=== PROBLEM ===
Yes, we all heard that Lycaon is by far the best teammate for Ellen alongside Soukaku.
While Soukaku is free, the unfortunate reality is that >70% players right now don't have Lycaon.
It will take at least > 6 months to get 300 standard pulls to guarantee him.
So how do we deal with it?
Who should we just use another stunner like Koleda/Anby and cope through until we get Lycaon someday?
Is there any other choice?
=== ANALYSIS ===
First of all, let's think why Lycaon is so good for Ellen.
He provides :
- Daze (Biggest and most efficient Daze multipliers in the game, making him the best in-vacuum Stunner in 1.0, even outside of Ellen team)
- Damage (His Core Passive provides -25% Ice RES shred which is a big damage boost to Ellen)
Daze is a very powerful mechanic in ZZZ.
Stunning enemies will allow you to perform a series of Chain Attacks,
which deals a lot of damage, as well as giving you more resources (energy for EX skills and decibels for Ult).
Enemies also take 150% damage when they are stunned.
In the late game, the gap between a dedicated Stunner character and any other character is huge on how fast they Daze.
That being said, do you ALWAYS need a stunner on your team?
It's always safe to do so, but the real answer will be probably be "No".
As for the specifics on when you absolutely need a Stunner and when you can get away without it,
we shall wait for the Endgame Theorycrafting to mature some more.
As for Damage, there are 2 main approaches.
Buffing Ellen's damage with a Support, and adding a quickswap/secondary DPS to contribute more damage externally.
Based on how gacha games (especially Hoyo's previous titles) work, the former is usually superior,
but it doesn't necessarily mean the latter is completely unviable.
=== SOLUTIONS ===
Problem = Ellen + Soukaku + ???
Note : Review in the future on WHEN you would need a Stunner.
If you need a Stunner :
- Koleda : Not as good as Lycaon but pretty good. She deals a solid amount of Daze using her EX skill after her 2nd or 4th hit of basic. It's not a big deal that her Additional Ability isn't unlocked, she still does a fine job as a Stunner.
- Anby : She's free, what more to say, and she's really solid as a stunner still. Same with Koleda, Passive off is ok.
- : Always keep an eye out for every new stunners that they release, and hope they have good synergy with Ellen.
If you don't need a Stunner, Support Route :
- Rina : Shares her PEN with Ellen for big damage buff. She is already a viable sidegrade to Soukaku, and doubling down on Ellen + Soukaku + Rina makes you output a ton of damage on Ellen. You deal even higher damage compared to using Lycaon. But obviously you wouldn't have a stunner on the team or anyone with good Daze multipliers in general, so you wouldn't Stun nearly as fast. Rina can also buildup Shock to trigger Disorder when you Shatter (basically free extra damage). Generally the best option for highest damage possible.
- Lucy : +600 flat ATK buff, and non-negligible off-field damage in the endgame if you can build her with decent Crit ratio. Very low field time requirement as well (even lower with M2). Similar to Rina, she can build the Burn anomaly, and trigger Disorder for extra damage. Although Lucy builds fire anomaly much slower than Rina, but it's still a decent. The Burn anomaly actually has huge multiplier over 18 ticks, and if you Burn into Shatter to trigger Disorder, it will unload all the ticks ticks at once, giving you a big number. As a gacha A rank she is not guaranteed, but you can buy her from shop right now for 140 fading signals (at the cost of 7 pulls) if you want.
- Nicole : DEF shred buffs your damage + some CC to group enemies. As with Anby, she's Free and solid. She might also turn out to be randomly broken if you absolutely need more grouping to clear a specific stage faster in the endgame, at least until we get more characters with grouping abilities.
- : Same as above, keep an eye on potentially synergistic future supports. Support characters tend to buff the damage output of their allies, and in ZZZ they also provide a free Quick Assist to the next character after using their EX skill, without needing to get hit.
Last but not least....
If you don't need a stunner and don't want to play a Support,
the good news is that Ellen + Soukaku is already a nearly complete team (not going to discuss Ellen without Soukaku in this post).
That also means you are free to be creative with the last member.
Whether you put a 2nd DPS in, or maybe an anomaly char to stack another anomaly with Shatter and go for Disorder,
or maybe Ben (or future Defense characters) if you like the comfort of taking it slow and dodging/parrying less.
Even if it's not optimal or "meta", don't be afraid to go for your own approach and try new stuff to find what's the most fun for you.
Some angles you can consider :
- : Since Ellen + Soukaku is already fully functional on their own, you can always cram in a char you like for the 3rd slot and put them in. You just need to take time & effort to figure out how to play them (whether you divide field time between them & Ellen, or only use them for Chain Attacks after stun, etc) and it might surprisingly work out quite fine.
- : Resource efficiency angle. Maybe you already built another char before you pulled Ellen, or you're still trying to pull for Ellen right now, and you already built the chars you're using currently.
- : Depending on the stage you're on, you can pick different options among the char you already built. Maybe the enemies are weak to some particular elements, or maybe you want Nicole to group a more spread out stage. Maybe the enemy hits hard and you're not great at dodging this particular boss' attack pattern, so you want a Defense character. Or back to where we came from, maybe we need a STUNNER for the content...
=== CLOSING ===
Anyway thanks for reading my thoughts,
hopefully it sheds more hope to my fellow Lycaon-less Ellen Mains.
And may we all get Lycaon sooner rather than later.
My progress to Lycaon
