Julia (Treasure)Information and Guide

PSA: Treasures are called Favorite Items in Nikke now. However, they were known as Treasures before Shift Up decided to change the naming scheme. We use both of the terms Treasure and Favourite Item in our guides, but they are the same thing, so do not get confused!

Can you give a brief summary about her?

Julia has been empowered this Favorite Item season. Her Treasure, Music Notebook, allows her to land successive critical attacks on a target, dealing multiple instances of damage. She buffs herself with Critical Rate▲ that activates on a rhythm: Crescendo & Decrescendo. Combining the power of different dynamics, she can unseal herself to deal massive bursts of damage from time to time. At her height, her Burst Skill unleashes a sequence of strikes that inflict lethal damage, able to kill weak enemies instantly.

Julia's strengthening doesn't really allow her to break into the meta, although she becomes capable enough as an Iron-weak bosser. She packs a lot of single-target damage despite having low AoE potential. By relying on crit, she can quickly dismantle targets, and the more crits she lands, the stronger and more frequent her attacks become. This means she has a lot of RNG involved. Yes, in fact, she will need to roll the dice twice because her skill attacks that trigger on basic attack crit must also crit to trigger another skill attack. Relying on crit also means she is OL dependent because the only reliable way to permanently increase CRT is through OL.

Where can I expect her to be used?

Having crunched her numbers and assuming you have enough skill & gear investments to ready her, we believe an augmented Julia equals Laplace Treasure in Iron-weak Bossing no pierce (because on pierce duh, Laplace is there with Red and Snow). She doesn't have enough damage to be considered strong for Neutral, but she's strong enough for Iron-weak, and that is already a huge improvement over her past self. Whether she is relevant in Iron-weak SR, though, is a different question since we have other options and also continue to get better units. Outside Iron-weak SR, we doubt she has any use because there are just better units.

Moving on, her Campaign performance isn't as good, but that's because her kit only has single-target attacks. We cannot consider sequential attacks as AoE, although they may help in spreading damage. You should not use her for mobbing, although there is no harm in using her for mobbing. She doesn't get nerfed like MiharaBC would because of her stack reliance, but she also doesn't scale on the number of enemies. Having to mind her rhythms (Decrescendo activation times) is also another downside.

In PvP, Julia (Treasure) can be a deadly violinist. She forcefully activates Decrescendo—the buff that increases her CRT▲—at the start of the battle, permitting her basic attacks and nuke to apply a lot of pressure on the target she is attacking. With enough investments, she can snipe non-durable Electric P1 (due to elemental advantage) and instantly kill Electric units with her Burst unless blocked/deflected with decoys. However, her over-reliance on crit means one fight and another won't be the same—and you will have to pray every time to achieve the desired result. This makes her a less appealing option, especially given that ARs also don't have good natural burst gen.

Should I get her Treasure?

In our opinion, NO, even if you care about Iron-weak SR. This is because there is no incentive to get her, and usually (and hopefully) there are better alternatives. Look at LaplaceTr. She is not even as prevailing as people expected her to be. She's good for Missilis Tower and PvP, but that's where it ends. Similarly, JuliaTr isn't too far from that. But, unlike LaplaceTr who apparently gets use outside Bossing, Julia won't see use outside Bossing at all. The only acceptable reason for why you would invest in her is waifu + lobby screen.

Julia is also resource-hungry. As you can see, Julia relies a lot on critical stat, unlike most units. For her, critical stat is key to damage. And, the only way to improve CRT outside of skills is via OL. That's where the problem begins—she demands a lot of investments to work, and investing in her yields less return than investing in >90% of units in game. Sure, you can use her without a lot of investments, but that's like running a sports car with damaged wheels.

Should I get spare bodies with Silver Mileage? If you still haven't figured out our very obvious answer, then NO. Don't even think of using Silver Mileage on her. Use it on Tove to unlock Treasure or save.

Kit Analysis

Skill 1

At the start of the battle and then every 20 seconds afterward, JuliaTr activates Decrescendo, exhausting her energy to obtain Critical Rate, ATK, and Basic Attack Critical Rate.

• The regular Critical Rate▲ applies to all attacks, including skill damage and Burst Skill nuke.

• Despite the high value, Normal Attack Critical Rate▲ applies only to basic attacks, which have an appallingly low value (14.07%). It does not influence S2's Marcato's crit chance, despite Marcato requiring crit to trigger another attack. It also doesn't affect her nuke.

