Centi (Treasure)Information and Guide

OH MY LORD! WHO IS THAT PRETTY GIRL!?!?

Yep, that was our reaction as well when we saw Centi’s Favourite Item Wallpaper on the developer notes. Unfortunately, that might just be the only reason to go for her Favourite Item sadly. Let’s overview her “improvements” together below, to see why that is.

Disclaimer 1: As of the release of this guide, Shift Up have put up a notice saying “Centi’s skill descriptions are inconsistent with the actual effects.” This can have two interpretations; either she is currently bugged and that she is supposed to heal the team when any ally’s shield breaks, or she is working as intended and the skill descriptions have been written incorrectly (i.e. in a confusing manner). We have reason to believe that it is the latter, and have reviewed her as such.

Disclaimer 2: Regardless of this possible bug fix, the problems in Centi’s kit will remain as is, just that there will be a silver lining commanders will be able to take advantage of, which can be useful for PvP and will return her rating to SS tier.

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

Centi’s Treasure does not aim to drastically improve her performance, as is seen in the other 3 favorite items released this season. The main net positive for Centi is that the way her shield works has changed. While her original form gave a ‘one-for-all’ shield, her Favorite Item version now provides individual shields for all allies. This is a huge bonus, since it is a much better protective barrier for PvE content. 

However, PvE is a very different game. While the new type of shield Centi provides is enough to activate Naga’s extra ATK▲ and Damage to Core▲ buffs, Naga alone is not enough. Centi herself does not provide any form of DPS output or direct buffs, which are an absolute necessity to have in the current Campaign meta. That does not mean she is unusable, however. Centi’s burst gen and improved survivability against one-shots because of her shields can still be effectively used in low-deficit gameplay.

Well, that was just Phase 1. Phase 3 brings practically nothing to the table, as it only buffs Centi’s max HP by a little bit (if and when she bursts), but Phase 2 is where the problems exist. Centi now receives the ability to heal the team, but only if her own shield breaks! This skill is easy to misunderstand since Centi is technically making all the shields herself. However, since this heal only occurs if Centi’s own shield breaks, it is technically a very useless skill since the heal value is not nearly enough to justify this ability being a positive change. Not only that, since this skill only comes to existence if you get Phase 2, you also receive an awkwardly “forced” activation of her shield at the start of the round. This interaction also happens in PvP, which is what the main problem is!

Remember, Centi is primarily a PvP unit. Her PvE performance still is practically the same as her original version by almost every possible account and situation! This forced shield activation is more of an affliction than a blessing! While the idea might have been: Even if the shield breaks, there is a team heal, the idea is not good enough since it only happens when Centi’s shield breaks! Maybe if every shield break healed the team, this might have been a more productive and positively imaginative skill. But since that is not the case, getting Centi to Phase 2 is considered a bad thing in the PvP community! This is because shields are a bad thing to have at the start of the round, since they provide enemy Rocket Launchers with extra burst generation, which is something you absolutely do not want.

While this can still be used to your advantage in some cases (e.g. in a Blanc vs Blanc mirror matchup, you want the enemy to burst first), the restrictions and loss of flexibility is too much in our opinion for this treasure to be considered good. As such, this will be reflected in the ratings.

Should I get her Favorite Item?

There is absolutely no issue in aiming for Centi’s Phase 1 Treasure if you are a PvP fan, especially since her wallpaper is extremely pretty! She really is such a hottie! 

However, as it stands, we do not recommend going for Phase 2 or Phase 3 for her Favorite Item. Unless or until you know exactly what you are doing (i.e. forcing and fixing her in a team where you want to provide the enemy team with more burst generation), we do not recommend upgrading her doll at all.

By far, Centi has to be the worst Favorite Item to date, since this is the first time we have seen an actual demotion in terms of usability. At least with Viper’s Treasure, her loss in PvP usability was countered with the fact that she became a strong PvE bossing unit. That is absolutely not the case with Centi, since her PvE usability has not nearly improved enough. We are only noticing that her PvP usage might become more ‘fixed’, less flexible and harder to properly use, even for the top players let alone the general masses who are unfazed by PvP.

Kit Analysis

Centi now transforms into a better shielder unit, but it might come with consequences in a stage she is already omnipresent in - Arena. Let’s discuss changes to her kit first, before diving into a short usage analysis where we will try our best to dissect Shift Up’s cooking.

Phase 1 - Skill 2

Cooldown: 9s

■ Affects all allies.

Creates a Shield equal to 7% of the caster's final Max HP for 5 sec.

Centi changes her shielding ability from an ‘one-for-all’ shield to individual shields for everyone! The skill is still on the same cooldown. However, it is infinitely more effective in dealing against multiple enemies in mobbing stages. The short cooldown also ensures that she will almost constantly refresh it every 5-6 seconds, thanks to her cooldown reduction for this particular skill that already exists in her Skill 1!

