Snowshine Guide and Best Build

Kit Intro

Snowshine is a 5-star, Cryo, Great Sword Survivalist, specialised in full team healing and Protection, who also has a dash of synergy with Cryo and Solidification themed playstyles. Snowshine is perfectly viable in any team that needs help surviving, as long as you’re okay with giving up some potential damage.

What makes Snowshine a standout operator for sustain is her generically usable Combo Skill, which heals the whole team for a large amount while also applying a heal over time on them as well. This, plus the fact that it only requires the controlled operator be hit when they’re at 60% hp or lower, makes Snowshine an easy slot in for survival if you’re in need.

Outside of sustain the other reasons you may want to bring Snowshine along are firstly for her Battle Skill, which allows her to enter a counterstance that protects allies for a short period, then if struck, causes her to counterattack, refunding SP and applying Cryo Infliction. This ability gives her a niche within Cryo teams that value Cryo Infliction, lets her use a wider range of supportive gear sets/weapons, and also gives you one more defensive tool to rely on. The second reason you might look to include Snowshine is her Ultimate, which forcibly applies Solidification in a wide area on use, opening up synergies for characters that revolve around it and reaction-based gameplay.

Snowshine is a capable healer with a bag of tricks that allows her to punch above her weight in certain teams that can take advantage of her specialties.

Combo

Snowshine’s combo skill is the backbone of her sustain capabilities and is easily triggerable in all teams, making it a potent universal tool you can slot into any composition if you’re having trouble staying alive. To activate it, all you’ll need is to take a hit on your controlled operator while below 60% HP - a mostly trivial task to achieve, given that the main time you’ll want to activate the combo is when you’re low on life and just took a hit.

On activation provides a huge chunk of healing to the whole team while also applying a heal over time for 3 seconds, which heals even more. Coupled with talents, gear, and weapons, this combo can easily top off the team every time it’s up.

Battle Skill

Snowshine’s battle skill is certainly less universally useful than her combo skill, but in some teams is still just as useful. Using it causes her to immediately refund a portion of the spent SP and enter an immobile parry state, which applies Protection to her and all nearby operators while it lasts. While in this state, when Snowshine is hit, she’ll immediately counterattack, applying Cryo Infliction while also dealing some Cryo damage and a bit of Stagger.

In teams that value Cryo Infliction, this is a highly SP-efficient way to inflict it while also netting excellent defensive and supportive benefits. The main downside of this skill compared to other sources of Cryo Infliction is the fact that it’s contingent on Snowshine getting hit, something which can’t always be achieved as quickly or precisely as you may want it. Overall, a niche but powerful ability.

Ultimate

Snowshine’s Ultimate isn’t usually the main reason to bring her to a team, but is nonetheless a useful ability across the board for all teams while also being highly synergistic for a select few. Using it costs a manageable 80 energy and immediately summons an AoE Blizzard around your target, which forcibly applies Solidification to all enemies in its radius while also dealing a small amount of ticking Cryo Damage every 0.5 seconds it's active.

This ability is useful in teams that value Solidification as a resource or combo skill trigger, but is also still valuable in teams that don't, thanks to the stun-like effect it has on smaller enemies. Using this ability in a pack of monsters will take a lot of them out of commission for a short burst of time.

Talents

Snowshine's talents are both useful, but each is incredibly simple. 

Her first talent, Polar Survival, increases her Treatment Effect by 25% against targets below 55% HP, boosting overall healing output notably against allies who need it most. Makes topping off the team after a big set of hits easier.

Note: This talent's effects are incredibly likely to activate on the controlled operator as Snowshine’s combo can only trigger when they’re at 60% HP or lower and attacked.

Her other talent, SAR Professional, improves her Battle Skill counters. Now, when successfully retaliating, Snowshine will also gain an additional 10 Ultimate energy. In teams where Snowshine actively uses her Battle Skill to counter enemies, this talent is a nice improvement to her Ultimate access, granting the team better force Solidification access, which may or may not be useful to the team you're running.

Gameplay

Not all of Snowshine’s abilities will be useful to every team. With that in mind, here is what to look out for when playing her:

• Use Combo Skill when available to recover health and keep the team topped off

• In teams that don’t make use of its bonus effects, activate Ultimate as soon as available to inflict a good amount of Stagger and damage. Or in teams that rely on Solidification, you can save it for specific synergistic moments instead. Last but not least, you can hold on to it to use it as a form of AoE crowd control to freeze multiple enemies at once, making attacking and surviving easier while it lasts.

• Snowshine’s Battle Skill can also optionally be used to protect the team and counter enemy abilities. Some teams will also value the Cryo Infliction; this ability applies, making it more of a mainstay in their compositions.