  • Marcato's Base Crit Chance when S1 is active is therefore 15% + 26.04% = 41.04%.

• However, Normal Attack Critical Rate▲ allows JuliaTr to trigger Marcato more often because it has crit basic attacks as a condition.

  • In total, Base + All Crit Chance + Basic Attack Crit Chance = 72.2%.

• ATK▲ is disgustingly low and is not permanent, making JuliaTr one of those units that are desperate for external ATK▲. Otherwise, she won't be usable against bosses with high DEF or in High Deficit content.

• Due to this skill being locked to a 20s rhythm and normal Burst cycles/rotations lasting 12.5-13s, it won't always overlap with her Burst Skill, lowering her damage.

Skill 2

Every time JuliaTr lands 6 critical basic attacks, she triggers Crescendo, improving her Critical Damage by 24.79%. This stacks up to 5 times and lasts for 15 secs. Since the duration is 15 seconds, this can be considered a permanent buff. It also has a large value, making Crit Rate a more favorable stat and diluting other Crit Damage buffs' effectiveness.

JuliaTr also activates Marcato upon landing 8 critical hit(s) with normal attacks. The target that the 8th critical attack hits will take 88% of final ATK as additional damage (~6.25 basic attacks that cannot core-hit). If this Marcato attack also crits, then an additional damage equal to 100% of final ATK is inflicted (~7.11 basic attacks that cannot core-hit).

Math: We can estimate the average activation period of Marcato's second attack by calculating 8 ÷ Basic Attack Crit Chance ÷ Marcato Crit Chance. For example, if you have 60% Basic Attack Crit Chance & 40% All Crit Chance, then 8 ÷ 0.6 ÷ 0.4 = 33.333 shots are required on average to trigger a Marcato's second attack.

Math: We can try to embed this damage into basic attack against non-core by substituting Marcato and Marcato's second attack with basic attack shots. If we expect a Marcato's second attack to trigger every 33.333 shots, then we can infer that JuliaTr deals 40.44 shots of damage every 33.333/12 = 2.775 seconds. Note that the basic attack-specific crit chance from Decrescendo will render this slightly inaccurate.

Tip: Activating Marcato and Marcato's follow-up attack is important for maximizing Julia's damage. Focus on giving her Crit Rate▲ buffs. You can do this through skills (like Julia's own S1, MastM's S1, Volume, etc) or OL.

Burst Skill

JuliaTr's Burst Skill is a sequential nuke that deals up to (544.5% +544.5%*1.5) * 5 damage to one or spread across multiple enemies, up to 5. The second part of this skill that requires Crescendo to be fully stacked triggers each time an attack lands on a target. Having a total damage multiplier of 6806.5% ATK makes this skill one of JuliaTr's main sources of damage. It also allows her nuke to be fearsome in PvP but only if you can max out Crescendo's stacks before Full Burst, which requires a lot of luck and investments.

Math: You can use gacha/chance calculators on the Internet to determine the chance of hitting 5 Crescendo stacks (30 basic attack crits) before JuliaTr's Burst. For PvP purposes where this matters, use 10 shots/s (30 FPS) × time in seconds before B3 trigger (based on team speed) as n (pull/trial count).

Math: For reference, a regular no-CS 2 RL ≈ 4s and 3 RL ≈ 5.2s (39 shots @ 72.2% = 32.35%, 51 shots @ 72.2% = 98.66%). This means 5 Crescendo stacks are very likely with 3 RL but not 2 RL, making JuliaTr more suitable for slower teams only unless there are Crit Rate OL/External Skills. Don't underestimate small buffs; a +5% boost the earlier 32.35% to 60.43%!

Tier List & Analysis

Campaign (Low Deficit): C | Campaign (High Deficit): C

The thing about Julia in Campaign is that her ATK buff is sporadic. It's not permanent. This is something undesirable in Campaign where ATK▲ is crucial for offsetting stat penalty from CP deficit. She also has low AoE control and must play with luck (crit) to be feasible. We don't think Julia has any use in Campaign at all other than being a CP padder for Julia husbandos.

