Awakened character

Review

Summary

Jisoo is a utility tank who creates value for the team through a plethora of debuffs. Notably, she applies a 90% healing reduction debuff and 25% ASPD decrease debuff passively globally. Not only does the debuff have 100% uptime, it is classified as a permanent debuff.

Jisoo’s Alternium Reactor addressed her long-standing survivability issues by turning her into a stat-stick monstrosity. Jisoo’s reactor comes with an assortment of desirable stats; notably, she gains up to 60% Status Effect RES. Status Effect RES reduces debuff duration and effect (among other things, this means healing reflux refluxes less and falls off sooner). While players typically assess character kits holistically, Jisoo’s reactor is so strong that many people opt to frontline Jisoo purely for the stats it grants.

PVE Review

Generally speaking, Jisoo’s utility rarely finds enough value that it would justify running her over other frontline alternatives. Of note, Jisoo’s reactor turns her into a massive stat stick capable of frontlining most PVE stages.

PVP Review

Jisoo without her reactor is borderline unplayable in PVP. With her reactor, Jisoo becomes an unbelievably oppressive frontline tank. She provides insane utility, has unimaginable bulk, and she does all this for 5 DP. When Jisoo isn’t banned, everyone is basically forced to run their own Jisoo to match the opponent. For now, she is unironically considered the strongest frontline tank in the game.

Part of her tankiness can be attributed to her supporter role. There is no dedicated anti-supporter gear configuration, as the substat option does not exist. Traditional anti-defender/ anti-striker DMG sets won’t work against Jisoo. Unless you are willing to invest in a Volcano set, Jisoo will only be affected by the 3 lines of 51.2% anti-ground DMG shared by all damage dealer gear (and Britra ranged/ melee DMG from latents, but that’s tangential). 

Killing Jisoo is a daunting task. Contrasting other ASSRs with clear counterplay, Jisoo is so grossly overtuned that your only real option is to play into the Jisoo mirror match hoping your backline is stronger than theirs. Access to a proper Volcano set opens your options considerably, otherwise it’s too inefficient to dedicate resources towards a scuffed anti-Jisoo unit.

Review

Summary

Awakened Hilde (AHilde) is a frontline tank with an obscene HP pool capable of disrupting enemies with her push-oriented kit. AHilde’s passive, special skill, and ultimate skill all synergize together to make a frontline tank capable of dealing heavy knockback and holding the space gained.

AHilde’s Alternium Reactor gives her some more team utility in the form of a barrier granted to all on field allies while AHilde is alive. This stacks with her passive, meaning she applies two distinct barriers on deployment.

PVE Review

AHilde is gifted to all players as a free story progression reward . Being a great frontline tank, she can be a major boon to new accounts lacking proper frontline options.

AHilde has an extremely low gear requirement. In PVE, her base DEF is almost enough to max category 1 DMG RES (refer to Terms and Mechanics guide). She only needs two substats’ worth of anti-ground DMG RES at level 100, and one substat’s worth at level 110. Additionally, her frequent self-barrier application reduces the pressure on her supports to keep her alive.

AHilde can survive almost any content in the game but in most cases, the durability she brings is excessive. Players eventually outgrow her in favor of more affordable frontline tanks, as oftentimes players only need a generic frontline tank. Her 6 DP cost can also be unwieldy when compared to cheaper alternatives who tank just as well for the situation.

This doesn’t make her entirely useless, as players may revisit her when the typical frontline tanks aren’t enough. These include Dive 50, specific Danger Close bosses (notably Soprano), but extends to any difficult stage (e.g. Dimension Trimming).

PVP Review

In PVP, AHilde can shove the enemy team around and ruin their units’ spacing. If AHilde can survive to cast her ultimate, she can provide a ton of value disrupting your opponent’s positioning by knocking back frontline tanks to expose the backline.

AHilde’s alternium reactor has breathed new life into the unit. She now sees decent usage during extreme stall-heavy weeks by giving her team additional bulk with the barriers provided by her alternium reactor. These barriers provide a great deal of survivability and help stabilize the backline provided that AHilde herself is not struggling to stay alive.

As a 6 DP frontline tank, AHilde can be remarkably inflexible and frequently struggles to justify her own existence in comps that would sooner run someone else. Her cost, which has always been a pain point, becomes especially difficult to work with in PVP when she is competing against other more efficient frontline tanks (e.g. Rearm Kaci, Rearm Alex). AHilde does provide unique value in the form of her barriers but when you only need a frontline tank who can soak damage, there is little that she provides over the alternatives.

Dealing with AHilde has always been one of the first major challenges new PVP players face. Between her innate tankiness, constant knockback, gap closer, and barrier spam, she can single-handedly overwhelm new players’ teams and quickly kill the game by squeezing everyone against the edge of the map. AHilde can be managed with some combination of:

• Bringing properly geared anti-defender units: This can be a dedicated anti-defender damage dealers (e.g. Old Administration Rifleman) or characters inherently good against defenders (Awakened Maria, Awakened Regina). 

• Giving your frontline tanks movement accessories: Movement accessories go a long way towards frontline survivability. Beyond the dodge chance, the EVA from movements help push most frontline tanks past AHilde’s surefire threshold. Being able to dodge AHilde’s special makes her much easier to manage.

• Stacking multiple frontline tanks in front of AHilde: Building off the above point on evasion, stacking multiple frontline tanks makes it much harder for AHilde to knock back both.

Most of the time, AHilde difficulties stem from gear deficiencies. AHilde (and PVP in general) becomes more manageable as you iron out your substats and come to own a few proper sets.

Review

Summary

Awakened Yoo Mina (AMina) is a melee damage dealer who outputs an obscene amount of damage with her offensive kit. AMina’s kit is perfectly suited to the PVP environment, but she can also find value in PVE as a generic damage dealer.

AMina deals a ton of upfront burst damage with her passive damage on deploy chained into a special skill. From there, she can continue to exert pressure through her flurry of enhanced basics.

AMina’s Alternium Reactor grants AMina a 10-hit immortality, a special skill reset, and a full crowd control cleanse. In a PVP environment, AMina’s reactor is broken beyond belief and considerably increases her damage potential.

PVE Review

AMina is used as a generic damage dealer in PVE, but she is generally not used over alternatives (both ASSR and non-ASSR). While AMina gets outperformed, she has the advantage of being fairly easy to work with. This flexibility makes it easy to shoehorn her into random comps in the absence of better alternatives and helps stretch out her value before she is ultimately phased out.

Notably, AMina can be used as a damage dealer for Guild Coop Demolition Worm (see also: https://www.prydwen.gg/counter-side/guides/guild-coop)

PVP Review

AMina (with alternium reactor) warps the entire PVP meta around her when she is unbanned. AMina’s deployment range extension allows her to penetrate deep into the backline and wreak havoc if left unchecked. Properly timed and supported, AMina can punish even the slightest overextensions. A well-geared AMina is more than capable of shredding frontline tanks. AMina can swing the game so heavily in her favor that her existence alone generates pressure by creating a dilemma: spend DP to address immediate problems, or hold DP to deal with the inevitable AMina deploy.

AMina’s reactor resolves her long-standing consistency issues. The special skill reset alongside the immortality gives her the push she needs to secure her kills. As well, her reactor improves AMina’s matchup against her traditional counters (i.e. snipers) by outright killing them with the special skill reset or by exploiting their slow attack speed to drag out her hit-based immortality.

While AMina already functions great on her own, she appreciates support and synergizes well with forward-deploy units (e.g. Gremory, Kang) who can draw attention away from her. AMina doesn’t live very long but her damage output can be well worth the cost of keeping her alive a few extra seconds.

Although daunting, AMina can be managed provided your comp has the tools to deal with her:

• Keep a frontline tank at the ready: Having something to drop on her helps redirect her attacks (specifically the enhanced basics), soak valid hits, and keep her away from the backline.

• Easy access to anti-striker damage: Killing AMina faster ends her rampage sooner. Notably, Jaina Kropel (preferably with alternium reactor) hard-counters AMina with her five second non-removable damage immunity. Jaina’s combination of damage and stall is everything AMina cannot deal with.

• Buff removal: AMina’s buffs, notably her perfect evasion and immortality, are all removable buffs.

• Position better: Keeping your backline safe at the far back of the map prevents AMina from reaching them. This allows you to play out the game without the fear of AMina sliding into your team before your backline is fully stacked.

The single most important thing when playing against AMina is anticipating her. Being prepared for the inevitable AMina deploy and holding some DP to respond goes a long way towards mitigating her impact.

