too. However, the value of that is questionable and her other skills are far better at actually applying Necrosis, and don’t require outside help.
Silence the Paradigmatic#
Abjurers are not a generally strong archetype. They need something really absurd to elevate them (such as with Haruka or Quercus) out of the basement. Silence the Parag… Paradigi… ahem, Silence2 makes a pretty good attempt at it with some novel utility, but ultimately falls short. She has enough to be useful for niches (Welfare-only especially) or waifu players, but far from enough to be a general consideration.
Her main unique value is her S3 which can prevent a unit in her range from dying. That can be a very cool and fun thing, but tends to fall into the flaw of invulnerability skills where you can usually just avoid the scenario in the first place! Nevertheless, it’s a very rare bit of utility and is by far her most unique feature. However, the Mastery gains on it aren’t terribly impressive either. The extended duration of the invulnerability may catch your eye, but actually isn’t terribly important. There aren’t a lot of spots where that pressure continues beyond the killing blow! The SP cost reduction is rather dramatic, but that is counterbalanced by the fact the skill can only be used twice in the first place. And Mastery doesn’t improve the healing effect at all. The difference over Mastery can still matter in those min-maxed niche situations, but aren’t terribly vital for casual use either.
If you’d like to make more regular use out of her, you could consider her S2 instead. It is much less special so it is only likely to be useful in niches where options are often restricted, but it does tend to be a rather strong healing skill. It cycles fast, which makes it far more accessible than her twice-per-battle S3, although the uptime is rather poor still, and the beacon can be useful too. The gains on it are quite a bit better too.
Pass on her S1. While it cycles better than her S2, it ultimately heals for less and lacks any special value, so it’s better to just bring a normal Medic instead.
Stainless#
Stainless is a rather interesting unit. He’s very much a gimmicky sort, but unlike many other gimmicky sorts, he’s still pretty functional with a lot of packed in utility. He was never a meta consideration even when he was new, and is less so now as the power ceiling ever increases, but is one of the more viable and fun alternatives if you’re after something a bit different.
All of his skills have various roles, but S3 tends to be his primary, which is convenient because it also has the best Masteries. The most notable thing due to the fact it isn’t stated anywhere in game is that the turret has an internal skill which also improves over Mastery. From SL7 to S3M3, the direct damage increases from 260% to 300% and the splash damage increases from 120% to 150%. You can see these details on any of a number of wiki sites. If you only look at his Mastery gains in-game, they can look quite bad, but are in fact, quite strong!
The gains aside, it also tends to be his most generally valuable skill. When well paired, such as with fast hitting and/or AoE or Multi-target allies, it can churn out quite strong damage on an extended range. Allies always attacking it also results in some fairly unique utility. Puzzle can generate massive amounts of DP, Offensive Recovery skills can be easily charged, and Reapers can constantly heal, for just a few examples. However, while both fun and reasonably useful, it’s all rather gimmicky in the end. It’s the classic problem of why jump through the extra hoops when a better DPS unit will do a better job.
Second to consider would be his S1 which is a comparatively straight forward ATK buffing skill. It does a fairly good job of it too, with Mastery making a large difference in the buff total. However, it does end up being much less generally viable than many comparable buff skills due to its required setup. It needs two free tiles, the deployment time to get both out, plus additional DP, not to mention a relatively bad cycle and effectively limited uses since each use only restores one device. Buffing is rarely the best solution in the first place, and there are easier to use buffs as well, so while not a bad skill, it’s a low priority consideration.
Last is his S2. It’s a notable skill for using in the same vein as his S1, but for SP recovery. However, as far as Masteries go, it’s notable just how bad the gains are. Nothing about the SP effects change. The only things that do improve are an under 10% improvement to the SP cost and his personal buffs which just don’t matter. About the only thing that even sort of matters is the 5 initial SP at S2M1, but even that is fringe. Ultimately, it’s a skill that does actually have some value if you plan to use Stainless, but isn’t one worthy of Mastery for any reason except to show off your M9 cat.
Ling#
* While a strong unit, be wary of general investment in Ling if you don’t know what you’re getting. See the write-up for more details.
Following Ling’s initial reception in the community is a great way to see the effects of powercreep in action. On her release, many high end players hated her. She was practically a squad all on her own and could solo much of the game. This also made her tricky to evaluate, because while very powerful, she also didn’t have a lot of ceiling nor would most players find her gameplay to be satisfying. The pretext to all this though was the fact the gap from the average 6★ to her S3 double-dragons wasn’t that large. In fact, they were straight up better than many units available at the time! But of course, that is far less true now than it was on her release. The average 6★ has seen a dramatic rise in power, so even if you did want to solo the game with her, you give up quite a bit to do so.
Which is all to say that Ling is a unit you have to sort of want to use. She’s still powerful enough in that regard to warrant some decent grades, but you give up a tremendous amount of team ceiling to use her now. Especially considering she’s a limited and competing with some very powerful siblings for that spark, it makes Ling a relatively weak promotion for what was once considered a game-breaking unit!
If you do find you have a desire to use her, S3 is still by far her best choice of Mastery. It’s the skill that has those double-dragons, whose stats are still impressive in the modern game. The Mastery gains on the skill are actually rather boring, with only a typical improvement to ATK and DEF to her summons, but considering how strong they are and how she is used, that still makes the gains valuable.
Her secondary skill is S2. That used to be a more fringe consideration, however if your goal is to actually use Ling, which seems likely if you’re raising her in the first place, it makes for a strong alternative. While her S3 double-dragons are her strongest feature, they aren’t good everywhere, and her S2 covers those alternatives fairly well, although it is significantly lower in power overall.
Pass on her S1 unless you’re a real maximalist. It overlaps with her better S3 quite a bit so there aren’t nearly as many places for it to be useful as there are with S2.
Gnosis#
* Gnosis’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.
Gnosis is a powerful debuffer, although slightly flawed. He notably has a higher Fragile than most of his competition, however his poor uptime, limited range, and the fact it requires Freeze which many enemies you would want Fragile on are immune to, mean that it isn’t his primary value. While that Fragile is still valuable, he is instead mainly used for his strong Freeze and control, along with some decent damage. However, even that is a bit lacking by modern standards, ultimately meaning Gnosis is a good unit, but a bit under what he would need to be to stand among the more general purpose meta options. At least, in the general game. Fortunately for him, he is also the recipient of one of the more powerful ISW Modules, which makes him a competitive meta pick in Integrated Strategies, if not the rest of the game.
