UID: 11903619 Presents~

Welcome to 5.5!

In this version, we are greeted by two new Valkyries, who are in fact the best companions, with one of them being the highly revered Durandal, otherwise known as Bianka Ataegina (no story spoilers for those who are enjoying it slowly :)

Her latest Battlesuit, PALATINUS EQUINOX, is a physical damage dealing IMAGINARY TYPE Valkyrie; a first of its kind.

IMAGINARY TYPE

Much like Quantum type, IMG counters itself offensively while countering and being countered by Quantum type defensively. 

Against every other types, they are both neutral.

Before 5.5 goes live in SEA, let's take a look at some of the moves she has to perform and equipment to reinforce her battle prowess. For simplification, let's refer to her as PE from here on out

1. Leader skill

2. Basic attack

a. Stances

b. Charged Attacks and ICHOR

3. QTE

4. Evasion

5. Ultimate

6. SS/SSS skill summary

7. Team Composition

a. Impair Support

b. Supplementary Support

8. Equipment

a. Weapon + alternatives

b. Stigmata + alternatives

9. Final Remarks

Leader skill

When PE leads the team, she will unconditionally boost everyone's physical damage and critical rate on weapon skills by a set amount based on her rank.

The values are as follows:

Basic attack

PE's basic attack consists of 4 sequences each dealing a set amount of physical damage, with the 3rd sequence gathering nearby enemies.

Stances

By default, PE starts off in her Guardian Form, tapping the ultimate attack button quickly will enable her to switch into her Knight Form.

Charged Attacks

ICHOR

Above her HP bar, there is another bar called the ICHOR gauge which maxes out at 300.

Casting a weapon active skill restores 50 ICHOR.

In Knight Form, moving around will passively generate ICHOR and enters flash state when it's full.

ICHOR is emptied when PE switches forms or exits.

Guardian Charged Attack

Her guardian form Charged attack requires and consumes her entire ICHOR gauge to perform.

The attack will trigger a 3 second global time fracture and deals 300%+300%+200%+1200% ATK of Physical Damage

Knight Charged

Under Knight Form, PE will first charge into an opponent dealing N*110% ATK of physical damage with N representing the number of hits (caps at 10)

After which she will unleash a thrust attack dealing 800% ATK of Physical damage.

Due to the nature of her ICHOR gauge, it would be advised to perform a charged attack in the form she enters with before switching to maximise her damage output.

QTE

When an enemy is time slowed or knocked airborne, PE can enter the field and deal 1000% ATK of physical damage while entering her knight form regardless of her previous stance.

Evasion

Guardian - Knight

Knight - Guardian

When evading with directional input, her horse will gallop and stompy nearby enemies.

Switching From Knight to Guardian causes PE to perform a shield ram, which can instantly chain into her guardian form's charged attack. Additionally, her evasion cooldown will be reset when switching forms can occur every 12 seconds.

This enables her to chain two charged attacks if she enters through a QTE.

Ultimate

SP Cost: 100

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Charged towards an enemy dealing 2000% ATK of physical damage. During the animation, all stage timers are suspended.

A bonus for this skill is that when it hits an IMAGINARY enemy, 150% of the damage dealt through PE's ultimate will be transferred to the Nihilus Seed. That effective makes her ultimate deal 250% damage to imaginary enemies!

SS/SSS skill summary

Rank

Skills unlocked

Team Composition

Impair Support - Any One

Most physical Valkyries want some form of impair to increase their damage output which reduces enemy defences.

These should generally be along with secondary support and never together unless specified. 

Herrscher of Sentience

Can gather, time slow, impair and act as a sub-DPS. 

Her expeditious SP regeneration minimises the amount of setup time for PE, thereby increasing her scores.

Able to reactivate stigmata effects while off the field

Celestial Hymn

Provides crowd control.

Can increase crit rate with her signature weapon.

Can chain her QTE with PE’s to prolong time fracture in the memorial arena.

Divine Prayer

Can Impair without ever entering the battle!

Outclassed by the supports above but is farmable and can impair at A rank. 

Cannot provide much outside of an impair that strikes at fixed intervals.

Reserve her for lightning teams in the memorial arena. 

Supplementary Support - Any one

Carole - Sweet n Spicy

Helps Pulverise boss shields which halves all incoming physical damage and halts their recovery for a brief moment.

Provides long-lasting buffs tailored towards physical Valkyries.

Cheap ultimate SP cost means she never has to manually farm SP.

Is Farmable!