Review

ALSY is the first awakened air employee that was added to the game and at the same time, she's also an anti-air specialist. Guess she doesn't like to share the space with others. Still, being the best anti-air employee in the game isn't the only thing good about her. First of all, she's a 5-cost awakened employee, meaning it's easier to fit her in a team, but she's also a great buffer that makes Counter Rangers in your team way way stronger by buffing their Skill Haste. She has the strongest ETB passive in the game; not only does it hit the whole battlefield, but it can one-shot most flying units like Rosalia/Lyudmila.

In PVE content ALSY shines in:

• Guild Coop - ALSY is considered the Best-in-Slot character to guard the ship against all the flying units,

• Shadow Palace Floor 3 - the floor is quite punishing if you try to brute force it using ground units and teams made of only air units have a much easier time there,

• Relic Dungeons against Edel - as similar to Shadow Palace Floor 3, air teams shine there and ALSY is a core unit in that team,

• any event stage where Air enemies are common as she can easily deal with them.

Still, keep in mind that besides Guild Coop where she is a must-have for those that plan to conquer the harder levels of the Guild Boss, you always have some alternatives - they might be slightly inferior to ALSY, but they can still work well.

In PVP because of her 5 base cost, she's easier to fit in your team than other awakened units. While other awakened employees have ups and downs and sometimes fall out of meta, ALSY is always dangerous. This is due to her lower cost which allows her to be used in various compositions, and also whenever she isn't banned, using air units is risky because a wild ALSY might appear and ruin someone's day. Especially Awakened Horizon abusers hate ALSY as she can ruin their day if she's deployed at the right moment.

ALSY is also one of the few units that reached Ban level 4 in PVP - not once, but multiple times and across multiple regions.

Review

Summary

Awakened Yuna Springfield (AYuna) is a tanky damage dealer capable of outputting absurd damage with her %max HP burn aura. 

On top of her burn aura, highlights of AYuna’s kit include her self-sustain and easy access to the “buff nullification” debuff through her special skill. Accompanying AYuna is her summon Rayleigh, who offsets her passive self-burn with his own healing and periodically slams the backline to deal damage and apply debuffs.

AYuna’s Alternium Reactor makes her burn aura significantly stronger and turns her into one of the best frontline melters in the game. With her reactor, AYuna outputs 3~5% max health true damage per second. Keep in mind that AYuna’s burn is a permanent debuff from her aura, so it bypasses barriers, cannot be stopped by hitstun, and cannot be mitigated through gear or debuffs.

PVE Review

AYuna is a PVE powerhouse whose value scales with stage difficulty. Owing to the nature of her %max HP burn, AYuna outputs impressive DPS against some HP-bloat enemies and creates an alternative angle of approach for players without the respective damage gear (e.g. Deep Conquest 3-10, Dive). Her universal buff stripping and blocking on her special skill also provides very good utility against enemies that have very annoying self-buffs (e.g. Yegor in Dive 60 boss node, who buffs himself with a huge 50% HP shield that comes with 100% category 2 DMG RES). Most other buff stripping units only remove one random non-permanent buff, while also not having AYuna's buff block, making AYuna even more unique.

The nature of AYuna’s %max HP burn and buff strip + block is also what prevents her from seeing more widespread use, as both her burn and buff strip + block do not apply to bosses. AYuna struggles to find value in many of the endgame PVE game modes, including Dimension Trimming and Danger Close.

AYuna eventually gets phased out of endgame PVE in favor of more specialized units. However, her combination of damage, survivability, and self-healing makes her a potent early-mid game ASSR who easily carries you through the stages. She is one of the better ASSRs for rushing through general content, especially when pushing the limits of less developed accounts.

PVP Review

AYuna is an oppressive PVP character who dominates the meta when she’s free, leveraging her %max HP burn aura and her buff stripping + blocking (which can even block healing outputs from enemy healers) to apply an overwhelming amount of pressure to the enemy frontline.

AYuna’s burn aura is capable of outputting more damage than dedicated damage dealers (e.g. Old Administration Rifleman) at a fraction of the risk. Of note, AYuna’s %max HP burn kills all targets at roughly the same rate. This means AYuna is highly effective against expensive frontline units (e.g. Awakened Jake, Awakened Hilde, Evolved-001) and relatively worse against comps that cycle cheap frontline units.

Since the bulk of AYuna’s damage scales off her target’s %max HP, she can take advantage of tank gear without sacrificing damage. Her self-sustain is enough to heal up any chip damage; it can be incredibly difficult to make damage “stick”. Even when AYuna gets chunked, she can quickly heal back to full if left unchecked.

Rayleigh, AYuna’s summon, brings a ton of value through his backline disruption (damage, hitstun, and debuff) and bulk. Notably, Rayleigh will resurrect to full HP once on death. This passive makes Rayleigh deceptively tanky, enabling him to stall a considerable amount of time for a summon.

AYuna is a flexible unit who can be played in a variety of comps. As a short ranged damage dealer, AYuna is exposed to danger. In a PVP environment, AYuna will not be strong enough to properly frontline for the team. For this reason, AYuna pairs well with other frontline tanks who can shield her while she applies her burn aura in relative safety. 

AYuna has several weaknesses in her kit that can be exploited:

• AYuna positions herself close to the frontline. Without units to tank for her, AYuna can quickly die to dedicated anti-striker damage dealers (e.g. Xiao Lin, Warden).

• Healing reduction debuffs are strong against AYuna. Depriving AYuna of her self-sustain makes her far easier to manage. Tangentially, the Gauntlet healing debuff active 90 seconds into the match heavily inhibits AYuna’s self-sustain, significantly impacting her survivability as the match drags on.

• Rayleigh is the source of AYuna’s self-sustain and without it she becomes incredibly vulnerable. While not the first option in terms of AYuna counterplay, Rayleigh can be directly countered with Harab, though more esoteric solutions exist (i.e. timing Momo reflux with Rayleigh’s revive).

While this sounds fairly straightforward, players will rarely give you the opportunity to hurt AYuna directly. In practice, this all devolves into some variation of “kill AYuna faster than she kills you”. 

Review

Awakened Na Yubin is an evasion-based tank that constantly pushes forward and tries to murder the backline, not giving his enemies any break, and if they try to use barriers as a form of protection, he will turn their power against them, unless the barrier happens to be non-cancellable.

Overall he has the highest evasion among all Defenders and it takes quite a while to kill him, but only if he's geared and has healers behind him. He requires a perfect tank set to shine - if you use him with sub-par gear, even SSR defenders will do a better job.

For a large amount of time, he was considered a pure PVP employee because his kit revolves around pushing forward, refluxing enemy shields, and countering Towers. While he lost the King of PVP status, he still remains a viable pick to counter camping teams which use Towers. He isn't exactly the best against some other teams, though. Also, since he moves so far into the enemy's backline, most healers don't even reach him; only Evelyn does consistently.

As for PVE, some of the Challenges and event stages make use of his unique kit, though he is far from a must-have. Also, he is commonly used as a support unit in Dive 50 as a decent Defender. He's still worse than most SSR defenders in early game PVE content, and is just a niche pick for a few stages in endgame.

Review

Awakened Seo Yoon is a top-tier damage dealer that dominates the battlefield by sheer presence. Her gimmick is that she can summon rifles that are Snipers while she is a Ranger, so you get two different damage dealers in one. Furthermore, she's quite hard to kill thanks to her rifles - they take any damage instead of her - and jumping backward away from the action when her HP falls below a certain threshold.

In the early game, deploying ASY behind a tank is enough to safely clear most stages in story mode as she will kill everything that tries to harm her. Together with Awakened Yuna, she forms a duo that can easily clear the whole Shadow Palace (except for stages where awakened units are banned). While for the longest of time, she was a staple in any Raid team, it's getting harder and harder to justify using her over other employees - it takes a lot of time for ASY to ramp up her damage output, and other damage dealers are cheaper and do a similar amount of damage.

As for the late game, while she is often used as a support employee in Dive 50, there's no place for her in Relic Dungeons. While you can use her there in one of the three endgame Dungeons, if she's your only awakened unit, she's useless in the other two.

In PVP, while her damage is also scary, she's feared because of Healing Reflux. She places a debuff on any enemy hit by her special and whenever they are healed they get damaged instead. Still, nowadays she's not as good as she was because there are a lot of characters that counter her - for example, the current meta character, Replacer King can instantly wipe her Rifles, leaving her defenseless.