Gnosis has two good skills, but this duality of value makes for a tricky Mastery suggestion if you can’t afford to do both, a problem further exacerbated by the fact one of them requires a lot of babysitting which many people will find unpalatable.
For the non-IS parts of the game, you will likely want to lean towards S3 first. With it, he effectively freezes everyone in range for most of the duration, while doling out some alright, but not special, damage. Mastery on it is on the weaker side thanks to the fact neither damage gain is all that good. However, it does improve the uptime by 30%, which given the Freeze that also enables his Fragile, still makes the Mastery worthwhile.
However, his S3 has a pretty bad uptime, so while it’s great for control during its duration, it can be somewhat bad overall if more consistent or frequent control is needed. For those cases, his S2 has a much higher uptime Freeze. It’s the sort of skill that can be manipulated to some benefit as well. For example, since his basic attacks also inflict Cold, he doesn’t need the full Charged effect to inflict Freeze against one target if you let his basic attack land first. Mastery on it is fairly valuable as well. M1 and M2 don’t actually add much, but M3 drops an SP off the cost (effectively two due to the Charged effect) and adds a second to the Freeze. While those aren’t crazy gains, given how the skill tends to be used, they are still very worthwhile. However, in general the skill has poor damage and requires a lot of micromanagement, so it still tends to be a pretty luxury investment that some players will hate using.
With regards to IS specifically, things get a little tricky. Generally, in IS the situation is reversed with S2 being the favored skill due to the much better uptime which also closes the DPS gap, but many people will find that strategy to be unappealing since it involves a lot of button clicking and precise timing. Then even further, his skill selection often doesn’t matter as much as those around him since the Freeze applied by his fellow Kjerags will contribute much more than he personally will. It all means that there isn’t a one-sized fits all answer for Gnosis, short of “simply” doing both, which is a rather expensive proposition.
In short, if you can afford it, do both. If you can’t and prefer IS, favor his S2 if you’re willing to put in the effort for better performance, and S3 otherwise, but consider your other Kjerag options too. If you don’t prioritize IS, start with his S3 instead.
Finally, in either case you should probably pass on his S1 unless you’re a Karlan simp. It can actually have some use in places where ASPD or SP can be stacked like SSS as a source of consistent control and DPS considering his other skills have some flaws with them. However, those situations are rare and Mastery only affects the damage (which is still bad) so it’s a husbando-only tier of skill, albeit not a worthless one.
Skadi the Corrupting Heart#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | S | A |
 | S3M3 | A | A+ |
 | S1M3 | None | C+ |
Skadi the Corrupting Heart is a great all around buffer with some powerful utility that makes for both a strong and flexible unit. Her Inspiration ATK buff is currently the highest available (and by a good margin), she can place True Damage anywhere on the map, and has great AFK value for the lazy too. She’s not as crazy as she once was, owing mostly to the increasing power ceiling, but is nevertheless still a strong promotion.
Her S2 has historically been her main Mastery, but is also her skill that has aged a little worse. Its passive AFK boost to both ATK and DEF is equivalent to more than the typical rarity difference. The passive healing is incredibly strong too, often able to sustain a team on its own. It’s still probably where you should start Mastery with her, and is by far her better “daily driver” skill, however it’s also the skill that has declined more with the power ceiling as noted above. When your average unit wasn’t as strong, or as plentiful, that buff could significantly raise the ceiling of a team. But with the average going up so much that proportional increase isn’t as dramatic as it used to be. Content which the healing can keep up with is also more trivial with stronger base teams as well. However, it’s still her best general skill and is still an easy hands off way to raise the general power of your team. Mastery on it is fairly valuable too with big total increases to all aspects of her skill.
Her S3 meanwhile has aged a little better, but still tends to be more situational. The key with it is to remember that her deployable Seaborne shares the effect, meaning she can place her True Damage and buff anywhere on the map. It’s not a dramatic amount of damage by any means, but can very much come in clutch in dangerous spots. It’s also, of course, her strongest ATK buff which is valuable as well, and is highest among the Bards, although it oddly tends to come in conflict with the weaker but faster cycling Heidi. All in all, it’s a solid skill with a lot of use, but tends to be more situational than her S2, and a lot of the time neither her buff or damage will even feel noticable. Also, although it has no influence on Mastery choices, be aware that she will kill herself from the HP drain without outside help while using it.
Last is her S1. It’s probably not a skill you’ll want to spend the resources on in the modern game. Civilight Eterna can often do the job better, if needed at all, but Skadi2’s version of it is still useful on occasion. Essentially, she hypercharges her healing effect while also mitigating half of the damage towards herself, resulting in some very high survivability. However, circumstances to use that are rare and will mostly be limited to niches. It’s a good skill, but tends to be the sort where if you would get good value out of it, you probably already know that.
Suzuran#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S3M3 | A | S- |
 | S2M3 | Breakpoint - S2M1 | |
| None | |||
Suzuran is a Decel Binder but with Fragile. Now, as of this writing, there are two of those, but she was the only one for years. Suzuran came before archetypes were formalized, so was this always intended? Or does Astgenne2 owe her Fragile to Suzuran being an early oddity? Regardless, Suzuran’s Fragile is by far her defining feature. It’s not the highest Fragile, or even the most versatile, but it is among the most consistent and reliable, which has meant Suzuran has had a relatively long meta life compared to other units from her era.
To that end, her main skill, and the only one really worth Mastery, is her S3. It enhances that mentioned Fragile of course, but her S3 is more than just that. It has a huge wide-range and True-AoE Slow, which in turn applies that enhanced Fragile to everyone in range for the entire uptime, plus a strong heal too. And to top it all off, it has a surprisingly high uptime thanks to her Talent and DEC-X base effect.