Bossing: B

An acceptable choice for Iron-weak Bossing, although she won't be as eminent as those in A tier, which are more likely to be present in SR because of their impact. Julia is just another DPS who is nothing spectacular. Her damage rivals LaplaceTr but requires more timing/luck optimization. That also means she has no future outside SR, not even in UR or Anomaly Interception, except in a nearly impossible case where ShiftUp releases a CRT-only buffer. That said, you can still use her in SR or Missilis Tower when the boss is Iron-weak, but usually Ein, Maxwell, or LaplaceTr (which has use in PvP and has Pierce) is  fine. 

There's a very small number of situations where investing and using JuliaTr is profitable, at least if we talk about versatility (Julia is restricted to bossing). But what even are those situations? Ideally, Julia wants a boss with no core and no parts. In these scenarios, there is a good chance that Julia is BiS team 4 or most probably Team 5 for an Iron Weak Solo Raid. The reason for this is the immense part dependance to scale damage that most Iron DPS have. While we have been comparing Julia to LapT, a very appropriate comparison for JuliaT can also be made with Eve. JuliaT is very similar in damage to Eve, but a key differentiating factor is that Eve also buffs the team’s damage considerably, which is more than enough reason to have a tier of separation between the 2 units.

PvP: B

Well, Julia has a nuke and quite good single-target damage that can pressure P1 and even the whole enemy team, but she is very reliant on RNG. This RNG is frowned upon in PvP where you want certainty in victory. That makes Julia a not-so-smart option for attacking, and if she is defending, she is very much counterable. That renders her useless for top PvP players, but if you are new or don't have better units, then she is a fine alternative. It's better than using Crow, for example, or someone like Epinel, but if you use JuliaTr, be ready to test your luck.

You can read how much luck is needed for JuliaTr by reading our Burst Skill Kit Analysis above. In short, 2 RL teams are a big no unless you have Crit Rate OL, but 3 RL+ teams are fine.

Investments

Gear Investments

Like regular DPS, JuliaTr wants ELE & ATK, but on top of that, she wants Ammo and CRT Rate (not CRT DMG). The reason why CRT Rate is better is because CRT DMG is already very diluted + S1 CRT Rate Up is only active 50% of the time. This means CRT Rate OL will be very effective during the other 50%. Not only that, "Basic Attack Crit Rate▲" does not affect Skill Damage Crit Chance, but you want JuliaTr's skills to crit. Ammo is crucial for allowing JuliaTr to reload less. Reload less = more shots = more skill activation.

Since JuliaTr wants 4 different types of OL, choosing which one to equip on her can seem challenging, but we have a clear priority path. As usual, prioritize ELE first because JuliaTr is only relevant for Iron-weak content, then ATK for direct damage+ (her kit lacks ATK buff). Then, some Ammo/CRT Rate as bonus lines. We recommend at least and at most 1× Max Ammo because the first one always yields the biggest result; save the rest of the slots for Crit Rate▲. Crit Rate▲ is also more effective in PvP.

• Essential: -

• Ideal: 4× ELE > 4× ATK

• Passable: 1× Max Ammo, 3× Crit Rate

Skill Investments

Julia's S1 and S2 govern all aspects of her damage but especially basic attack and related skill damage. Leveling Burst Skill only improves nuke damage, but it is a large part of her damage. There is no particular skill prioritization. 

• Skill 1: 10

  • Crit chance decides how many times S2's attacks get activated, directly impacting its uptime.

  • Not upgrading this skill means less value from upgrading S2.

• Skill 2: 10

  • Another source of Julia's damage. Leveling increases damage multipliers.

  • Increases Crit Damage significantly; synergizes well with Crit Rate from S1.

  • Impact of level is dependent on S1's level and Crit Rate buffs from skills & OL.

• Burst Skill: 10

  • Increases nuke damage.

  • Leave at 7 if you want to save some materials, but 10 is highly advisable for a non-meta unit to be usable.

To be relevant in the alternative meta, JuliaTr needs a lot of skill investments. She technically works with just 7/7/7, but her damage will be nowhere adequate.

Cube Investments

Most of JuliaTr's damage is skill damage. Limit your choices to Resilience/Bastion. If she is in Iron-weak content, use whichever one has the highest Elemental DMG bonus from cube level. If she is in a Reload Speed team, Resilience is preferable but keep in mind the previous point. If none of these applies, Resilience & Bastion should be comparable, but Bastion edges Resilience out a little.

Doll Investments

JuliaTr needs SR 15 for Treasure. You have no choice.