In the Global version, ASY is basically impossible to efficiently counter besides using Ingrid and other strikers to rush her down. This makes her a fearsome DPS with sustainability thanks to her backsteps, likely warping the meta for a time. Still, as different and stronger strikers come out like Spira and Veronica, ASY will begin to fall off - as well as other stronger awakens being released like Ministra/Amy.

Review

Replacer Queen is a Sniper employee who focuses on blasting groups of enemies. She boasts great AoE damage alongside a much wanted DMG Amp debuff and a periodic stun. She also gains Skill Haste per enemy death and increased ATK per enemy her Ultimate hits.

Because her cost is lower than most awakened units, it's easier to fit her in your teams while progressing through the game. Still, she's not a solo carry type of character - you need to build a proper team to keep her alive and let her do her thing.

Endgame PVE is where she shines. Most players already have fully geared teams and slotting a 72% CDR or Spectral Blaze/Spirit Replacer Queen into one will turn her into a killing machine. She's one of the best Snipers to bring into Dive 50 and also she's great in the Titan stage in Relic Dungeon. Unfortunately for Danger Close she got knocked off the meta due to the Awakened unit debuff being free points.

As for PVP, while she can do great damage, she dies quite easily, making her hard to use well.

Review

Summary

Replacer King (RKing) is a PVP-oriented damage dealer who puts heavy pressure on the enemy backline with his unlimited range, unlimited valid hit basic attacks. RKing is a meta PVP unit who demands a dedicated team built around him and careful positional play to fully enable his kit. Played correctly, he can be incredibly oppressive.

RKing’s power budget is in his Basic Attack and Passive. When a non-mech ally unit dies (summons included), RKing gains unlimited range and valid hits on his basic attacks, allowing him to deal damage to all units in front of him, including the enemy ship. Additionally, RKing’s Basic Attack itself gains range, allowing him to attack from a distance.

Although RKing is classified as a defender, he transforms into a backline unit when his passive is activated (you should not be treating him as a traditional defender to begin with).

PVE Review

RKing has limited application in PVE, because his kit runs counter to what you would want in PVE; the opportunity cost of sacrificing team slots is too high. In addition, RKing’s single target damage output is severely lacking compared to other competitive damage dealers, even before factoring in DP cost differences. The ridiculous stat scaling on ships and bosses results in RKing running out of steam too soon, which then forces you to waste even more units to reactivate his passive again.

As a damage dealer, RKing does not deliver damage commensurate to cost. As a frontline tank, RKing does not provide anything that cheaper frontline tanks can’t do better. RKing doesn’t function well in a PVE environment.

PVP Review

RKing defines an archetype of comps (RKing comps) built around him. There are a number of variations to how he can be played but the core concept remains unchanged; RKing comps are built around keeping RKing protected while he slowly but consistently chips the entire enemy team with his punches. RKing can be run as both the focal point of the comp or as one of two win conditions (e.g. Curian).

The two major considerations with RKing comps are:

• Maintaining uptime on RKing’s passive

• Keeping RKing safe

To maintain uptime on RKing’s passive, he is frequently be run with:

• Blue Bridge Mk.2: Blue Bridge’s S2 summons 3 waves of soldiers over a period of time. This synergizes perfectly with RKing’s passive.

• Cheap fodder: Summoners and multi-unit characters pair well with RKing to feed his passive when Blue Bridge’s S2 is on cooldown. These characters include but are not limited to: Eins & Zwei, Laura, Kang, and Assault Troopers.

RKing will only punch forward. To make sure nothing gets behind him, it is imperative to learn how to manipulate positioning so your RKing is not at risk of being redirected. This is done by achieving a “camp”. For more information on PVP positioning, please refer to: https://www.prydwen.gg/counter-side/guides/rta-concepts

RKing has several weaknesses that can be exploited. RKing is usually countered through a combination of:

• Serina Crew (Operator): Serina Crew’s Command skill shuts down RKing’s damage and can ruin the RKing player’s positioning. Serina creates opportunities to kill RKing where he would otherwise be turtled up behind his frontline.

• Awakened Lyudmila: Awakened Lyudmila’s kit directly counters RKing by applying crippling debuffs when enemies die, which perfectly times her debuff with RKing’s self-buff.

• Strong positioning: RKing comps are heavily incentivized to “camp” under their own ship to mitigate the risk of being redirected. Being able to “out-camp” RKing can create opportunities to turn the RKing or put him in positions where he can be more easily killed. This can come naturally from better play but the process can be greatly assisted by tools like Albion’s (ship) skill 1.

• Counter-comps: Certain comps have inherently good matchup against RKing. These include frontline-heavy comps (e.g. Awakened Yuna, Awakened Joo Shiyoon), comps with extremely good early game pressure (e.g. Soldier comps), and teams that make use of characters with buff nullification (e.g. Jisoo, Awakened Jake, Awakened Regina).

While losing to RKing can feel miserable, it helps to understand that not every scenario is a decision-making opportunity. Many situations reflect the consequence of an earlier decision. It is pretty much impossible to win against a perfectly set up RKing comp. What’s important is denying RKing as much positioning as possible.

Review

Summary

Ministra is a utility ranger who uses powerful skills and debuffs to control the battlefield. 

Much of Ministra’s value comes from the swords summoned by her passive and ultimate. Ministra’s 33% ATK, ASPD, and skill haste debuff can be coupled with other debuffers to cripple enemies’ ability to function. Ministra’s kit also gives her survivability in the form of a one-time backstep that summons Mutated Spira, a stat-adjusted Spira summon who inherits gear from Ministra.

In addition, her Alternium Reactor gives her some much needed offensive power to bridge the damage gap between her and newer releases.

PVE Review

Ministra finds value in PVE through her debuffs (by crippling enemy damage outputs), but her personal damage contribution can be lacking.

While there was a time when Ministra’s debuffs were needed to keep frontline tanks healthy, in the current state of the game they are not needed in most stages. The situations where Ministra is still needed are uncommon, as top-of-the-line frontline tanks (e.g. Rearm Kaci) can usually fare fine regardless.

She is now most commonly used for her 100% Incoming Healing block on her special skill (which works even on bosses), which is invaluable in stages like Dimension Trimming Jungle Stage 1.

This isn’t to say Ministra is bad. She is a pretty decent general use ASSR ranger, but she is a notch below top-meta PVE units.

PVP Review

Unfortunately, Ministra’s best days are behind her. Where she once held a commanding presence in PVP, she is now an uncommon ASSR that only periodically shows up in niche teams. Her debuffs are still unique to her and teams that heavily lean into debuffs (e.g. “ASPD down” comps) will serve to benefit from her sword summons.

As a 5 cost utility ranger, Ministra isn’t difficult to slot into a team. Contrasting some ASSRs that demand teams built around them, Ministra can manage herself fine. However, she excels when she is put in a team that factors in her debuffs. Otherwise, Ministra becomes just another backline damage dealer who is (quite unfortunately) severely lacking in damage. Ministra takes little additional consideration to play against, because she can be managed using any one of the traditional backline harassment tools. These include backline access units (e.g. Lily, Gremory, Spira, Kang), but she can also be managed through more abstract means (i.e. playing a better comp).

Review

Amy the Bringer of Whale Tears - that should have been her name. Her confusion ability broke the PVP balance and pushed the KR community to review bomb the game. Still, Nexon quickly responded and she received a rework - while the confusion mechanic was removed, she gained instant death instead which is another broken mechanic, but for sure a lesser evil compared to confusion.

Since her power lies in her on-deploy ability, if you use her on auto-battle mode, she will be just another damage dealer. And for 6 cost there are way better employees you can use instead. She's also not that used in the endgame. Her damage is still good though and if you're forced to manual some stages, she will be a good addition to the team, but only that.

After her rework, her rating fell quite a lot, but now after Awakened Mina was buffed and gained Perfect Evasion, she's back in the meta. The Surefire effect on her special allows maker her a perfect counter to Perfect Evasion and because the developers seem to be slapping the buff on a lot of new units, she might become a must pick soon.

Still, keep it in mind that against other enemies, her strength lies in her on-deploy ability, but if you miss it or time her deploy wrong, you've basically wasted 6 cost for nothing.

Review

Evolved-One is the first awakened employee that isn't a Counter. She's also the first unit that consumes other units to make herself permanently stronger. With over 130k HP, 2k DEF, and 5% MDL she's really hard to kill. She seems to fit great into the mecha team, but the fact that she can't be healed is a problem in some modes.

She's the first awakened employee that is farmable. But you need to clear Dive 50 (which is one of the hardest contents in the game) to unlock the ability to get her for free.