The Mastery gains on it are pretty good, although they can be a touch subtle in some cases. Mastery of course enhances the Fragility effect, but it’s not a massive difference and it can be hard to visually notice the difference. Although this isn’t to say that Mastery is somehow not worth doing! At minimum, it’s 6% more Fragility, which very much matters, even if it’s hard to appreciate at times. She also gains more uptime and a significant improvement to her healing, both important gains. It’s all enough to make Suzuran one of the higher priority support options and one of the longest lasting original 6★s, although still much lower in priority than most modern DPS units.
That’s her only worthwhile Mastery, but her S2 does warrant some discussion. It’s more of a typical Decel Binder type of skill. That isn’t why Suzuran is valuable though so the value of it is extremely limited. It has occasionally been useful in the SSS mode where ASPD can be reliably stacked, but even that isn’t true anymore thanks to plentiful options. However, it does have a breakpoint at S2M1 which adds another target. It isn’t a skill that’s likely to be useful very often, but the low M1 costs mean that it may still be worth grabbing even for rare occasional use. Mastery beyond that is a luxury-tier investment.
Pass on her S1 which has no particular value. She can only target one enemy with it, and Auto Activation makes it inconsistent. Even worse though, it’s not even a 100% uptime Slow even with her DEC-Y Module! So it’s a pretty pointless skill all around.
Magallan#
The non-Ling Summoners are a bit of an oddity when it comes to general consideration. What they bring to the table comes at a high cost (deployment slots) which has always meant they’ve always leaned more towards niche clears. That’s only become more true with time as the general power level has gone up, and thus you give up more and more for those deploy slots. So the basic advice with all of them is to invest with caution if you don’t already know what you’re doing!
In Magallan’s case, she’s had a pretty rough go of it. She has always been tough to use. Her summons don’t block, don’t renew, and also don’t have great DPS, which proves to be very restrictive given they also take deployment slots. In many ways, she’s a victim of early design choices. Later Summoners like Ling or Raidian, and even the 5★ Scene, would address these flaws, leaving Magallan pretty far back in the dust. Which is basically to say, you should be careful before you invest into the penguin, cute as she may be.
If you want to raise her anyway, all of her skills are potential options, depending on how you want to use her. You should probably start with her S1 which is her only remaining unique value. It’s actually a pretty strong stall skill which can be applied almost anywhere there’s deployable tiles, a use that has managed to remain vaguely relevant at times (although certainly not strongly relevant). Mastery gains on it aren’t terribly impressive, but the gains to her Slow/Bind uptime do definitely matter for the types of places it’s used.
However, S1 doesn’t do damage so if you plan to use her regularly, you’ll want to consider her other skills. Both S2 and S3 are DPS skills. Her S3 tends to be the favored one, however it’s not a strong preference in the modern game. Both are severely undertuned by modern standards, so the correct play for most people is to do neither. But supposing you’re in the market to really use Magallan, that in turn implies you should do both in order to get the most use out of her as their differing damage types and deployment tiles would primarily depend on the stage needs rather than any objective measure.
Angelina#
* Angelina’s IS grades assume her 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.
Angelina is a strange unit in the game’s history. For a time near launch, she was quite strong since there were few good Arts or Control options, and she excelled at both. However, as the roster was fleshed out over time, the meta left Angelina behind in almost all content. Fortunately, Lowlight smiled fondly upon her and gave her an absurdly good IS-specific Module that has vaulted Angelina back into the high-end!
That said, skill selection for Angelina remains the same, regardless of gamemode. The only difference comes down to priority. IS-centric players will want to prioritize her Masteries much higher than those who don’t care for the mode at all.
In either case, S3 is the starting point. While not as strong as more modern AoE-Arts options, it still does reasonable damage across a wide area on an extremely fast cycle. The Mastery gains are quite strong too, jumping the uptime by an unheard of 33% on top of an above average improvement to ATK. Notably, in the IS mode, the Levitate duration provided by ISW-α means that even on the slower S3, all but the heaviest enemies will be permanently Levitated for the duration. Historically, S3’s weaker control has given more room for S2 to shine, but that becomes a bit less true with ISW-α. Finally, although unaffected by Masteries, the Weightlessness provided by S3 (and only S3) is vital to Angelina’s high-end value, both in and out of IS. This makes the uptime provided by Mastery even more important.
S2 is a strong secondary Mastery for her. As mentioned, S3 historically had relatively poor Slow up-time. In the past, this gave her S2 a ton of value as one of the strongest stall skills in the game. It attacked fast enough to give a 100% uptime Slow on a crazy good cycle. This remains true in the general game, although there are many better options now. For IS, although S3 improves its control, there is still value in S2. First, the -2 Weightlessness does mean most enemies can be 100% controlled by S3, but still not all. Second, Hand of the Buckler can result in some absurd damage against the bloated HP pools at high difficulty. This means that her S2 still has plenty of value, although the gains are less dramatic than with S3, so it is still markedly lower in priority.
5★ Supporters#
Uika Misumi#
Uika is our newest Push Stro-, err I mean our newest Bard. Bards in general can be tricky to evaluate. Inspiration as a buff is unusual in its considerations already, but then there’s two easily obtainable 6★s to consider, and they don’t stack. Uika though mixes that up because in addition to the basic Inspiration buffing, she brings some fairly strong healing and damage of her own. This makes her a strong unit who will tend to have more value than her fellow 5★s. Although being in a support role with the competition from the 6★s means she isn’t a general meta consideration either.
Both of her skills can be viable options for Mastery, although in most cases, her S2 is the better skill which has that extra healing and damage. Her DPS and HPS while using it are really high for her rarity. The damage is higher than many supposed 5★ DPS units even, albeit randomly spread out. Mastery on it is fairly strong too, with a 25% improvement to both DPS and HPS, the Inspiration improvement, and a noticeable gain to initial wind-up. The only downside is the relatively poor uptime, so she does tend to favor more Advanced playstyles.
Meanwhile, her S1 can have some value for maximalists. It has better duration and range than her S2 along with some DEF inspiration. However, it’s more akin to the typical 5★ Bard skill, meaning it’s a lot less generally useful. It’s mostly a skill for people who will want to use Uika no matter what, or for heavier niche players. Don’t be fooled by the uptime difference compared to her S2 though. While it is a notable difference that can matter at times, the impact of S1 is a lot lower.
