'I'm World Serpent's best assassin. Cut to the chase!'

This is the guide for the first-ever IMG A-rank [Midnight Absinthe]. This guide has been updated for version 6.0

A Youtube version is available here (not updated like the article)

✦ TABLE OF CONTENT

- Overview

- Rank-up Skills

- Skill Overview

- How to Play

- Equipment

- Team

- Gameplay Examples

- Conclusion

✦ OVERVIEW

✦ RANK-UP SKILLS

✦ SKILL OVERVIEW

In this section, I will be going through some of Raven's skills. This serves as a reference for players. If you are already familiar with her abilities, you can skip to the next sections.

Unique Skill: IMG Assassin

When weapon skill hits the weak spot of an IMG enemy [Nihilus Seed], if its HP is below 20%, its current phase will be insta-killed. This is Raven's most famous skill since Raven's reveal in cn beta.

Unique Skill: Feathers

Raven skills drop an item called Feathers. There are three types of Feathers - Feather Arrows, Feather Blades and Feathers. The different types only indicate which skills produce them. In terms of usage, they're all considered as Feathers.'

FEATHER LIMIT

Max 20 Feathers can be on the field at once. Raven has a Feather counter above her HP bar.

FEATHER TEAM BUFF

One of Feather's main buffs is when a Feather is present, team Fire DMG +25%

SP RECOVERY

Gathering 15 Feathers or more restore 12 sp (SS-rank skill). A very important skill

Passive: Fire DMG Buff

- [SS-rank skill] When teammate hit enemies with Combo/Charged/Ultimate ATK, team Fire DMG +30% for 5s and generate 3 Feathers. CD: 2s

- Combined with 25% Fire buff from Feather on the field, Raven basically provides 55% TEAM FIRE DMG buff by simply being off-field.

Charged ATK: Heartpiercer

Charged ATK fires 6 Feather Blades dealing Fire DMG and gathers all Feathers on the field.

NIGHT ROAMER STACK

Grants Night Roamer stack for 10s, max stack 20. No of stack = No of Feathers gathered. Night Roamer grants various buffs to Raven:

- At 10/15/20 stacks, Raven gains 10/15/20% Fire DMG

- Damage taken reduced by 30%

- At max Night Roamer stacks, gain 15% more Fire DMG, 30% more DMG reduction and Basic ATK 5th Sequence now fires two more times.

SP RECOVERY

Gathering 15 Feathers or more restore 12 sp (SS-rank skill). A very important skill

Ultimate: Nightbird's Call (SP: 100, CD:20s)

Raven ultimate deals a total of 1900% ATK Fire DMG, clears all Night Roamer stacks and creates a smoke over the battlefield for 18s.

BUFFS

- Ultimate boosts Team Fire DMG by 30% for 18s [Unlock at S-rank]

- Enemies affected by the smoke take 35% more Fire DMG for 18s [Unlock at S-rank].

- NOTE: Enemies can escape from the smoke, either because the stage is too large, or bad Raven positioning

- When enemies in smoke take damage from team attack or Raven weapon skill, trigger an explosion of 600% ATK Fire DMG. CD:4s. Counts as Raven Ultimate ATK. This attack can proc stigma effects such as NewtonB, Turgenev, etc

- When enemies in smoke is hit by team Combo/Charge/Ult, deal 40% Fire DMG per second for 5s. This is NOT IGNITE. Raven does not have ignite.

We're done with Raven's important skills. Let's take a quick look at her Evasion and QTE skills.

Evasion: Enchanting Requiem

Trigger global Time Fracture for 3s.

- Deal 50% ATK Fire DMG to surrounding enemies and Move Speed +15%. CD: 11s.

- Can connect to 3rd Basic ATK Sequence

QTE: Black Tulip

QTE is triggered when enemies are Time Slowed.

- Deal 800% ATK Fire DMG and leave 6 Feather Blades.

- Most of the time, you want to turn off QTE for faster rotation.

Lead: Midnight Gathering

Team Ultimate Fire DMG +15%, team max HP +15%

✦ HOW TO PLAY RAVEN

List of Buffs

Non-Ultimate Sequence

At SS or SSS rank, simply by being off-field, Raven provides up to 55% Fire DMG to the team. If you have Obscuring Bow, use weapon active to activate its team buff.

- You can fit in one Charged ATK or more to recover some sp.

Ultimate Sequence

Raven Ultimate > Weapon Skill > AE Ult > HoF

Spam Charged ATK > Basic to recover sp

- At max Night Roamer stack, you can repeatedly use Charged ATK > Basic x3 > Charged ATK to continuously gain +12sp +12sp +12sp +++

- You need at least 15 Feathers to restore sp. Charge ATK itself fires 6 feathers, so you can start charging when you have 9 Feather counter.

✦ EQUIPMENT

✦ LINEUP EXAMPLE

Fire DPS - Azure Empyrea - Raven

Standard Fire team

- Azure Empyrea provides Elemental Breach, gather, sp recovery, team buffs and more

✦ GAMEPLAY EXAMPLE

In the video below:

1. 5:06 Raven supporting HoF vs SSS-MHT-3B

2. 5:47 Raven supporting Dea Anchora vs HoD Minion in Abyss

✦ CONCLUSION

1. SHOULD I FARM RAVEN?

Midnight Absinthe is a Fire support, so you should only farm her if you are building a Fire team (Vill-V, Flamescion). But then again, there is zero good farmable A-rank, so you might as well just farm Raven from Expedition.

2. SLOW SP RECOVERY

Raven has an issue: Her sp recovery is so slow that she's holding back Fire teams. Currently, even Pardofelis is used in Flamescion team over Raven (Example: HOF AE RC)

3. SHOULD I GET HER GEARS?

Fire team is not in a very good state, so it's not too recommended to build Fire team - that includes pulling for Raven gears. You can just use Turgenev on Raven, or even better, just use Pardofelis.

- MYRIAD: If you are playing competitively (aiming for Nirvana T50 Myriad), then you gotta build Vill-V team for Quantum enemies, meaning Raven is unavoidable

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