Because of the passive that prevents her from being healed, it's really hard to use her in PVE. Pure Mech teams without Evolved One do better in PVE than with her.

In PVP she brought second life to all Mecha teams lovers and she's a super popular pick. What's best about her is that she's really flexible - all you need is some sacrifices to boost her passive and you can pair her with anything and she will work well. As long as she survives to her ult, she will wipe the whole battlefield with her nuke.

In the KR region, while she is really strong, she rarely gets banned and it's a running joke in the community that the developers protect her from bans. Still, the issue with her lack of bans is that because she's easy to use, a lot of players play her and this tanks her win rate.

MDL = Max Damage Limit or DMG Taken Limit is a stat that only appears on SSR rarity Defenders. How does it work? For example, if an employee has 10% MDL it means that any hit that does more damage than 10% of his max HP, will have the part exceeding the MDL value lowered by 80%. This prevents Defenders with MDL from being one-shot by skills/ultimates.

A way to counter MDL is to use employees with great ASPD like Administration Rifleman, Ifrit, or Millia Rage.

Review

Arhat Shiyoon is a counterattacking monster that can survive quite a beating thanks to his monstrous base HP and DEF alongside his Skill and Ultimate giving him temporary Perfect Evasion.

In PVE he's a great carry for most general content, as his kit is hard to go wrong with. He isn't a slouch in endgame either - he's a great pick for some Relic Dungeons, and almost mandatory for nightmare Britra raid.

In PVP he is a balanced character that counters some meta characters, but at the same time, there are multiple ways to counter him. Despite his seemingly strong defensive stats, he can still die quite fast, especially to Snipers. His Perfect Evasion is a removable buff as well, making Serina and other buff removers easily strip a layer off his bulk.

Overall Arhat Shiyoon is a strong employee in PVE and in PVP he has some exploitable weaknesses.

Review

Awakened Horizon is the second awakened Mech employee added to the game and also the second awakened Air unit.

In PVE she shines because of the damage she brings. Especially her passive that deals additional damage based on the enemy current HP makes her chunk their HP bars with each strike. It's worth noting that the 30% HP-based damage is applied not only on her basic attacks but also on her Special and Ultimate (both use her swords).

%HP-based abilities are always strong in games where enemies HP inflates into millions, and similar to A.Yuna this makes her great against bulky enemies.

While there are better picks for Dive 50, she shines in Shadow Palace floor 5 and the Relic Dungeons where she can help with the Maria stage, though she needs good gear there.

In PVP, she's ultra-hard to kill because with her high attack speed, she gains immunity to all damage periodically and this allows her to survive where she shouldn't. Also, her damage is actually great despite only having 5% HP-based damage instead of 30%. She can be countered by dedicated anti-Air employees like Awakened Lee Sooyeon though.

Alongside other behemoths, she is one of the meta employees in PVP currently.

Review

Awakened Jake is an employee focused on making the lives of Mechs miserable with his passive stats and skillset. Not only can he tank them really well, but he can permanently disable them while burning them to death. The HP Shields he generates every time his passive is activated make him very tanky even against Counters, but also makes him weak against buff-lockers and barrier nullifiers. His signature move can make a huge impact by introducing a map-wide skill seal and buff lock, rendering most counters useless for the duration, while also grouping enemies up.

He can also be used in PVE to great effect in mech heavy stages, such as scavenger dives.

Fun fact: Awakened Jake used to be terrible even against mechs, and was buffed multiple times throughout different patches. His Stasis Field had just 2% burn, was cancellable with the barrier on him, and used not to affect Evolved One or any air units at all. His ultimate also had no impact back then.

Review

Summary

Awakened Shin Jia (AJia) is a 5 cost supporter who provides a combination of offensive and defensive buffs for your team. She costs more than your average supporter, but in turn provides a wide spread of utility and more potent buffs than would be found on other supporters.

By micromanaging AJia’s kit mechanics, AJia can provide the largest ATK and CRIT buffs from a single unit in the game. On top of that, she also provides consistent shielding and some healing. This makes her extremely prevalent across all PVE content, and also gives her a niche in PVP. 

PVE Review

AJia provides a plethora of buffs, including the strongest damage buffs in the game. This makes her a core character in almost any PVE content. Her consistent uptime on her high ATK/ CRIT buffs are appreciated everywhere, and her ultimate skill is a massive enabler for burst damage set ups. AJia’s ultimate skill reapplies the buffs granted by her special skill, allowing you to double up on AJia’s special skill buffs. Notably, she is a mainstay buffer in the Danger Close used in competitive comps across most bosses, though she doesn’t see as much use as before due to changes in the meta environment of the game mode.

AJia’s barrier mechanic is distinct from other supporters who apply barriers in that the shield from her special skill is applied multiple times over the duration of her special, providing consistent protection for her backline and herself.

AJia is a strong ASSR but she inherits all the problems inherent to being a supporter. She is a powerful force multiplier but if the damage is lacking, her buffs won’t make a difference. Ultimately, there is a limit to what supporters can accomplish individually.

PVP Review

AJia periodically sees use in PVP as a buffer, providing a combination of defensive and offensive buffs. Issues inherent to buffer supporters prevent AJia from seeing more widespread use, but in spite of the archetype’s awkward position in the PVP environment she is still able to muscle her way into relevance thanks to the sheer amount of utility in her kit.

AJia’s buffs provide good value to the team and can help shore up stat differences between you and your opponent, provided you are granted the opportunity to play her. Notably, AJia can be used to increase the lethality of certain ultimates (e.g. Replacer Queen) by timing her buff application with the ultimate cast to deal significantly more burst damage than is otherwise achievable. AJia’s high cost can be awkward to work around, especially when she herself doesn’t apply any pressure. Thankfully, AJia’s innate tankiness and safe range make her relatively easier to manage compared to other backline supporters. 

Generally speaking, there is a noticeable lack of support buffers in PVP compared to PVE. This is due to the fact many support buffers need time to ramp up their buffs, whereas damage dealers are able to immediately apply pressure and contribute value. It is difficult to find the time to deploy supporters when your opponent is actively trying to kill your stuff. 

As a long range backline supporter, AJia can be difficult to deal with. Contrasting backline damage dealers who sacrifice tank stats for damage, AJia forgoes damage for the tank stats (Anti-X DMG RES%) on a proper support CDR set. It isn’t worth allocating resources towards targeted counterplay against an opponent’s AJia. Ultimately, AJia should be treated as an accessory to her team.

Review

Summary

Maestra is a PVP-oriented ASSR whose kit lends her comps to a unique playstyle. She demands a dedicated team built around her to fully enable her kit. She also needs extremely niche gear to function. Played correctly, she can be incredibly oppressive.

Maestra’s power budget is entirely concentrated in her ultimate skill. She spawns at the ship and gradually moves forward, ignoring all enemies and stopping at the center of the map. Her ultimate, which can only be cast from the center of the map, applies crippling %HP drain debuffs that are all but guaranteed to wipe the enemy team.

PVE Review

Maestra’s DMG AMP debuff can reach impressive values but its abysmal uptime coupled with her unwieldy cost makes her too impractical to use in most situations. She can be shoehorned into Britra/ Inhibitor raid comps but she is suboptimal in both. There is no reason to use her over other debuffers in any existing content. 

PVP Review

Maestra applies a strong mapwide burn and has what is effectively a debuff that kills all on-field enemies when she casts her ultimate, so the premise is you would escort her to the middle, use her ultimate to kill everything, and finish your opponent off before they can re-establish their position. 

Maestra players can leverage the pressure of her ultimate to create a dilemma for their opponents by holding onto the ultimate once she stops at the middle of the map. If they overcommit their resources, there is a risk that the Maestra player will activate her ultimate to wipe the field; if they decide to hold their resources, it gives the Maestra player a big advantage as they can commit their own resources freely and grind out the rest of the match knowing their opponent is powerless to fight back. The pressure created by her ultimate is stronger than the ultimate itself. Players are heavily encouraged to use manual ult to maximize Maestra’s value.

While Maestra’s ultimate strongly amplifies the debuff effects and acts as a board wipe, it also incurs a significant momentum loss, rendering her useless for a considerable amount of time. This means that quite often, it is better to refrain from using her ultimate and maintain pressure if it can't secure a game-winning advantage. This is especially true for experienced players as the timing of her ultimate is very readable. Opponents may hold their resources to redeploy afterwards, or use Olivie operator to cleanse all her debuffs. Given that Maestra comps are heavily stall-oriented, the inherent momentum loss may leave them without sufficient damage to push back against the enemy team if the ultimate isn’t able to close out the game.