Bobbing#
| Skill | Mastery | Story | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
 | S2M3 | C | C+ |
 | S1M1 | Breakpoint - S1M1 | |
| None | |||
Elemental damage is a very powerful mechanic, and Bobbing is the first 5★ to really take advantage of it in a meaningful way. That can make him a decent unit, at least as far as 5★s go. However, before that, keep in mind that Burn does NOT stack with other forms of Elemental Burst such as Necrosis or Nervous Impairment, both of which are backed by a number of very powerful units. Bobbing may be a worthwhile consideration for some, but he’s not a meta consideration, and he can even be useless depending on the rest of your roster.
Should you choose to raise him, S2 is his main skill. Unlike his fellow 5★ Ritualist, Valarqvin, he cycles very fast and deals his damage in a True-AoE which lets him be much more effective at applying Burn. Instead, he has to deal with range restrictions, although these are not as bad as they might first appear. His S2’s range is not fixed the same all the time, but will rather be set each time the skill is activated. It is the three tiles perpendicular to him, within his normal range, based on where his first target is. However, once set, the range doesn’t change for that skill activation so enemies have to remain in that range to trigger Burn. This makes his Masteries particularly valuable. Even with no Module, the difference from SL7 to S2M3 is a full second for Burn activation. While that may not seem like a large number, it makes a pretty big difference in his usability!
For niche players or husbando enjoyers, you may get some value out of his S1 as well, although it is much more situational on an off-meta unit, and thus ungraded. The range issues on his S2 are usually very manageable, but that won’t always be true. S1 only affects a single target, but has no such range restrictions, allowing him some flexibility. However, there’s some nuance here. He requires some combination of Module, Mastery, levels, and even potentials in order to trigger Burn in a single S1 activation, and if two activations are required, the effectiveness drops dramatically. There are too many possible permutations to discuss in this guide, however, the +10% from S1M1 and level E2 60 (lower with Module levels) will typically be sufficient.
Valarqvin#
Valarqvin was our first introduction to friendly Elemental burst effects, which unfortunately given the design philosophy of the time, meant she ended up slightly undertuned. Necrosis is good enough that she’s had decent value over the years, particularly in the Welfare-only niche, so she is certainly usable if you want. However, both of her skills end up cycling poorly. That, in addition to the fact Necrosis now competes with more potent forms of burst (and remember they don’t stack), means that she isn’t a strong general consideration, and tends to be stuck in niches or desire-only tiers.
If you count yourself among those, her S2 is pretty easily her better skill, primarily due to how S1 struggles to build Necrosis damage in a timely manner. At max level and S2M3, she will only require six attacks during S2’s duration to trigger the Necrosis fallout which is just over 6.5 seconds. A decent pace! That’s down from eight attacks at SL7 so Mastery makes a fairly large difference as well. However, with no targeting priority she will often only ever apply it to the first two targets. The cooldown of the burst effect further means she’ll only apply it once to those two targets every 50 second cycle, ultimately making her rather tough to use.
In comparison, she requires three charges of S1 to trigger the Necrosis Fallout against regular enemies. At best, this takes eight seconds at S1M3 which is already slower than S2 along with a lower target count. This also assumes all three charges hit the same target and she’s allowed to build up two (her max) before the target comes in range. Any benefits to consistency that these charge skills typically have is mostly lost to S2’s pretty forgiving downtime time. The situation improves a little bit against Elites thanks to her Module (only two charges are required) but that will be too rarely useful to justify the investment.
It’s worth a note that unlike most other IS-version specific units, Valarqvin isn’t especially valuable in IS#4, so she gets no special consideration for IS. However, if you plan to use her there anyway, her mode specific buffs can make S1s application more consistent, so can add some consideration for niche players.
Proviso#
Proviso is a unit that forces me to flex the definitions of this guide. She has the most valuable base skill in the game and is the only unit that’s worth E2ing for her base skill. It’s a bit of a digression from the usual topics here, but she is an incredibly valuable Trading Post worker and if you obtain her, you should promote her. No other E2 base skill is worth the promotion materials (seriously, don’t do it, it’s not even close).
Now, as far as her value as a unit and Mastery consideration, she’s decently usable, but not great. The reduction in 4★ IS Hope costs has rendered the debate between her or the very similar Podenco moot since now Podenco easily wins. Even though this guide doesn’t consider promotion costs with regards to Mastery, I’m forced to admit there’s a good chance Proviso would be ungraded were it not for her E2 base skill! It just wouldn’t feel right to have such a valuable unit down with the other ungraded OPs!
Which is to say, she’s a unit you should raise anyway, so many people may want to get some combat use out of her as well. However, her non-base value is limited mostly to niche clears. With her S2, she cycles pretty fast with a high uptime AoE Silence that occasionally comes in handy. Interestingly, although it’s not evident in the descriptions (which don’t list out the actual values), she actually improves her interval reduction at S2M3. This can be seen in her wiki entries, where the reduction improves from -1 second at S2M2 to -1.1 second at S2M3, a significant improvement which, along with the uptime gains, results in 3 more attacks. It’s still very fringe, but is quite valuable if you plan to actually use her.
Pass on her S1 which just doesn’t do anything special. Even at S1M3 she doesn’t reach a 100% uptime Slow nor is her damage enough to warrant consideration over her utility. However, the gains on it are quite high if you really love lawyers.
Quercus#
* Note that Quercus’ S1 is graded assuming she has her BLS-X Module at least at level 1 (preferrably higher). If you do not plan to get this Module, treat the priority of this skill significantly lower.
Quercus managed to buck the trend of prior Abjurers by actually being a great healer! The “toggle” nature of most of them is quite a burden in practical use, so the fact Quercus has an always-on version, plus a Sanctuary Talent that is actually applied before the unit is almost dead already, made her a solid healer. Then she got a great Module on top that removed the healing reduction and gave her an even better Talent, which made Quercus one of the best raw healers for a while. Of course, most meta solutions favored DPS over healing, and modern powercreep means there’s now a 6★ that does the same thing but better (Haruka), so Quercus isn’t quite a “must” raise, but she is still one of the better 5★s in the game and can be a valuable promotion in a variety of circumstances.