This ability to provide individual shields also now opens up a new partner for Naga! To use them both together or not is up to the player. Together, they are not going to be meta in either Campaign, Bossing or even in PvP, but this is still a new pairing possibility for fans of these 2 units!

Phase 2 - Skill 1

■ Activates at the start of battle. Affects self.

Forcefully uses Skill 2.

The awkward change that stunts Centi’s flexibility and brings her to a possible disadvantage vs enemy teams in PvP. Centi now forcefully uses her shielding ability (which will provide enemy units with extra burst generation) at the start of any battle.

This skill is still a positive for PvE, since against an opponent boss like Chatterbox, or in Campaign where enemy units are always looking to one-shot our units, this shield can possibly save your unit from sure death!

However, since Centi is primarily a PvP unit, we see this as a net negative skill.

■ Activates when the shield created by Centi is destroyed. Affects all allies.

Recovers 9.7% of the caster's final Max HP as HP.

Centi now heals the team every time her own shield breaks. That is all.

Do not misunderstand this skill! She will NOT heal ~50% of your team’s HP if all 5 of your ally shields (that she makes but ok, Shift Up..) break as well! She is only able to heal 9.7% of the team’s HP ONLY when her own shield is broken..

Phase 3 - Burst Skill

■ Affects self.

Max HP ▲ 5% for 10 sec.

Simple Max HP buff to improve the effectiveness of her Skill 1’s new healing ability. Also improves her survivability slightly. This is not a team heal, only a very small Max HP▲ buff for herself!

Tier List & Usage Analysis

Campaign: B | Bossing: D

In PvE, Centi now holds better equipment to defend her team from one-shots thanks to individual shields that are almost always refreshing, improving team survivability with a heal (if her own shield is targeted), as well as the ability to ‘activate’ Naga. 

All 3 of them would be great things to have, if and only if Centi had skills that would actually improve the team’s DPS output. Nikke PvE is very biased towards offensive buffs provided and DPS dealt. As such, while Centi has improved, she has not nearly improved enough to be considered meta, or even situational meta. She is usable, yes. But not as effective as her competition. Be it as a main B2, or as a flex unit, Centi is considered dead in the meta even after the minor improvements that Shift Up have provided to her.

The pairing with Naga is a good thing going for her, but Naga alone is already not enough in the meta as it stands. She is almost out herself, that is how tough the competition is. Not only that, much better pairings already exist for Naga, some as good as Crown! As such, we believe that there is practically not enough improvement in Centi’s performance to give her a higher tier in either one of the PvE formats above her current normal version.

PvP: S

Disclaimer 3: Refer to our foreword!

Assuming Phase 3, Centi faces some disadvantages compared to other Clip RL units. Her shield’s forced activation at the start of battle provides extra burst generation to the enemy team. With modern PvP meta units being able to hit up to 3 or even 5 units at once, this is extremely detrimental in most match ups! 

We believe that this limits Centi’s flexibility and effectiveness in the overall meta. While this skill can still obviously be used to good effect on rare occasions where one wants the enemy team to burst faster (or slightly faster) than their own team (for example, in the case of a Blanc vs Blanc matchup, sometimes), we still think that since Centi will be restricted in this team-build, and the fact that we cannot ‘turn off’ this Phase 2, it is a net-negative ‘improvement’ in her skillset and usability!

We definitely believe that this Favorite Item needs to be re-worked upon by Shift-Up. This is practically on the level of Milk’s or Poli’s Favorite Item, if not worse, where we saw no valid improvement at all in their skills. If we had to rank the worst Favorite Item, it is highly probable we would choose Centi for it!

Investments

Gear Investments

• Ideal: 4× Charge Speed

• Filler: 4× Elemental Damage, 4× ATK

• Priority: Low (PvP) - 2

• Note: CP Padding. RLs in PvP have the ability to reach Charge speed breakpoints, hence charge speed is a highly recommended target line for her.

Skill Investments

Centi does not have any notable skills. However, you may improve her skills to CP Pad a bit for SP and Rookie Arena.

Cube Investments

Centi is restricted to the Resilience cube in PvE. Her main role as a burst gen comes at a cost: spamming bullets, and she does not have many (base clip of 6). Being a clipRL, she is prone to reloading too long and too often as well. The resilience cube helps players reload quicker and get ready to generate burst for the next burst rotation. Vigor cube or Healing cube may be used to take advantage of her new shield, but only if it is absolutely necessary to do so.

Centi doesn't have any particular main cube for PvP content, but several important ones can come into play. Quantum cube can help her team reach particular speed breakpoints for the team to burst faster than usual. Adjutant cube may be used to allow Centi to reach a breakpoint for her own shooting speed, allowing her to shoot a set number of frames faster.

Doll Investments

Since CentiTr is bugged, and we don't know if she'll be meta after fix, do not Treasure her past P1 for any reason. In fact, you risk a permanent account brick. Because of that, she is at the bottom of our Treasure Priority list.