While gear is usually covered in its own section, Maestra’s gearing is unique enough that it warrants some discussion. Maestra needs to be in the middle of the map as the prerequisite to casting her ultimate skill. As mentioned above, she can/ will typically loiter at the middle of the map for some period of time. Depending on the week, the opposite may be true where she is heavily disadvantaged and needs to cast her ultimate as soon as possible to equalize the matchup. As such, it is important to strike a balance between her speed and her tank stats.

As a 7 cost defenseless ASSR, Maestra can easily become a liability to the team without adequate support. To this end, she is frequently paired with stall units, as teams built around her are inherently stall-heavy given the resources needed to keep her alive. Notably, she directly synergizes with other Philharmonic faction characters who benefit from the faction synergy integrated into their kits (i.e. Shena, Carmen, Luna). Maestra is typically paired with other strong ASSR damage dealers, both to serve as the follow-up to her ultimate and to provide pressure to split opponents’ attention between them and Maestra. 

Maestra has several weaknesses that can be exploited:

• Debuff immunity: Maestra’s debuffs can be cleansed by debuff immunity. Notably, Olivie operator provides on-demand debuff immunity from her command skill. As Olivie is one of the most prevalent PVP operators in the game, Maestra players should be attentive of their opponents’ operator proc progress, and if it is Olivie, they should be ready to wait out the operator proc.

• New Ohio: New Ohio has cooldown-related debuffs, which can be used to delay Maestra’s ultimate. This makes her vulnerable for a period and creates a window during which opponents may push to kill her.

• Awakened Na Yubin: As a tower, Awakened Na Yubin’s %HP burn applies to Maestra. This is one of CounterSide’s most miserable matchups to play.

Building Maestra comps involves juggling a number of objectives simultaneously, emphasizing the need for a well-balanced team composition.

Review

Summary

Awakened Maria (AMaria) is a generalist damage dealer ranger with good performance across the board in all the content she finds herself in. AMaria sees a decent amount of use in PVE and PVP. Her kit is a combination of damage and utility, with her special being notable for the numerous effects it applies. Her high innate CRIT/ CRIT DMG rounds out the whole kit, significantly increasing her overall damage across all attacks.

AMaria comes with a unique positioning mechanic in the form of her passive, which spawns portals at fixed locations on the map, extending slightly further than your initial deployment range limit. These portals cannot be targeted or destroyed, but when approached, they can teleport allied units a set distance across the map. The value provided by these portals will be elaborated on below.

PVE Review

As a ranger with a strong kit and good stats, AMaria is a good option for most PVE stages, and infrequently sees use in Danger Close when her faction is buffed. She doesn’t get used against the Consortium worm boss, though this is hardly a criticism as many ASSRs won’t see half as much usage in PVE as AMaria.

AMaria has an absurdly high crit stat (the highest in the game) and she gains innate 150% crit DMG from skill levels. In situations where AMaria can surefire her targets, she has one of the highest damage to cost ratios in the game. Surefire occurs when your character’s HIT% exceeds your target’s EVA%, and ensures that none of your attacks miss.

AMaria has a notable niche in auto raid teams (Britra, Inhibitor, Kraken) due to the way her portals work. AMaria’s portals will reduce the walking time of all units deployed at the ship, and more importantly, it stacks your backline together. This ensures everyone (especially the snipers) have access to buffs from units that are only applied within a certain radius, like Awakened Shin Jia and Harim. Thanks to this, AMaria passively increases overall damage dealt on raids.

PVP Review

AMaria is used periodically in PVP as a 5 cost generalist ranger. Her individual performance is marginally worse compared to other ASSRs when not accounting for the utility of her portals, but when capitalized on she can become incredibly problematic to deal with.

AMaria’s portals can be used to make novel positioning plays, the most obvious being that with some set up you can drop frontline units directly into the enemy backline. With some creativity, portals can also be used to great effect (e.g. teleporting Jaina Kropel, comboing teleport with Albion stealth). It is worth noting that ASSRs cannot use the portals.

AMaria’s special skill has the highest uptime stun in the game with a buff dispel and -100% incoming healing debuff attached to it. Combined, these effects lock down frontline units and turn them into stationary unhealable bodies, which helps make damage stick, and helps set up kills while they are immobile. Her ultimate is a generic nuke skill. While not specific to AMaria, her ultimate’s wide AOE often results in the edge of it clipping the enemy backline for massive damage.

As a 5 cost ranger, AMaria isn’t difficult to slot into the team. Contrasting some ASSRs that demand teams built around them, she can manage herself fine. She excels when she is put in a team that takes advantage of the unique positioning opportunities made possible by her portals, but even without the portals she still contributes good value through her stats and skills.

AMaria’s multiple HP-triggered backsteps make her uniquely resistant to forward deployable units, giving her insurance against many forms of backline access. The specifics go beyond the scope of this review, but keep in mind it can be very difficult to lock her down with traditional backline harassment tools. 

Review

Summary

Curian is a backline damage dealer DPS monster who provides extremely high DPS for his cost, while also providing some of the highest burst damage in the game. He is an easy fit into teams and finds widespread use across almost all content in the game, and especially finds value in late game PVE game modes where he can best flex his massive damage.

Curian’s singular focus on dealing damage extends beyond his slew of damage self-buffs and into his team “utility”. His passive resets allied Wardens’ empowered basics on special skill casts. When used together, Curian can push the team’s total burst damage to absurd heights.

PVE Review

Curian’s high damage output is appreciated everywhere. Similar to Awakened Rosaria (ARosaria), he excels in single target situations, making him a strong option for boss content (e.g. Raids, Guild Coop, Dimension Trimming, Danger Close). 

It is worth noting that Curian out-damages ARosaria, the other ASSR sniper backline damage dealer, by a decent margin. Compared to ARosaria, Curian sees more use in the late game PVE game modes. To elaborate on the above, Curian is strong in all three raids (Britra, Inhibitor, Kraken), he is strong against both Consortium bosses (Worm, Gigas), he sees use in Danger Close, and he is relevant in Dimension Trimming.

PVP Review

Curian is one of the strongest PVP damage dealers in the game, capable of outputting absurd amounts of damage from incredible range. 

Curian’s stats are incredibly over-tuned compared to other sniper damage dealers. He was initially released as a glass-cannon backline damage dealer who sacrificed survivability for damage, resulting in complaints from the community because he was exceptionally squishy for a 6 DP ASSR to the point where it was too easy to misplay and get him killed. As a result, his defensive stats were grossly overbuffed so that he, a backline sniper, now has almost the same defensive stats as Serapel, a frontline tank.

Curian confers certain positioning advantages to your team. His passive grants himself a temporary 50% range extension on deployment, which can be heavily abused to force a bad positioning from the opponent. Because Curian out-damages and out-ranges all other backline units in the game, opponents are forced to deploy a frontline tank, which gets themselves camped* by Curian. Additionally, Curian’s ultimate repositions himself at the back of the map, keeping him relatively safe throughout the game. This is highly valued, as snipers do not come with any tools to reposition themselves. Curian can be tricky to lock down when his ultimate resets any efforts to drag him out of position.

*Camping is a community term used in positioning. See also: https://www.prydwen.gg/counter-side/guides/rta-concepts

Curian synergizes extremely well with the soldier ship Matador. Matador grants an ATK% buff to ally soldiers based on missing %max HP. Due to how tanky Curian is, he can actually capitalize on the buff without getting himself killed. People typically play Curian in soldier comps to maximize Matador’s value. Curian may also be played as a traditional backline damage dealer in counter comps, though his viability depends heavily on the bans/ ups for the week. Without Matador, Curian may struggle to compete with other ASSR backline damage dealers for a slot on the team. When assessed as a standalone backline carry, there are stronger characters who create more value in the long run. Curian-soldiers is soldiers’ strongest comp, but Curian-counters is not counters’ strongest comp. 

Curian’s high damage output, his absurd range, and his post-buff defensive stats can make him very frustrating to play against. However, he is susceptible to:

• Traditional soldier counters: Curian-soldier comps have advantages over traditional soldier comps, but they are still at their core soldier comps and are susceptible to many of the same countermeasures. Notably, Lily’s combination of damage and sleep simultaneously chip away at Curian’s health while also stalling the soldier backline with sleep debuffs. 

• Stacking defenders: As a sniper, Curian is inherently bad at dealing with defenders. Soldier comps are known for vaporizing defenders, but their anti-defender damage dealers are all very squishy and fragile. Running defender-heavy stall comps and bringing something to kill the anti-defenders is a great way to stall out Curian’s team.