Her main skill for this is of course, the infinite duration one, S1. The Mastery gains on it aren’t actually that strong. The difference from SL7 to S1M3 is only about 30 HPS, only around a 7% improvement. That can definitely matter for how strong of healer Quercus is, but is among the weaker gains out there. In fact, she’s a rare case where you should prioritize her Module first! The base effect will add a lot more healing than Mastery, and the improved thresholds at her upgrades are more likely to matter in terms of “effective” HPS. However, that said don’t neglect her Masteries either. More important is her wind-up time improvement. It’s again not a drastic difference, but the wind-up is the most troublesome part of her kit.
Probably pass on her S2. It can occasionally be used as an SP battery if you really want to maximize her, however the fact she needs to heal to grant the SP makes it quite difficult to generally use. There are much better options out there, although the Mastery gains on it are pretty good.
Heidi#
Heidi is a unit who has found herself a pretty strong niche for a 5★, but she is one to be a bit cautious of before general investment. The Bard’s Inspiration buff is applied last on the stack of ATK modifiers, so in a lot of cases it’s generally not as impactful as more typical multiplicative buffs. But there are exceptions, notably when skills “deal damage as a % of ATK”, and Heidi’s rapid cycle time has made her an outright meta pick in certain strategies. For example, Heidi buffing Degenbrecher is a common solution for IS#4 EM ED4, one of the hardest single stages in all of IS. But as said, caution is warranted, because those are “certain” strategies and not general ones. If general story value is your concern, you’ll often get a lot more total value out of Skadi the Corrupting Heart or the similarly welfare Civilight Eterna, who both do quite a bit more in addition to buffing, if you raise any of them at all! But Heidi is still a great ATK buffer and her rapid cycling can still give her a leg up over her higher-rarity competition.
To that end, S1 is her primary skill which is that aforementioned rapid cycling ATK Inspiration buff. On paper, the Mastery gains don’t look too crazy, but can total to be a pretty big difference when you consider the types of skills it’s typically used with. Plus, situations she’s used in tend to be high difficulties ones where every bit of damage matters, so Mastery can be considered pretty important to Heidi’s use.
Maximalists or niche players could consider her S2 as well, which has a decent amount of uncommon value such as block count or +HP, but it’s a far less valuable skill than her S1 which is why she’s a special consideration.
Scene#
The non-Ling Summoners are a bit of an oddity when it comes to general consideration. What they bring to the table comes at a high cost (deployment slots) which has always meant they’ve always leaned more towards niche clears. That’s only become more true with time as the general power level has gone up, and thus you give up more and more for those deploy slots. So the basic advice with all of them is to invest with caution if you don’t already know what you’re doing!
Of them, Scene may be the most generally valuable thanks to the fact she can actually renew her summons on a reasonable cycle, as well as having Melee focused summons that she can directly buff. She also has stealth-reveal, which can be a valuable bit of utility if you don’t have one of the more meta options. She still leans towards niche play, but will be the easiest to generally use if you find her appealing!
If that play appeals to you, Scene makes a good starting point, and her S2 is her far more valuable skill since it’s the one that actually allows her to renew her summons. The gains on it are rather dramatic too. They’re well above average, likely since they only apply to her buggies which are generally not as strong as regular units. The gains make a big difference to her usability!
While her S2 is her main skill, niche players may also want to consider her S1. It’s far more situational, but the camo on her buggies can occasionally be extremely valuable. Mastery makes a big difference to her wind-up time as well. It’s far from an essential Mastery, but is one of those skills certain players will occasionally find invaluable.
It’s worth a quick note that Scene has some historical notes as an IS starter. Those days are well past us. She can still do it if you’re one of those aforementioned niche players, but for general IS use, look towards Deepcolor instead, if you do any at all.
Shamare#
Shamare is one of the rare good 5★ mistakes HG has made. Her debuff is so strong, on such a good cycle, and can be deployed anywhere there are deployable tiles, that it’s unlikely we’ll ever get something as strong again, even in the era of modern powercreep. She’s one of the very few 5★s worth raising for anyone, even full meta players!
Her S2 is what does all of that, and it also has very vital Masteries. The debuffs to both ATK and DEF are huge, and really neuter a lot of otherwise untankable targets. The key is that since the debuff is tied to her doll rather than typical skill uptime, she begins to regenerate SP immediately, resulting in an incredible uptime on top of her incredible debuffs! Masteries specifically reduce her SP, further enhancing her uptime, and also granting big improvements to her debuffs.
While you should still prioritize DPS and key roles over any debuffer, Shamare is one of the few 5★s truly worth considering for everyone.
Pass on her S1. In some very rare situations it may be useful for niche players, but it doesn’t have any of the things that make her so great so it’s a pretty extreme luxury. It’s rare that the enhanced fragility will even be better than the DEF debuff on her S2!
Mayer#
The non-Ling Summoners are a bit of an oddity when it comes to general consideration. What they bring to the table comes at a high cost (deployment slots) which has always meant they’ve always leaned more towards niche clears. That’s only become more true with time as the general power level has gone up, and thus you give up more and more for those deploy slots. So the basic advice with all of them is to invest with caution if you don’t already know what you’re doing!
Within that realm, Mayer brings her value through her exploding robot dogs which give her a way to recycle her summons as well as remote on-demand Stuns and a decent chunk of damage. That’s had value at times, but those times are rare and she is far from easy to use. She requires a lot of thought and planning to be effective. Too late and her dogs die and she has no way to bring them back, too early and you lose all your blockers! If you aren’t the type to be willing to spend multiple attempts to figure out the ideal timings, that’s all the more reason to avoid her.
But all that said, Mayer is still valuable in niche play. If you’re willing to go through that effort, Mayer is someone worth considering, albeit still at the lower end of priority still. S2 is her main skill to that effect. The Mastery gains on it are nothing too crazy, but she’s the sort of unit where you would want to maximize what you get out of her if you plan to use her. It’s a solid increase, if not a dramatic one, to her damage and Stun duration, both of which can matter.
Meanwhile her S1 is probably a pass. With no way to renew her summons, there’s very few places she’d actually be effective with them even if the effect were decent, but a fairly small dodge chance is a pretty poor effect. However, there is an unusually strong breakpoint at S1M1 which shares the buff with allies. That will still rarely matter, but given how cheap 5★ M1s are, may still be worth picking up.
