Disclaimer
Both Makima and Power reviews are based on roughly 12h of testing, so take them with a grain of salt. We will update the reviews if we find something we missed in their performance and usage.
Makima details
Manufacturer: Abnormal
Weapon: SMG
Element: Water
Burst Type: 2
Class: Defender
Rarity: SSR
Makima skills
Makima review
Makima is a Burst II SMG wielder who is the first character with a cheat death mechanic - which is perfect for her as she's a Taunter, so she can buy your team a few precious seconds and help cheese some bosses. Sadly, in the general PVE content, you usually fight under such high deficits, Makima will quickly die once her cheat death is used as it can trigger only once per battle. But that's a common issue with every AOE Taunter, not just Makima - full-screen Taunt is the worst kind of Taunt in NIKKE because it often equals certain death in non-boss stages.
Let's go over Makima's skills now.
Her S1 gives a massive Reloading Speed boost (and a small DEF boost) to all allies, but it only triggers when Makima gets hit 20 times. Considering how her S2 Taunt works, you should be able to trigger it pretty often - she only needs roughly 6 seconds to fire the 120 bullets so in theory, you can keep the S1 buff permanently. But only in theory as Makima often dies quickly in normal stages. It works a bit better in boss stages as there AOE Taunt isn't that bad.
Before her release, we thought Makima's S2 will have a bigger impact on the PVP meta, but sadly while the 7 seconds help with countering some teams, it's not that big of a deal against the current meta composition - Jackal and her quick burst team.
As for Makima's Burst - it's a great skill on paper as it gives Makima Pierce and damage to health conversion (aka healing), but then you realize she is using an SMG. So her normal attacks do the least amount of damage per shot in the game compared to any other weapon, which means that the healing she gains won't be that big.
Honestly, Makima is a bit disappointing - both in PVP and PVE. Tanks are really hard to use in NIKKE due to how the damage formula and stage power requirements work - and this especially is true for screen-wide Taunters that usually die right after using their Taunt. Besides some niche uses against Interception bosses, other Burst II spot characters are way superior to Makima.
Makima's pros and cons
Pros
first Taunter with cheat death mechanic that allows you to cheese some content,
20-second cooldown on the Burst skill, so she can fit into any comp.
Cons
AOE Taunt = suicide on a higher deficit,
SMG wielder so her burst energy generation is low,
her self-healing is pretty meh, so you need to run her with a healer,
coat.
Makima ratings
You can check Makima's ratings on her profile!
Should you pull?
Honestly, it's hard to justify pulling on Makima - she simply doesn't bring enough to the table to use her over other Burst II characters and while the cheat death mechanic can help you against some bosses, it isn't a must-have anywhere.
Power details
Manufacturer: Abnormal
Weapon: Rocket Launcher
Element: Fire
Burst Type: 3
Class: Attacker
Rarity: SSR
Power skills
Power review
Power is a Burst III Rocket Launcher wielder who can stack ATK buffs on self and bonk enemies to shadow (or rather blood) realm with her Burst skill.
Her S1 gives her a pretty massive ATK boost and all she needs is to attack enemies with Fully Charged shots. At max level and max stack, the skill will give her a whooping 32% ATK buff. And what's best about the buff is that it isn't tied to on-kill like for example Harran, which means she can easily stack it both on boss stages and in normal stages. The issue with the skill is that without Resilience Cube (needs to be at least level 2) or a source of Charge Speed buffs in the team, it's not possible to keep the max stacks permanently - they will simply fall off when Power will start reloading.
Power's S2 gives her a pretty huge 38% Explosion Radius bonus, but keeping it up permanently won't be possible either. The 18 normal shots requirement means that Power will need to empty 3 magazines (which will take her around 24 seconds, not including any buffs or Cubes) to activate the S2 skill. And with 10-second uptime on the buff, it translates to roughly 50% uptime on the buff. Which is still pretty decent uptime, but you will need to time it right for Boss fights so she can hit multiple weak points at once. As for the 100% reload part of the skill, it basically refills her magazine instantly, but this triggers only once per battle.
Now, before we go over Power's Burst, here's a perfect meme that comes to mind:
Yeah, Power's Burst hits hard, but not as hard as Snow White's - while the numbers on paper are in favor of Power, in reality, the Pierce effect on Snow White Burst allows her to reach ridiculous numbers when you use the skill at the right moment as you can hit multiple boss parts with one shot. Still, when it comes to auto-play, Power's bonkhammer will be more reliable and work out of the box. But the skill has some issues too, as it always targets the highest ATK target on the field and it isn't always the boss - so you can waste it on a minion by accident.
In PVE she can be used anywhere and in PVP she can actually allow you to snipe the highest ATK target on the enemy team so she has some potential there too, but we need to test her there more. So her PVP rating may increase soon!
Overall, Power is very similar to Laplace when it comes to damage output on both boss and non-boss stages so if you're lacking an RL character (for example for Union Raid or Interception), pulling for Power might be a good idea. She's also a really good choice for new players, as her ATK stacking buff paired with the Explosion bonus will allow Power to quickly deal with waves of enemies. Just keep in mind that Power is more of a jack of all trades, master of none type of character. She can be used in a lot of content, but another more-specialized or simply stronger character will overshadow her.
Power pros and cons
Pros
stacking ATK buff,
great burst energy generation,
good in both single-target and multi-target scenarios,
bonkhammer.
Cons
a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. She can be used in a lot of content, but another more-specialized or simply stronger character will overshadow her,
the Burst auto-targeting highest ATK enemy is bad,
you need Resilience Cube (or Charge Speed) to keep S1 permanently.
Power ratings
You can check Power's ratings on her profile!
Should you pull?
If you already have geared and leveled Laplace (or Vesti), you don't really need Power (unless for collection reasons), but for new players, she will be a great starter DPS that is flexible enough to work in every PVE content and in the future also act as the main DPS in Rocket Launcher teams (for Union Raid and Interception).