• Backline access: As mentioned above, Lily is one of the better ways to counter Curian. However, other backline access tools will also work. Given Curian’s base stats and his range, it can be difficult to actually kill him. However, with enough setup it is still possible to kill Curian with some consistency.

• Skill haste debuffs: On top of the passive anti-soldier DMG% buff, New Ohio’s silence can hamper Curian’s ability to deal damage. Curian’s special into enhanced basic is a large chunk of his damage and messing with the cooldowns can greatly impact his performance. 

• Redirecting Curian’s Ult: Curian’s ultimate can be redirected by the usual suspects (Gremory, Kang, Raphaela, etc.) to avoid the damage entirely.

Curian does not have many direct counters, but as he is mainly found in soldier comps, countering the team archetype is generally enough to neutralize him too.

Review

Summary

Awakened Sigma (ASigma) is a melee damage dealer with incredible damage and survivability. ASigma sees frequent use in both PVE and PVP and can single-handedly carry new accounts deep into the game with how many roles she covers as a unit.

ASigma’s tower provides her a strong self-regeneration effect that gives her staying power as a frontline unit, and when destroyed throws her into a berserk state, granting powerful offensive self-buffs. She also boasts the highest ultimate skill multiplier in the game. All these combine to create a self-healing frontline tank with more damage capacity than the majority of this game’s dedicated damage dealers.

PVE Review

ASigma’s unique combination of frontline tankiness and obscene damage output make her an premier PVE unit, as she fills both the frontline tank and the damage dealer roles on the team. As such, she is one of the premier damage carries, outperformed only by Eve Meitner.

ASigma is the best carry by far when it comes to progressing general story content. She is very strong in Dives and can clear all of Shadow Palace on her own. ASigma transitions well as you get into endgame PVE content, with well-defined niches in Dimension Trimming and various Danger Close bosses.

PVP Review

As a frontline damage dealer with one of the most damaging ultimates in the game, ASigma applies a ton of pressure just by existing. ASigma’s kit, coupled with her absurd base stats, combine to create a stat stick monster who can rapidly overwhelm her enemies when left unchecked.

While ASigma isn’t exactly hard to use (unga bunga smash), her tower introduces a surprising amount of depth to her gameplay. The tower can be deployed in such a way that it is more/ less susceptible to being destroyed, granting you some degree of control over ASigma’s berserk mode timing. The tower can also be positioned as a deterrent to prevent your opponents from deploying near it, lest they risk triggering ASigma’s berserk mode.

Naturally, ASigma’s position as a melee-range damage dealer exposes her to a ton of risk. As such, she performs best when used in comps built around her. ASigma performs best in aggressive rush comps that take full advantage of her strengths as a damage dealer - frontline hybrid to overwhelm the enemy team before they can properly set up on their side of the field.

There are a number of ways to consistently counter ASigma and mitigate her impact:

• Dedicated anti-striker damage dealers: ASigma typically runs damage gear (i.e. Maze CDR), so she only has her innate tankiness and her team to keep her alive.

• Stall comps: Stall comps are the best way to weather ASigma’s early game onslaught and naturally scale well as the game progresses. ASigma comps, and rush comps in general, drop off considerably the longer matches go on.

• Buff removal: ASigma’s immortality buff is removable. This can seriously affect her performance as many players heavily rely on this to keep up the tempo. Denying ASigma her berserk state removes a massive amount of pressure.

• Healing reflux: Awakened Seoyoon’s healing reflux will counter ASigma if given the opportunity to apply the debuff. However, Awakened Seoyoon herself isn’t that great in PVP so it would be at the expense of all other matchups.

• Redirecting ASigma’s Ult: ASigma’s ultimate can be redirected by the usual suspects (Gremory, Kang, Raphaela, etc.) to avoid the damage entirely.

While ASigma is strong, she is naturally exposed to a lot of risk as a melee-range damage dealer. At times she will feel like an unkillable stat stick monstrosity, but with the proper countermeasures she can be made manageable. 

Review

Summary

Kallen Kōzuki is a useless ASSR who came with the Code Geass collab event. Kallen contributes nothing to the game that other characters can’t do better. Kallen already struggled to establish a niche for herself when she was initially released. Now, she has been thoroughly power crept out of the game.

PVE Review

Kallen was used in one of the earliest auto strategies developed to clear the overhauled Dimension Trimming Swift Stage 2. She has long since been replaced. Being replaced by someone better is going to be a recurring theme in Kallen’s sad Counterside career.

PVP Review

Kallen costs 5 DP. Kallen doesn’t frontline well. Kallen doesn’t deal damage. Kallen doesn’t provide any meaningful utility. Kallen serves no purpose in PVP.

Review

Awakened Regina is the second 7-cost character in the game. And similar to another 7-cost character, Maestra Nequitia, she also has a pretty interesting gimmick. When you first deploy A. Regina, she will be covered in an ice barrier that doubles her HP and gives immunity to a lot of status effects. In this phase, she's really hard to kill but barely deals any damage herself as she can't use her skills.

As the barrier state loses strength, A. Regina's ATK will slowly increase and the moment the barrier breaks, she will enter phase 2 and become a machine of pure destruction. Her damage output and utility is scary and justifies her deployment cost, but two things make her borderline overpowered: the range on her special and ultimate is very large, with the special skill grouping up enemies, locking their buffs, and resetting its own CD. Also the ultimate allows Regina to easily hit and kill the backline while freezing the entire map.

A. Regina has some downsides though. Her movement speed is very slow and also once she enters phase 2, she loses the HP% buff allowing her to be assassinated. Due to her high cost you need to build a team around to protect her.

Review

Summary

Orochinagi Chifuyu (AChifuyu) is a melee damage dealer who delivers heavy bursts of damage with her powerful skills. AChifuyu mostly sees use in PVP, though she has some noteworthy niche applications in PVE.

Among other things, AChifuyu’s ultimate skill comes with an absurd 50% HP execute. Contrasting other frontline units, AChifuyu doesn’t need to sacrifice survivability for skill haste because her passive all but guarantees at least one ultimate skill cast per deploy. 

PVE Review

AChifuyu is an offensive debuffer with tons of team utility. Not only does she have 3 separate HP thresholds (70%, 40%, 10%), but she gains multiple self buffs upon reaching each of these thresholds. 

Because of the way flat cooldown decreases work, AChifuyu’s  –30s Ultimate Skill cooldown decrease is not affected by skill haste. Notably, this means it isn’t affected by the Danger Close skill haste debuff tags, allowing AChifuyu to get her ult (and apply her debuffs) in a reasonable amount of time.

Historically, AChifuyu has been used against multiple Danger Close bosses (Moderator B, Tyrant Sword, Tyrant Armor, Orochi). Outside of Danger Close, she is used as an offensive debuffer against Guild Coop Tyrant Gigas. She can theoretically find value against any high evasion boss due to her evasion debuffs applied by her Special Skill, with the main consideration being her high DP cost.

PVP Review

AChifuyu exerts pressure on the enemy backline and frontline through her skills. She differs from more traditional damage dealers in that she is expected to “die” to trigger her ultimate skill cooldown refund on passive. Her main gameplay loop revolves around killing as much as she can with her ultimate skill and redeploying before the opponent can recover from the losses. Properly supported, AChifuyu can mulch through enemy teams with her repeated ultimate skill casts.

AChifuyu excels at killing squishy backline units (e.g. rangers). Both her special skill and ultimate skill have good reach, and her special skill notably extends deep into the enemy backline. She can inflict a ton of damage and create constant pressure through her repeated specials. Left unchecked, AChifuyu can shut down enemy teams by wiping their backlines.

AChifuyu’s special skill can be combo’d into her ultimate skill to devastating effect. Manually casting ultimate skill will cancel a character’s current action. AChifuyu’s special can be used to dive into the enemy backline, where her ultimate is then manually activated to reposition herself past the enemy frontline and deliver a point-blank ultimate at her destination. Players are heavily encouraged to use manual ult to maximize AChifuyu’s value.

Although AChifuyu looks intimidating, she can be managed fairly easily by mitigating the impact of her ultimate skill. Counterplay includes:

• Redirecting AChifuyu’s Ult: AChifuyu’s ultimate can be redirected by the usual suspects (Gremory, Kang, Raphaela, etc.) to avoid the damage entirely.

• Hospital comps: Hospital comps describe a broad range of comps that lean heavily into stall tools (e.g. bringing multiple healers/ shielders). AChifuyu has far less staying power than actual frontline tanks. AChifuyu comps run out of gas quickly and outsustaining AChifuyu’s damage is the most straightforward way of dragging out the game to that point.

