Ade: Agent BunnyInformation and Guide

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

Ade is a capable support unit slightly below Grave and above Mari in performance. When using her Burst, she grants a vast amount of offensive buff to her teammates: 55% ATK DMG, which is universal, and 10% Pierce DMG. She can also add 18.36% Pierce DMG on top by hitting enemies within effective range (damage distance bonus), improving the damage of Pierce allies and herself. Doing that will also grant everyone a minute but substantial caster's ATK buff, which unlike Mari's temporary S2, can be permanent as long as a valid target exists. Taking everything into account, Ade is a Pierce-specific damage buffer with different activation requirements from Mari's but better performance when circumstances allow. She is also more of a single-target support since she does not provide AoE support like Mari.

Where can I expect her to be used?

Ade can be used in all kinds of content, whether with Pierce DPS or Regular DPS. Her Pierce portion is not as much as Mari's, and thus Ade is more universal. As a universal B2 with Pierce focus, she can fit in many teams, including Electric Cindy comps and hyper-Pierce teams involving Red Hood, Alice, SW, Doropity, or the new unit Milk. In this position, she rivals Grave, who provides less buff but accelerates rotation—which curiously surpasses the tradeoff.

With this information, Ade is likely going to be a staple unit in Raids, especially Solo Raid where there are 5 teams. She is not going to be the first choice in UR because the first 3 Top B2 spots are competitive, but she can still be a good alternative, especially over Mari in the famous Cindy-Anis-Maiden Electric comp. In SR, she is not restricted to a specific element, although obviously she will deal more in Iron-weak. She is also not restricted to enemies within effective range, although if there is no valid target, her buff diminishes a little. In any element, she can join Pierce teams as the BiS support (i.e. if you use Grave with SW, then you can use Ade with Milk/RH; maybe you can pair her with Doropity too) or as a regular support (bruteforce Cindy teams; Ade being Iron helps with breaking Iron QTE). She seems to have a promising future, and you should get plenty of value out of her.

In Campaign or mobbing situations, her performance remains similar, although her usage may falter. She does not provide AoE support, so she doesn't scale like Mari does, but her buffs remain intact. In fact, it is easier to find a valid target for activating S1/S2 when there are a lot of enemies. This makes her a valid buffer B2 choice, much better than SRosanna, since Damage Taken only applies to current but not new enemies; and Mari in terms of buff consistency (Mari's ATK buff goes on & off). As an Iron with Pierce, she can also help break Shields and kill Iron-vulnerable enemies.

This leads to her being usable in Tetra Tower, which until now, has been limited to Blanc & Crust (if you cope with Bready). With Ade as a strong addition, you no longer have to rely on Blanc. In fact, the best Tetra Tower carry is Alice, who has Pierce! How (un)surprising! It's finally time to dismiss them... or not. They might be better, but you can run something like Alice Rouge SAnis BAde XLud.

In PvP, Ade is much more limited versus Mari. This is because Ade doesn't have AoE support. She is just a "nothing special" B2 buffer. That said, her ATK DMG on Burst is higher than Mari's. Even then, we are not expecting much out of her in PvP. If any, she's just a "gigantic buffer". Do note we are still researching PvP's damage distance, which was insinuated to exist by the latest patch note.

Should I pull her?

Good question. Our answer is YES. A staple B2 that improves compositional flexibility in Raids is always a "should pull". Not having her will make you take an impactful hit in Solo Raid performance. If that's important to you, don't skip her. Otherwise, feel free to skip; she won't see much use outside because she's not replacing Crown, who is the best B2 we have right now. Similarly, if you only care about PvP, then no, Ade is not helping you there.

Should you mileage her? No, especially if you already have Mari built. Ade is an excellent option for Mari-less players and for competitive players who want to improve their damage, but she is not that much better or top tier meta overall. She is a meta unit in terms of Raids right now, but is highly replaceable since she realistically only takes over Mari’s spot. However, spending Gold Mileage for a 2% unit that will enter Ordinary later is not a good idea.

Should I get dupes for her? No. Save spending gems for dupes of DPS or units with higher usage & versatility and ATK/caster's ATK buff.

Kit Analysis

Skill 1 & 2

Whenever Ade lands a Full Charge attack on targets within effective range (blue crosshair; ×0.3 damage multiplier, additive to core and crit hits), she buffs all allies with ATK▲ 15.2% of Ade's base ATK and Pierce DMG▲ 18.36% for 5 seconds.