Pramanix#
Pramanix doesn’t hold a candle to her fellow 5★ Hexer Shamare, but still has enough going for her to warrant some consideration. While she can’t throw her debuff around everywhere on that crazy high uptime Shamare has, Pramanix has a higher DEF debuff plus a rare RES debuff, both of which can matter in niche or waifu clears.
Her main skill is her S2 which has those debuffs. The Mastery gains are very strong as well. Of course, both debuffs improve by meaningful amounts. The RES improvement may not seem like much, but remember RES is proportional so it can make a big difference against targets you’d actually want to debuff. But the primary benefit is a significant improvement to uptime, a whopping +38%, which is an amount we just don’t see in Masteries anymore.
It’s far less likely to be useful, but her S1 is worth acknowledging as well. ASPD debuffs like this are very rare and Pramanix has a pretty powerful amount of it. Don’t be fooled by the “low appearing” Mastery gains either. Remember, ASPD is applied as a percentage so it’s a 60% reduction at S2M3 which is a massive amount. However, her uptime isn’t that great. It’s a situation where the better solution will probably be to debuff them with her S2 and kill them first, instead of stalling for 20 seconds only to die when her skill runs out. So it ends up being quite a fringe skill, but powerful enough to note.
4★ Supporters#
Roberta#
Roberta is a good example of what 4★s do well. She’s not as flashy as her higher rarity counterparts, but while they suffer from weak and gimmicky kits, Roberta does her basic job and does it really well for not a lot of cost. Her devices give a big defensive boost and negate two entire hits of damage. Pretty simple, but surprisingly useful, and the fact 4★s now cost no Hope to recruit in IS makes Roberta a fairly valuable consideration.
However, for that purpose, it’s not even necessary to E2 Roberta let alone Master her skills. Further, her main skill is S2 which can renew her devices, but has very weak gains! The only part of Mastery that’s meaningful is the SP cost reduction at S2M3, but even that isn’t a large amount. This isn’t to say what she gains from promotion and Mastery is valueless, however while Roberta is a generally valuable unit, she is a low priority one and those promotions will only really be useful for niche players.
Pass on her S1. Artificers usually have this type of skill, but their personal stats aren’t why they’re useful. The device renewal on her S2 is about the only part of her skills that actually matters.
Podenco#
Podenco is a solid basic unit, featuring good damage, control, and utility for her rarity. Of course, no individual aspect is that strong in the meta-sense. Podenco’s main value is instead as an IS unit where she tends to be the more generally applicable Supporter compared to Roberta or Deepcolor. For that purpose, you shouldn’t be spending the resources on E2 and Mastery since you rarely want to be spending the Hope to promote your 4★s. However, generally speaking Podenco is a solid all around purposes so if you’re a niche player or just want to reward our cute little war criminal for all her hard work in gassing our enemies, she’s among the better general 4★ options.
Her two skills do very different things, and her S2 (which does the damage) is her better skill. She notably begins to generate SP as soon as she casts it since the uptime is tied to the gas bottle rather than her skill bar. This makes the improvements to her SP cost notably valuable, resulting in a 20% faster cycle, a well above average gain on top of the damage gains. Make special note of the S2M1 breakpoint which extends her gas duration as well, a direct improvement to her uptime, damage, and control.
Her S1 is a useful skill, but not worth Mastery for a vast majority of people. Given her prevalence as a starter, the ability to flex to S1 for healing when Medics are sparse can save a run. However, she’ll usually be at E1 in those cases, so Mastery is even more of a luxury than her S2 is. The only people who should really consider it are those who do lots and lots of niche IS runs.
Deepcolor#
* Note that Deepcolor’s S1 is graded assuming she has her SUM-Y Module at least at level 1. If you do not plan to get this Module, treat the priority of this skill significantly lower.
Deepcolor is a unit whose value has gone up and down with time. Before Modules, she was pretty poor since she couldn’t renew her summons on top of all the other issues Summoners have in general gameplay. Her Module opened up some new options since she had enough of them to make up the difference, and now the IS Hope reduction makes her some people’s favored 4★ Supporter. I’m not really one of them and I don’t favor the summoner strategies, however she’s still a great unit in certain niches or if that strategy appeals to you.
Her main skill is her S1 which enhances the combat capabilities of her tentacles on a far more forgiving cycle, and the total healing can usually be more effective than the dodge on her S2. The Mastery gains on it aren’t as strong as some other launch units, but are still decent enough with pretty good improvements to ATK, DEF, and healing.
Meanwhile, her S2 is one of those bizarre launch mistakes. Skills with 55 second uptime and 80 second downtime are just unheard of now, and that grotesque downtime makes it practically unusable. However, it does have two bits of use worth noting.
First, it occasionally comes up in some truly insane niche clears since the dodge can be shared with all allies, not just her summons. But do be aware that many of those clears are a cursed RNG grind, so it’s the sort of skill where if you have to ask, you shouldn’t do it, because if you were prepared to make use of it, you’d already know the answer without asking me!
Second, if you like to use her as an IS starter, it can be a flex option for late in the runs when her summons start to get outclassed. That’s definitely a fringe consideration since she isn’t even the common Supporter recommendation in the first place, but may be worthwhile for some people.
4★ and 5★ Ungraded Supporters#
Alanna#
Alanna is yet another 5★ Artificer that doesn’t do quite enough to be impressive. Her buffs are usable, particularly if you favor certain meme buff comps, but even then the archetype is just very clunky to use. Worse for Alanna, as far as this guide goes, she has pretty bad Mastery gains too!
If either she or those buff comps appeal to you, you could potentially go with either of her skills for Mastery, but her S2 leans a little better into what she does differently than others. As noted though, the gains on it are quite poor. It only improves her DEF ignore by 40-55, depending on Module level, which isn’t nothing, but also not enough to make or break her usage. Much of the gains instead seem to be loaded into her personal buffs which just aren’t a good use of Artificers outside of some very rare niches.