• Barriers: Barriers prevent damage in excess of the barrier’s HP. Barriers can soak a majority of AChifuyu’s special skill damage. 

AChifuyu has a relatively higher skill ceiling than most ASSRs and can be quite finicky to manage. However, players are rewarded with flashy gameplay and fast-paced matches. A little positional awareness goes a long way towards finding success with AChifuyu.

Review

Summary

Awakened Rosaria (ARosaria) is a sniper damage dealer DPS monster who outputs more than enough damage to justify her cost. She is easy to slot into a team and finds use across most content in the game. 

ARosaria’s kit is loaded with effects, including a slew of damage self-buffs as well as some teamwide utility through the buff nullification on her enhanced basic and the Damage Taken AMP on her Ultimate Skill.

PVE Review

ARosaria’s high damage output is appreciated everywhere. In particular, she excels in single target situations, making her a good pick for boss content (e.g. Raids, Guild Coop, Dimension Trimming). Notably, her DMG AMP debuff is appreciated against Tyrant Gigas. It is also worth mentioning that she trivializes Dimension Trimming Swift Stage 3.

ARosaria’s high damage output is both a blessing and curse, as she provides little to no utility to distinguish her from her peers. ARosaria can be replaced by a number of alternative damage dealers. This issue is most prominent in Danger Close, a boss gamemode where she sees limited use.

PVP Review

ARosaria is one of the strongest single-target PVP damage dealers in the game, capable of outputting absurd amounts of damage from incredible range.

As a flying damage dealer, ARosaria ignores Anti-Ground DMG RES. Bypassing ~67.2% DMG RES (the standard amount of RES you’d expect to find on a T7 set) gives her a significant edge over other damage dealers, putting her own damage output leagues above her peers. 

ARosaria dominates the PVP meta due to the immense pressure she creates with her damage output. As a sniper, she can vaporize even the strongest frontline strikers almost instantly, and as a flier, she has no difficulty chewing through defenders. 

With few comps able to match ARosaria’s damage, the week frequently devolves into ARosaria mirror matches with a few slots dedicated to anti-ARosaria tech options, and of course these comps will be optimized and everyone will be running the same anti-ARosaria tech options... 

ARosaria’s 40% HP gate can be tricky to deal with efficiently; her HP gate prevents her from being oneshot and frequently it costs more DP to kill ARosaria than it does to deploy her. While ARosaria represents a new level of damage creep, at the end of the day she is still ultimately a squishy backline sniper. With some smart planning, she can be managed fairly consistently:

• Deploying multiple frontline tanks: ARosaria’s basic attack inflicts an extra hit when hitting a single target. Stacking two frontline tanks together significantly reduces the single-target damage they take. Tangentially, spreading the damage between two tanks also makes it easier to heal back.

• Traditional backline harassment tools: Backline access units will always remain the most straightforward answer to troublesome backline units (i.e. Rearm Sylvia, Lily). Notably, Lily’s combination of sleep and damage can effectively shut down ARosaria and even kill her given time. Lily is by far the most popular counter to ARosaria. It is highly recommended in this situation to equip Lily with Courageous Crowns for the Anti-Counter DMG (in lieu of Anti-Ground DMG).

• Levia Thanis: For a brief duration, Levia deals %current HP damage to enemies who attack her, doubling against snipers. Timed well, Levia can quickly trigger ARosaria’s HP gate and set up her team for the kill. It should be noted that Olivie’s (operator) debuff immunity will prevent Levia’s damage.

Counterintuitively, Awakened Lee Sooyeon (ALSY) is pretty bad against ARosaria for a number of reasons:

• Both ARosaria and ALSY have air target priority but ARosaria outranges ALSY by a significant margin.

• ALSY does not have enough HIT to surefire a properly geared ARosaria on two movement accessories. This can lead to consistency issues.

Review

Summary

Awakened Ray (Ray) is a PVP-oriented frontline tank designed to break through enemy teams by smashing their positioning. His kit is a strange combination of a counterattack on special and self-buff on ultimate.

Distinguishing himself from other counterattack characters, Ray’s counterattack comes with a unique trigger that protects his backline. While interesting, it suffers from poor uptime and lack of self-synergy.

Most of Ray’s power budget was allocated to his Ultimate Skill. His combination of surefire basics, ultimate self-buffs, and special targeting all synergize to create a kit with potent pushing power. If not dealt with, Ray can win games on his own.

PVE Review

Although Ray is predominantly a PVP unit, he has niche applications in PVE (i.e. Britra) Notably, he was used in Danger Close against Knight of the Lake to bug his phase transition for a significantly faster clear speed.

Ray’s ultimate struggles to find value in PVE. As a general frontline tank, Ray struggles to distinguish himself from the pool of stronger, cheaper alternatives (e.g. Rearm Kaci, Rearm Alex).

PVP Review

In PVP, Ray functions as a frontline tank who specializes in busting through the enemy team with his ultimate. He also provides some utility in the form of his counterattacks, but the focus is largely on the pushing power he gains from his ultimate skill.

Ray’s ultimate generates value in a number of ways:

• Destroy positioning: Positioning is one of Counterside’s core mechanics. This covers where you place your units, how you space backline units to keep them safe, and how you position your team relative to your opponent on the map (see also: https://www.prydwen.gg/counter-side/guides/rta-concepts). Ray gains ultimate level hitstun on his basics for the duration of his self-buffs. Paired with his surefire on basics, he can pump out an obnoxious amount of knockback. Ray can expose the backline by pushing back the frontline tanks and left unchecked, he will squeeze the entire enemy team under their own ship, destroying their positioning and opening the enemy team up to devastating followup through splash damage from AOE attacks.

• Massive boost to survivability: Ray heals himself for 20% HP and gains invincibility while moving. The invincibility makes it difficult to deal damage to Ray as he has to be stationary to take damage, and he will only be stationary if he is stopping to knock something back (and obviously, he won’t be stationary for long in this scenario). This can be paired with healing from Ray’s own backline. It can be difficult for the enemy backline to make damage stick.

• Gain tempo: Ray’s ultimate cooldown starts when he casts his ultimate, not when the ultimate buffs time out. On high end gear (i.e. Swift movements), he could be halfway to his next ult cast by the time the first ultimate expires.

If at any point Ray wedges himself under the enemy ship, it can be impossible for the opponent to recover. In a sense, he can be considered an ASSR sidegrade to base Horizon; Ray costs more, needs more support, and has a less immediate impact, but he brings consistency.

Ray’s counterattack has some funny interactions such as stopping Rearm Elizabeth, but since Ray is never played specifically for the counterattack this stuff is more of a bonus than a point to be emphasized.

While Ray’s ultimate skill is powerful, it can be incredibly difficult for him to get there. Ray has little to no defensive utility and his stats are fairly middling. Ray can be managed through a combination of:

• Killing Ray: Ray’s survivability issues are exacerbated by his gearing; he desperately needs skill haste to get his ultimate sooner, but this comes at the expense of losing survivability from set and (if using Swift movements) substats. For a frontline tank, Ray is pretty squishy.

• Stacking frontline tanks: If Ray is unable to touch the backline with his ultimate skill, it will effectively have done nothing. Stacking frontline tanks is an easy way to keep him occupied. This can be taken a step further by playing a heavy stall comp to tank the whole thing; if Ray is unable to secure a lead with his ultimate skill, he will effectively have ruined his own team’s positioning. 

Review

Summary

Awakened Lyudmila (ALyud) is a PVP-oriented backline support who controls the battlefield with her oppressive debuffs. ALyud’s kit is chock full of utility but she is most known for her mapwide skill seal, which can snowball her team out of control by shutting down the enemy’s.

Similar to Awakened Shin Jia, ALyud’s personal damage output is next to non-existent so don’t try to run her on damage gear. 

PVE Review

Since ALyud contributes next to no damage, her usefulness in PVE depends entirely on the utility she brings to the team. Unfortunately, the utility she provides is rarely needed. ALyud’s conditional debuffs are significantly less valuable in a PVE environment. Against single targets, Jin Bora provides a high uptime skill seal with better consistency. Meanwhile, New Ohio is generally enough to cover most other situations.

ALyud is usable in Guild Coop Tyrant Gigas but she is not recommended, as she is wholly outclassed by other offensive debuffers (e.g. Frederick Doma, Awakened Chifuyu) while not contributing much else.

