AsalBuild and Guide

Asal is a Hollow Affinity DPS - a tough to kill Animus, who gets stronger the longer the fight goes on, while making her enemies progressively run out of breath at the same time.

Skill 1

Let’s start with the most important part(s) of Asal’s kit: her unique buffs and debuffs. There are 3 of them, 2 buffs and 1 debuff:

• [Presence]: Enemies inflicted by this debuff lose 5% of their max HP, their ATK and their DEF per stack, with up to 10 stacks per target. The debuff cannot be purified.

• [Menace]: The opposite of Presence, this buff increases Asal’s max HP, ATK and DEF by 5% per stack, with up to 10 stacks. This buff cannot be dispelled.

• [Unending]: Asal starts the battle with 2 stacks of this undispellable buff and gains an extra stack every time she actively uses a skill (pressing a skill during her turn). As long as she’s got 1 stack of this buff and at least one living ally, she can survive lethal damage by consuming a stack. Once the skill that triggered the effect ends, she drains 10% of each ally’s current HP and then heals herself for 2 times the amount drained. Whenever the effect triggers, she also purifies all debuffs from herself. She can have up to 5 stacks active at the same time.

With that out of the way, let’s get into Asal’s 2-part S1, having an active component and a passive one. Asal hits an enemy twice, with the first hit having a moderate chance to steal 1 buff from the target and the second hit granting her 1 stack of Menace and inflicting 1 stack of Presence on the enemy, although Presence cannot be applied to Bosses.

The passive, Ever Kindled, is where she gets her stacks of Unending. That means the death prevention mechanic can be canceled by disabling this passive.

In a debuff-heavy environment, level 5 has a high priority since Asal does not have any way of protecting herself from debuffs otherwise. Unfortunately, the first 4 levels are rather mediocre, so it’s an all-or-nothing type of investment. Has a high priority compared to the rest of her kit.

Skill 2

Asal attacks all enemies with a single hit, with a high chance of dispelling 1 buff from every target. Each stack of Menace increases the skill’s damage.

Asal can operate without investing in the ATK Stat and so the base damage of her skills is irrelevant in such builds. For this reason, there is no need to try to improve the modifiers of her attacks. S2 has the lowest priority out of all her skills. You may consider getting the skill to level 3 if you lack sources of AoE Dispel.

Skill 3

Asal hits a single enemy twice, with the final hit granting her 3 stacks of Menace and applying 3 stacks of Presence on the enemy. Like S2, each stack of Menace increases the skill’s damage.

Given how important those stacks are to Asal, getting this skill to level 5 takes the second-highest priority. At the very least, so long as you plan on using Asal, raising it to level 3 is crucial to improve the effects of both Menace and Presence. The order would be S3 to level 3, then S1 to level 5, followed by S3 to level 5 and S2 can be either left at level 1 or taken to level 3.

PVE

Simply put, Asal was not designed to perform in PVE. Her Presence debuff explicitly states that Bosses are unaffected, which removes her most reliable way of whittling down the enemy. Her scaling alone is not enough to compensate for her low base damage and with close to zero utility to offer, she simply can’t fit into any team without actively making it worse. Even at the time of her release, Hollow already has a very stacked roster of PVE brutes, including Bornova, Rahu and Hoyan, who each shine in a specific type of content, from long fights to speedruns.

PVP

Asal has an interesting set of gimmicks for PVP: she makes enemies progressively weaker and reduces their HP until they can be taken out by just about any Damage Dealer, while applying the opposite effects to herself, turning the tides bit by bit. Her Unending passive further amplifies her tenacious nature, granting her multiple lives.

The problems, however, are quick to show up: her base damage is low, she is extremely reliant on taking turns un-CCed to survive and she also appreciates assists to scale as quickly as possible. This leads to a defensive and SPD-oriented itemization, further limiting her base damage in favor of taking more turns and applying Presence as often as possible. Next up are Hard CCs, which, while they are purifiable through Death prevention with Unending, still have a massive negative impact on her performance. The amount of time she needs to deal relevant damage to the enemy team also makes it very difficult to run her as your only DPS since she poses no threat to the enemy for some time, which once again limits your options. Slows, Immunity, Buff Block and just about every commonly used negative effect other than ATK- have a significant impact on Asal’s performance, which contradicts the general trend of bruiser Animuses being fairly self-sufficient, or in possession of gimmicks strong enough that they can come back from a tough position as soon as they reach the critical mass of their scaling. Keep in mind that Animuses who can disable Death Prevention or Passives also work against Asal.

If you want to properly exploit Asal, make sure to bring plenty of Support, most notably Defensive utility, such as ample Purifies, Turn Meter generation and generally tough-to-kill allies. A great example is Airon, who offers most of the support that Asal needs. Animuses like Xuan Li and Valerian also offer great defensive utility and/or Damage, which puts pressure on the enemy right from the start. Lastly, Animuses like Raymerry with Execute abilities benefit a lot from the max HP reduction.

Conclusion

Asal has an interesting design, specifically meant for PVP, but it is currently difficult to find opportunities to properly exploit her gimmicks and unleash her full potential. With many counters and very strong contenders in the Bruiser archetype, Asal acts more as a surprise pick or a counter to specific setups rather than a flexible option.