Her S1 could also be a choice, largely depending on the types of units you plan to use her with. It trades the extra DEF ignore for ASPD and uptime. S2’s DEF ignore will usually come out ahead, but the ASPD can win out if you’re using slower-interval higher-DPH units that benefit less from the DEF ignore. But do note that S1 has no way to renew her batteries either, so it’s not necessarily “easier” to use as you might expect from a passive skill like this.
Xingzhu#
Xingzhu is a unit I have a tough time saying objective things about because the design decisions behind her piss me off so much. HG had over five years of design knowledge at her release. They had already been through the design process of figuring out what makes an Abjurer usable. They did two absolutely awful ones (Tsukinogi and Nine-Colored Deer), then finally managed to make a good one (Quercus), but then with Xingzhu, went back to square one. Even worse, they gave her a 75 SP skill which are almost universally awful! It’s maddening!
So yea, Xingzhu is bad and makes me want to just fill this writeup entirely with an angry rant. I can’t even get myself to make a joke about her writing incest yuri fanfics! However, if I’m a bit more objective, her S1 is actually decent if you like her. With it, she can do a large burst heal to everyone in range on a low 10 SP cost. It’s not especially amazing (use the cheaper Purestream for this instead) but it’s functional.
Skip her S2 which is that mentioned skill with 75 SP. Since Abjurer’s don’t do anything useful during skill downtime, that is a huge burden for her even if the effect was good. But even the effect is mediocre, so there’s just no value in it.
Catherine#
Catherine is a unit who does her job well enough to be functional, but what she does just isn’t that special. When fully invested, she can generate a pretty good amount of Barrier for what is some decent effective-HPS. However, most decent Medics will do better HPS without all the baggage that comes with being an Artificer, so even within niches, she isn’t particularly special. Further, as far as this guide goes, she has pretty bad Mastery gains too!
S2 is typically her main skill. When using it, there’s no delay on her Barrier recovery while also amping up her HP, which is what gives her that effective HPS via the Barrier restoration. However, the difference from SL7 to M3 is rather paltry. The difference is only ~26 HPS, which is negligible, especially considering the Barrier total is capped. Even her SP cost barely changes, resulting in one of the least valuable Masteries out there, despite being her main skill, so doing it is pretty much a matter of completionism only.
Her S1 may have some use too, allowing a permanent buff with her devices, however the gains here are even worse on top of the effect being fairly minor. You’ll be hard pressed to ever notice the difference of 4% ATK, if you ever even use the skill in the first place.
Sand Reckoner#
The only things special about Sand Reckoner are that he’s the only non-6★ Summoner (as of this writing) with Ranged summons and the only non-6★ Summoner whose summons deal Arts damage. That might be useful on rare occasions in low-rarity niches, but that’s about it. With Raidian now freely available, there’s little other reason to consider raising him. Although, that was true even before Raidian too… Summoners, even the good ones, are units you have to want to use most of the time to even bother.
If you want to raise him, S2 will usually be his main skill. It has a better uptime, has some control, and is his skill that renews his summon. Mastery is on the low side, but spread across all his summons, can total a decent amount still. Meanwhile, his S1 has a higher DPS, but that’s it. That might matter for the true simps, but it cycles much worse, is Auto Activation, has no way to renew his summons, and the DPS difference isn’t that large to begin with.
Lucilla#
Don’t let Lucilla trick you. Never trust pinks! Her good numbers and slightly confusing unofficial translations might give you some hope, but she ONLY affects basic units and does NOTHING against either Elites or Bosses, who are the enemies you’d most likely want to debuff! It means Lucilla is a pretty bad unit with only an extremely marginal niche, so she’s generally a unit to avoid.
If you want to try anyway, S2 is her main skill which has all of her “special” features. Most notable is the MVSPD reduction which improves over Mastery. The MVSPD is the part that’s most likely to be useful since it does affect everyone in range, which can theoretically be useful on some stages, depending on how dangerous the basic enemies are.
Pass on her S1 entirely unless you absolutely must use her no matter what. Even in the best case where she’s constantly attacking and hitting four enemies, it does less DPS than her S2. There’s very little value in it beyond consistency which isn’t a compelling reason for an extremely off-meta 5★.
Grain Buds#
There’s a lot of 4 and 5★ Decel Binders now, and they all do basically the same thing: Slow some numbers of targets for some amount of time, with some often interchangeable and meaningless utility. Grain Buds is a pretty strong example of that, and is ultimately one of the least useful of the group since her utility and uptime are both quite bad relative to the others.
If you’d like to raise her anyway, S2 is her main skill. At S2M3 it can make for a decent stall skill. In addition to the Sleep, she can reach a 100% uptime Slow for the remaining duration. Mastery is vital for that too since anything less than S2M3 isn’t 100%. However, as noted, the Sleep aspect is quite gimmicky (it’s the least useful form of control) and the total skill uptime is quite bad, which really limits its use.
Pass on her S1 unless you’re a particular simp. It’s just a DPS skill with no utility, which is not why you might use a Decel Binder, so there’s limited value in it unless you specifically want to use Grain Buds over anyone else. But even in that case, the DPS isn’t much better than her S2 which cycles fairly fast despite its bad uptime.
Windflit#
Windflit is an exceedingly frustrating unit for me. He harkens back to one of the worst eras of 5★ design, where they had unnecessary restrictions for bad effects. Windflit is one of the worst examples of it. His buff is restricted to just two classes, one of whom you would basically never want to buff in the first place. Then, on top of that, he requires maximum investment and much more effort just to get the same buff as Warfarin, a fellow 5★, who is a much better base unit too!
So yea, Windflit is a bad unit and one of the worst in the game when it comes to design. Don’t raise him, and if you got him in your pulls, I’m sorry for your waste of space.
If you have more resources than sense though, both skills are options. S2 is of course his buff skill, and Mastery improves the buff relatively significantly if you use two batteries on the same target. However, as mentioned, it’s extremely restrictive in terms of classes. That gives some room for his S1. Despite their ability to be blockers, Artificers are not usually worth using like that, but his S1 is at least functional for the role if you want to use him regularly.
Nine-Colored Deer#
Abjurer’s are a bad archetype at base unless they get some pretty extreme design help. The “toggle” nature of their heal probably sounded good in the design room, but in effect means they’re completely useless during skill downtime, and their effective HPS during skill doesn’t make up for it. Unless they do something silly like Quercus or Haruka, they’re just really bad. Just use a Medic.