For what it’s worth, ALyud has been a core component of competitive Last Stand comps.

PVP Review

ALyud is one of the strongest PVP ASSRs in the game. She cripples skill haste reliant team comps (almost every single comp) with her mapwide skill seal. While her personal damage output is next to non-existent, she dominates matches in more insidious ways. 

Her skill seal passive, which reapplies itself on enemy unit death, strangles the entire enemy team as it seizes up and falls into a negative feedback loop:

Enemy units die → Reapply the skill seal → Backline can’t properly support → More enemy units die

It cannot be stressed enough how oppressive ALyud’s passive can be. The minor skill haste differences between T5 Antagonist, T6 Maze*, T7 Maze, and T7 Swift are nothing compared to the cooldown gap she can create with repeated applications of her passive. Additionally, ALyud’s skill seal ignores debuff immunity meaning it can’t be prevented. Among other things, this debuff persists through Olive (operator) proc. As if this wasn’t enough, her skill haste debuff also applies crippling debuffs to replacers. This (obviously) kneecaps Replacer King’s damage output and severely affects his performance.

*Maze is used here for illustrative purposes.

On top of ALyud’s passive, she also contributes value through her bind debuff applied mapwide on deploy, and repeatedly on her specials. Bind functions as a stun but is distinct, meaning it bypasses stun immunity. As of writing, there is no such thing as bind immunity. Timed well, ALyud’s on deploy effect can consistently cancel special skills and even certain ultimate skills.

As a long range backline supporter, ALyud can be difficult to deal with. Contrasting backline damage dealers who sacrifice tank stats for damage, ALyud forgoes damage for the tank stats (Anti-X DMG RES%) on a proper support CDR set. ALyud can be managed through:

• Traditional backline harassment tools: Backline access units will always remain the most straightforward answer to troublesome backline units (e.g. Rearm Sylvia, Lily)

• Better positioning: Dragging backline units out from under their own ship through better positioning (see: https://www.prydwen.gg/counter-side/guides/rta-concepts) is the first step to making them vulnerable to follow up damage.

• Play comps that aren’t reliant on skill haste: While heavily week dependent, certain comps aren’t too bothered by ALyud. Soldier and mech comps obviously perform well but other more alternatives also exist.

• Bringing your own ALyud: As a low maintenance supporter, ALyud is treated as an accessory to her team, contrasting other more selfish ASSRs that demand additional resources to enable. It is fairly easy to fit your own ALyud into your team (provided you have one).

There honestly isn’t much that can be done as targeted counterplay against an opponent’s ALyud. Killing ALyud is about as easy as killing other backline supporters, that is to say it isn’t easy.

Review

Minerva Karin Wong is a well-balanced and versatile Awakened Ranger who can perform both in PVP and harder PVE content. As a fury type employee, she requires relic gears to bring her skill downtime as low as possible.

Her strength lies within her laser attacks that triggers after every 8 attacks in PvP, with the laser attacks able to reach the whole map (except the Ship) and inflict barrier reflux with constant knockback on all enemies. The attacks itself might not do a lot of DMG but she can activate it through a lot of conditions like Passive backstep and Ultimate which makes it annoying to deal with.

Her Passive backstep has a guarantee that she will always dodge back in the right direction that can activate twice, along with her special skill granting herself a barrier makes her pretty hard to kill.

Her special skill drops a barrier behind the target, which can be used to redirect skills at the right timing. The barrier drop itself is a guaranteed Crit but it does not inherit her DMG Bonus or Crit DMG from gears since its a separate summon. The barrier can deliver rapid hits through the bombardment attacks and also has self-heals to hold off enemy attacks.

In PvE, her high hit count can be useful against bosses with Hit count check mechanics such as Tyrant Armor, Tyrant Gigas, since her laser attacks and barrier bombardment attacks can hit for a lot of times, although low DMG.

Review

Awakened Chris is a 7-cost hybrid Debuffer/DPS under the supporter class, who brings to the table a brand new debuff - Unavoidable (a debuff which prevents enemies from evading completely) to counter high evasion Tanks.

In PVE, she has found a use as a raid debuffer, because of her permanent 15% DMG Taken Amp debuff aura (which gets doubled to 30% for 20 seconds after she uses her ult). When timed correctly, using her Ultimate Skill during your burst phase can greatly enhance your entire team's damage output (and she uses her Special Skill again after using her Ultimate Skill, which then prevents enemies from evading your attacks).

In PVP, she is a strong damage dealer with good overall performance. However, her prohibitively high cost affects her flexibility and makes it awkward to fit her into teams, while her heavy reliance on her ultimate skill self-buffs for damage forces her into a slower playstyle.

As a mech, AChris has synergy with Coffin-6. Notably, her strongest comp is Titan lead Coffin-6 with Sysop.

Review

Awakened Mors... Sorry, Great Silence Ecclesia is an Awakened Defender who specializes in supporting her allies, instead of being a classical tank. Most of her stats are middle of the pack when you compare her to other Awakened Defenders which means she won't be the tankiest among the bunch, but she makes up for it with above-average damage.

As we already mentioned, Ecclesia is more of a Supporter - she gives all allies 1000 HIT flat, which is an absurd amount that can greatly help your Rangers to counter those pesky EVA-type characters and actually make them barely miss their attacks - as they will become nearly as good as Snipers. On top of the HIT buff, Ecclesia can also debuff enemies and amplify all the damage they receive using her Skill via DMG Accel - a new mechanic where the damage taken by a debuffed enemy increases every time they receive damage from the same source.

These ally buffs make her quite useful in raids, where she can greatly increase the damage output of your entire team.

Ecclesia Ultimate also helps allies - this time by giving them Debuff Immunity, similar to Olivia Park Operator. Her damage will also be increased based on the number of allies who were affected by the buff. And it actually can hit really hard.

Review

Eve Meitner is a monster.

That should be the end of the review, no kidding. She is the strongest PVE damage dealer released in the game who is so far above any other damage dealer. Why is she so strong? Because of ridiculous damage output. Awakened Rosaria who was considered as the apex predator among DPS can't hold a candle to Eve - Eve deals 2-3 times more damage than her. Yes. It's stupid. If you're struggling in PVE, just bring Eve with you - she works great both in early and endgame PVE content.

Sadly, in PVP, she's a bit harder to play. Eve Meitner is too squishy to survive there long enough to deal good damage, but her existence alone means that Soldier mains are scared to play PVP - as she counters them so much, it's not even funny. Still, if you manage to protect her, she will dominate.

Review

The first 8-cost Awakened Unit, Shepherd and Lurcher (Dino/Dino mech in the future) is a well-stated melee Striker with unique reliance on refreshing hitcount immortality for survivability. Similarly to another awakened mech of the same cost (E1 + 2 stacks is an 8 cost after all), it has immunity to many buffs and debuffs. Ultimately Dino is a PvP-oriented unit.

The gameplan is very simple - throw dinosaur forward and distract enemy backline with forward deployable units until it ults. Due to sure fire provided by its special (which usually lines up perfectly with ultimate), 5 valid hits and very high damage multiplier the game is usually over at that point, and a properly geared dinosaur gets there very fast. While manageable by prepared teams, this straightforwardness means that teams that did not tech for the matchup will be destroyed. This is even true while banned - damage done/taken doesn’t matter and ASPD debuff is generally not big enough to sufficiently delay Dino win condition. It is quite possible to run a ban 2+ dino at 10 cost and win games.

In PvE Dino’s hitcount immortality allows it to brawl with most bosses forever. This gives Dino unique frontline niche, even if its damage per cost spent isn’t that impressive. For example, Dino is the best unit in the game for Volcano-2.

Review

Summary

Kubera Alice is a frontline damage dealer DPS monster who provides extremely high DPS for her cost. As a melee-range fury ranger, Alice exposes her to a considerable amount of risk. However, her damage more than makes up for her precarious positioning.

PVE Review

In PVE, Alice is one of the highest damage for cost units in the game, standing alongside Eve on the DPS charts. Alice’s high damage output is appreciated everywhere. Like her peers, Alice excels in single target situations, making her a strong option for boss content (e.g. Raids, Guild Coop, Dimension Trimming, Danger Close). Unlike her peers, Alice is considerably harder to keep alive.

PVP Review

Alice outputs high burst damage capable of nearly one-shotting many non-MDL characters (e.g. Jisoo). However, she herself is also susceptible to getting one-shot due to her melee range. Even the most defensive setups will struggle to keep Alice alive. While Alice is capable of outputting an obscene amount of damage, it is too difficult to effectively utilize in a PVP environment.