Starlit Astrologos

Double downs on the team’s crowd control

Provides various physical damage buffs.

Can support without disrupting PE’s damage rotation or anyone’s for that matter. 

Hekate’s Sombre enables her to quickly break Jizo’s shield and clone.

Is farmable! 

Between SA and SnS if SA has better equipment, i.e. full Shuijing and the boss is unshieled, she should be marginally better. However, if too many SA ultimates are required, giving full Shuijing to SnS and playing around that could also prove useful.

Yamabuki Armour/Drive Kometa

Can apply certain stigmata effects off the field, namely Picasso Top + Mid and Newton B using Briareus Ex.

Weakens enemy shields.

Buffs melee physical damage and crit rate.

Memorial Exclusive

Lightning Empress

For contents where starting SP would give PE an edge.

Currently, only Memorial Arena sports this.

Equipment

Weapon

Signature Weapon

Midnight Ataegina

Active skill 

Point Quasar

SP Cost: 0 CD: 25

Thrust forward to deal 50% ATK of physical damage to a single enemy. If they are not invincible or have the iron body status, the Valkyrie will pick them up and throw them, dealing 90%+1400% ATK of physical damage.

While an enemy is performing certain moves, (i.e a Jonin attempts to block an attempt or a chariot leaping towards the Valkyrie) a counter-attack can be unleashed regardless of the skill’s cool-down. Additionally, the enemy will be interrupted while receiving 20%+800% ATK of physical damage. 

Palatinus Equinix bonus

In Knight form (mounted), the active skill is a throw

Guardian - Knight

Under guardian form (unmounted), it becomes a shotgun attack where 3 shots can be unloaded consecutively.

Each of these shots deals 300% ATK of physical damage.

Tapping the active afterwards unleashes a joint blast, dealing 400% ATK of physical damage.

Shield ram blast: 400% ATK of physical damage

Equinox severance joint blast: 3*400% ATK of physical damage.

Passive 1 - Karma Cycle

The user will gain a 15% unconditional crit rate.

Weapon active skill deals a bonus of 30% total damage and 15% physical damage.

Passive 2 - Daybreak Equinox

Gain 20% total damage. 

Activating an evasion skill reduces damage from the rear by 35% for 12 seconds. Reactivations will refresh the duration 

Alternatives

Abyss flower

Second best option, although as a non BKE user, PE does not get any special effects from it.

Endothermic Lance VF

Early game option.

Stigmata

Signature Set

Top

Gain 30% Physical damage

Upon landing 10 charged attacks, the user will gain 45% crit damage for 15 seconds.

This effect can be refreshed by fulfilling the same condition. 

Middle

Increases the user’s total damage by 20%

Evasion skills and retaliations will boost the user’s total damage by 20% for 15 seconds.

As per the top piece, reactivating this effect will refresh its duration. 

Bottom

Increases the user's crit rate by 10%.

When any team member triggers a global time fracture, the user will gain 2 SP on a 3-second cooldown. 

If the user does this, she will instead boost her own crit rate by 5% for 15 seconds and is refreshable.

2 Set effect

Total damage increases by 30%.

Palatines Equinox bonus: triggering any of the previously mentioned

stigmata effects will grant her the bonuses from every other piece.

Effectively allow her to maintain every effect by only fulfilling one condition!

3 Set effect

Boosts physical damage by 30%

Activating the 2 set effect will boost the physical damage of the user’s next

ultimate attack by 80% and make it restore 200 HP.

Alternatives

Dante Top and Middle + Elysia Bottom

Kafka could also replace Dante in this configuration but the downtime on it doesn’t suit PE’s playstyle.

Elysia Top and Bottom + Marco Polo Middle

Michelangelo Top and Bottom + Marco Polo Middle

About as budget as it can get

Final Remarks

As the first real IMAGINARY DPS Valkyrie and the ensuing wave of IMAGINARY bosses, PE will undoubtedly prove her usefulness in the upcoming weeks. Her main advantage for captains of all levels is that she can cover most physical scenarios very well due to her being advantageous against her own type, neutral against 3, and only disadvantageous against one (Quantum).

In terms of physical DPS priority, I would put her second only to Herrscher of Sentience due to the latter's ability to also support.

As a general rule of thumb if you have ample physical options to work around, consider allocating resources to satisfy your other needs before revisiting PE.

With that in mind, I'd like to wish you all the best of luck in whichever Gacha route you choose to take!

Let me know if you end up getting PE, and whether you enjoy her playstyle :)

Stay Tuned for more guides[emoji]