• On automatic, Ade Full Charge(s) all attacks, so this buff is permanent.

• However, you may want to manual and spam quick shots with her for burst gen.

• Since this scales off Ade's base ATK, equipment levels, dupes, dolls, and cubes influence it. ATK OL does not influence it.

• Also active when she is not Bursting—making her an okay off-burst buffer but not necessarily good.

• Hypothesis: If Spy Lens are fully stacked, and Burst is active, all enemies become "within effective range".

Additionally, whenever she lands any Full Charge attack, regardless of whether it hits an enemy within effective range, she gains 1 stack of Spy Lens. Spy Lens decreases her minimum effective range by 4.4% per stack for up to 10 stacks, for 5 sec. This expands her range from 45~100 to 25.2~100 (note their multiplicative relationship). This makes her weapon have a similar starting distance as AR (25).

• Beware of its short duration; if you spam for burst gen for too long, control her without shooting, or she is in cover for too long, the stacks will reset to 0.

• This does not matter much as having max stacks is only necessary for giving Pierce and ATK▲ to self, whose damage is negligible. Speaking of which, when Ade is at max stacks (10) of Spy Lens, she gains Pierce & 16% ATK.

• However, if you need the Minimum Effective Range▲ to activate her S1 & S2's supportive buffs, then losing stacks will make you lose them too.

• At 25.2, she should be able to hit most if not all bosses with damage distance.

Burst Skill

For the next 10s, Ade buffs herself with Minimum Effective Range▲, similar to the one from Spy Lens. Together, they total 100%, lowering the minimum distance for damage bonus from 45 to 0, which includes all enemies.

• Can be a good emergency tool for maintaining support buffs when Spy Lens' stacks are interrupted for any reason.

• This makes her effective at all ranges, including SMG's/SG's.

• With increased damage bonus on closer enemies, she can activate S1 & S2's supportive buffs more reliably and take down close-by targets.

Ade also gives a whopping 55.04% ATK DMG and 10.13% Pierce DMG to all teammates for 10 sec, similar to Mari and Grave in fashion.

• These buffs, combined with S1 & S2, make Ade grant a total of 55.04% ATK DMG & 28.49% Pierce DMG, strikingly similar to the percentage of Mari's and Grave's ~80% buffs, just with a different composition.

• This technically makes her more universal than both—but Mari grants AoE support and Grave grants burst gen support, which is often more impactful. Notice how their elements are different as well, Water and Wind next?

• Since ATK DMG constitutes a large portion of her buffs, she is quite universal, although she works best with Pierce DPS.

• She can pair with regular DPS as a regular buffer or as a buffer that can break Iron QTE. For example, you can run Cindy Rouge SAnis Ade XMaiden. Whether that's optimal for your own account is a different question. In Iron-weak, there are a lot of Iron DPS with Pierce that you want to pair Ade with instead, unless you don't have them built.

• Iron Piercers: SW, Red Hood, BMilk, Maxwell

• Non-Iron Piercers: Alice, Doropity, Asuka

• ATK DMG is often diluted versus Damage Taken, but ATK DMG is a buff, not a debuff, so you deal the same damage to old and new enemies that spawn after buff is given, unlike with Damage Taken. This makes her a possibly more attractive choice than SRosanna in Campaign if not paired with Sustained DPS or Tetra Tower replacing Blanc.

Tier List & Usage Analysis

Campaign (LD): SS | Campaign (HD): S

BAde is an impressive B2 Campaigner, possessing a kit that buffs ATK, ATK DMG, and Pierce DMG substantially. She does not provide AoE support like Mari or burst gen support like Grave, but her intrinsic buff values are stronger. The problem with Mari in Campaign is her inconsistent ATK buff, whereas the problem with Grave is her burst gen support is kind of pointless without Liter/Volume (whose CDR ramps up and is not instant, which is unideal for Campaign) and she doesn't provide ATK buff at all. Introducing BAde, the best alternative B2 after Crown who is not bound to anyone. No duos. Just simple plug-and-play.

BAde can be used to a great extent. No, she's not better than Crown, but if you don't have Crown or Maids (MastM is pretty good), then BAde is obviously the next best choice. She's just good, very good. Not impressive as Crown but remarkable.