In NCD’s case, she’s lucky her base skill is amazing (and available at E0 so she doesn’t need to be promoted) because it’s hard to even make a skill suggestion with her. If you absolutely must raise her, probably go with her S1. It heals slightly better on a much better cycle time. The dodge effect on her S2 isn’t that valuable, which only leaves the Sanctuary effect which isn’t usually strong enough to make up the difference.
Tsukinogi#
Abjurer’s are a bad archetype at base unless they get some pretty extreme design help. The “toggle” nature of their heal probably sounded good in the design room, but in effect means they’re completely useless during skill downtime, and their effective HPS during skill doesn’t make up for it. Unless they do something silly like Quercus or Haruka, they’re just really bad. Just use a Medic.
In Tsukinogi’s case, she is generally the worst of the bunch on her merits as a healer¹. You should not be raising her unless you’re a pretty heavy niche player! However, she’s had some very rare niche value with her Invisible reveal. For a long long time, she was the only Ranged unit with it. That’s only ever been useful in niches since the general game design concepts mean specific solutions are never required. So even despite her unique role, it has meant she’s never been terribly valuable. Further, there’s now at least two units (as of this writing) who can do it now too. However, they are both 6★s, so Tsukinogi still retains that niche value for the lower rarities.
That Invisibility reveal is tied to her S1, which makes it the only skill worth considering. The gains on it are on the weak side though, so even for niche use, it’s not especially necessary to go beyond E1 SL7. It’s still the best option if you want a Mastery for completion’s sake though. Pass on her S2 entirely which cycles poorly for a very weak effect.
¹ Fun fact, Abjurer’s originally didn’t heal on skill. It was one of the rare archetype reworks we have. Tsuknogi came out before this, and so is designed around an old premise which is why her S2 stops attacking. Although this is just trivia since she’s bad either way.
Glaucus#
Glaucus is thematically a pretty cool unit. The idea of an anti-drone Supporter with an EMP works really well! In concept anyway. In practice, it’s meant Glaucus has had only situational value. Not all things that float are drones, so despite a pretty good effect, Glaucus has pretty much always been pigeonholed to some pretty extreme niche situations.
However, her effects aren’t bad. She’s not a unit you should be raising, but she’s one of the more viable ungraded Supporters if she appeals to you. In such a case, S2 is her main skill. The damage on it is weak considering the cycle time, but it Binds everyone in a huge range for 6 seconds. For 30 SP, that’s not too awful (but not great either). Mastery on it is valuable too since the Bind duration extends pretty significantly.
Pass on her S1 unless you’re a big simp. It’s a more typical Decel Binder skill, but since it has no ASPD or Slow extension, has very poor Slow uptime. Her S2 has far better control. However, since S2’s damage is quite weak, the big simps might get some use out of S1 still. But for most players, even niche players, just use someone else instead since it otherwise lacks any special value.
Sora#
Bards are a decent group of buffers, but among them, Sora tends to be the weakest¹. While the others have some special value that elevates them, Sora unfortunately does not. Even setting aside the 6★s, Heidi cycles faster for a better buff and Uika does much more in total. About Sora’s only upside over them is her higher uptime, which can matter in some buff comps². But her downtime is RNG dependent and her other value is very limited, so invest with caution.
If you opt to invest in her over the other options, S2 should be your starting point, which grants the ATK Inspiration buff. Mastery on it is notably valuable in a way we don’t often see anymore too, granting a whopping 10 seconds (+50%) of uptime on top of a stronger buff.
Her S1 is a possibility too, but is much more fringe. Sleep is not a very good form of control, and her downtime is extremely high. However, she does apply it in a large True-AoE and the healing effect is significant. Mastery is significantly weaker than S2 though, so Mastery is definitely a luxury and situational on an already luxury unit.
¹ It’s the weakest because she denies her bunny heritage. Who wants to be a stinky lupo?
² I personally use her a fair bit in my 5★ niche since her up time lines up with Kroos the Keen Glint better, but even then, Heidi or Uika are still often the better choice depending on the enemy.
Istina / Истина#
There’s a lot of 4 and 5★ Decel Binders now, and they all do basically the same thing: Slow some numbers of targets for some amount of time, with some often interchangeable and meaningless utility… Except for Istina who was one of the first and so has no utility. That means she’s generally not worth raising, especially now since we have so many good control units. She’s close to good enough to be vaguely viable if you want, but both of her skills have drawbacks on top of having no utility, so she’s a desire only tier of unit these days.
S1 is usually the better choice because it’s her only skill that can reach 100% uptime. Interestingly, it doesn’t actually need Mastery to do so, even though the gains seem tuned to do that (S1M3 drops the interval to the same as her Slow) due to the ASPD from her Talent. So instead, the main benefit to Mastery is a small improvement to uptime and damage, although the interval reduction does add a small touch of consistency.
However, S1 only hits one target and does so on a pretty small range. That gives some room for her S2. If you go as far as to get her mod3, she can almost reach 100% Slow uptime on it. She doesn’t quite make it, but it’s close enough to be useful given the other benefits. However, the gains here are again quite weak, mainly benefiting her damage which is largely irrelevant.
Earthspirit#
Before Modules, Earthspirit was broadly panned as one of the worst units in the game. She did no damage and in exchange, didn’t even have an especially good uptime Slow on a short range, meaning most enemies quickly just walked out of range. Fortunately for her though, she was one of the big early beneficiaries of the Module upgrade system because it gave her enough Slow duration to reach 100% uptime! Not bad for a True-Aoe!
Now, to be a little clear, this is a pretty fringe use. It’s mostly useful in the 4★-only niches. For general use, you’ll get a lot more value out of units like Ethan and Indigo, not to mention the now plentiful higher rarity options. Earthspirit is still down here in the ungraded section, and that’s not likely to ever change! However, she does become one of the more valuable niche options down here in the basement!
If you’re interested in the 4★ niche, S2 is her only skill worth considering which is the one that the entire passage above is about. Both Mastery and mod3 are required for her to be effective, so plan to do both if you raise her at all. Pass entirely on her S1 which has no value to anything she’s good at.