Oh, and she's one of the best buffers for Tetra Tower now, if not the best.

Bossing: SS

The modern B2 buffer, someone who also doesn't have as tight a requirement as Mari's and provides more buffs than Grave (in exchange for the lack of burst gen support). In comparison to Grave, we found a lot of varying results where Grave was usually better for pierce units and Ade was better for non-pierce units, but it still wasn’t always true. Results may vary depending on your account and investment into the DPS being used in the team, as well as the investment in OL for Grave and even Ade’s OL. Regardless, Ade is the new staple B2 for all intents and purposes. In SR, you will see her being plugged anywhere—Cindy comps, SG comps with Doropity, Hyperpierce comps with SW, Alice, RH, BMilk, Asuka, or Maxwell. There is no reason not to get her, well, except if you don't have gems.

BAde is universal and reliable. She works against all bosses since her "effective range" with Spy Lens stacked + Burst are all ranges. She's not like Mari who needs core; we know ShiftUp has been stingy with core, so Mari isn't reliable anymore for buffing Pierce nowadays. BAde doesn't have this issue—well, there is one rather minor issue. That is, if the enemy is not within her effective range without Spy Lens and is only within range with Spy Lens, then her S1 & S2 buffs will be delayed. Your first Full Burst may suffer.

That said, awesome B2—can't go wrong with her. She's SS because she is slightly less "convenient" than Grave but better than Mari. Later down the line as more B2 buffers are released, a meta B2 could mean that she drops to S, so keep this in mind. But we are not expecting any B2 buffer at Crown’s level to be dropping anytime soon.

PvP: B

No one can be good at everything. In Ade's case, that's PvP. She's just a regular B2 buffer—nothing special; she doesn't have any AoE support nor healing. That said, her Burst giving a lot of ATK DMG is still a useful damage amplification tool. That's why she's B, equal to Grave and TEunhwa, who have their own problems. Why not A like Mari? Well, Mari provides AoE support and a B2 nuke, which can sometimes change the tides.

Note that damage distance exists in PvP or is insinuated so based on the latest patch note. We haven't researched long enough to know when Ade's S1 & S2 activate.

Investments

Gear Investments

One part of Ade's kit is improving the team's ATK by a percentage of her base ATK. This means you need investments in base stat, which can be done by upgrading the level of equipment, equipping a higher level cube, upgrading dolls, advancing console levels, increasing bond, and obtaining dupes. Place focus on overloading ATK-providing gear (not Boots) and level them up to 3/5.

As for OLs, ATK OL does not increase base ATK stat—they're internal in-battle ATK buff. Instead, focus on things such as Max Ammo to make her more comfortable to use for burst gen (spamming quick shots when off Full Burst) and ELE/ATK if you are desperate for the slightest damage in Solo Raids (only matters for high-rankers).

• Essential: -

• Ideal: 1~2× Max Ammo

• Passable: 4× ELE, 4× ATK

• Priority: High

• Notes: 1~2× Max Ammo helps a lot with burst gen support (spamming quick shots) when off Full Burst.

Skill Investments

Ade loves skill investments. No specific breakpoints, but 10/10/10 is warranted for a powerful buffer like her. Skill 2 is only useful when the team has Pierce DPS, however.

• Skill 1: 7~10

  • Gives teamwide ATK buff, so it applies to everybody regardless of their damage type.

  • Only active if BAde can hit a target within effective range.

  • Permanent ATK buff that does not rely on Burst Skill.

• Skill 2: 7~10

  • Mathematically more impactful than S1 with Pierce DPS if ATK is diluted, but only works for Pierce DPS.

  • No need to upgrade if she's not paired with Pierce DPS currently. Upgrade when she is.

  • Self-buff is negligible.

• Burst Skill: 10

  • Chonky buffs. Must level 10.

  • No excuses.

  • More important than S1 & S2.

Cube Investments

Sniper Rifle units and burst gen support are more convenient to handle with Resilience, but as a support, she's not picky, so choose anything that has a higher level for base ATK stat. One Ammo OL and Bastion cube also works fine on her.

Doll Investments

SR5 minimum if you care about Solo Raids, but SR15 is highly advised seeing her versatility + usage prospect. Damage Reduction and Cover HP increase are helpful in healerless teams.