MintInformation and Guide

Oof, we weren't too late, were we? Well, we apologize for the wait, but here you guys go! As a spoiler, the T.T. Stars truly shine bright.

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

A buffer & healer who cheers the team through alternating Singing & Dancing, Mint is an emotive B2 who can augment the team in defining moments. By using her Burst Skill, she switches states. When Dancing, her Full Charge(s) heal the team, whereas when Singing, she provides notable offensive buffs to everyone. This means her offensive buffs are stronger every other rotation, starting with the second because her first activation will be Dancing.

Nikke’s PvE meta heavily revolves around offensive buffs, and Mint is no exception to that rule. As such, her Singing is much preferred. Conveniently, her companion idol Prika forces our preference onto Mint on every Burst after the first one, assuming Prika herself is the initial Burst. Thus, both of them can be considered a duo, and their final tier list ratings will reflect this synergy as well.

However, it is not an absolute truth that Mint will always be paired with Prika. While the pairing provides very strong and consistent buffs together, there are other teams and units with whom Mint can synergise. Her vacillating strength makes her ideal for Raid teams with 1 hypercarry DPS, commonly seen with SW and MiharaBC. Pairing her with MirandaTr/ZweiTr is often the right play in these hypercarry situations, as these units are their best buffers. You can run something like:

• ZweiTr Mint SW Maxwell SHelm for Iron-weak.

• MirandaTr Mint Ada MiharaBC CDR for Fire-weak.

• ZweiTr Mint SWHA Ada Siren for Water-weak.

There are many such possibilities with her. Plus, like Nayuta, her healing capability completes these teams, making them viable even against bosses with high damage.

What does this mean? This means Mint is meta for Raids. If you are a competitive SR/UR player, you must get her. Her synergy with Prika further elevates her value. With Prika in the picture, Mint is no longer just a dedicated niche bossing support, but instead she becomes a well-rounded offensive buffer, improving her flexibility and usability, potentially even in Campaign content.

The T.T. Star crew is here to make a statement. MiKa may not be as good as Crown, but they certainly provide competitive buffs when compared to Nayuta, and can even step up to fight Crown if pierce units are in play.

Should I pull or mileage this unit?

If you are a fan of T.T. Star, or if you are a Mint devotee, or, most importantly, if you are a competitive SR/UR player, then we highly recommend getting Mint. She should be a must pull unit for all competitive players, alongside Prika. It is to be noted that Mint is the higher priority unit in the duo, since she can also be effectively used without Prika.

For players who are more towards the casual side, MiKa might not attract them as much if they already have superior and more flexible B2 units like Crown or Nayuta. However, newer (or even OG) commanders that lack either of those two, especially Crown, fall back into the bracket of people who should definitely aim to pull a copy each of this idol duo of MiKa, since MiKa can help such accounts push further in campaign, and clear certain bosses with more ease. Finally, PvP players will not find this duo of any use.

We have provided our main thoughts in the summary above. Whether she is worth Mileage to you is your call, but our opinion is that 2% banners are for pulls. We only recommend Mileaging 1% units, especially given that ShiftUp has teased the release of a "long-awaited" unit in June, which is most probably a Pilgrim/Heretic.

Should I get dupes?

She has a caster's ATK buff, so this support loves dupes. She buffs ones of the highest DPS of each element—SW, SWHA, and MiharaBC—so the idea is not far-fetched. But, here's the thing: are you competitive enough that the extra dupes will help you secure a higher rank/prize bracket in SR? If no, or you don't know what we mean, then no. If you know what you are doing, you should already know if she's worth getting dupes for. Regardless, she will enter Ordinary, so you can try to get copies there instead.

Moreover, Iron mains should also be interested in pulling for the limited collab units: Eve and/or Raven, who are rerunning alongside the TT Star events. Since they are limited and MiKa are not, instead of dupes, they should instead target those 2 meta Iron DPS.

Kit Analysis

Listen To My Voice or Watch Me Dance

When Mint announces her part in the song with Burst Skill, she buffs the team with considerable ATK DMG, Max Ammo, and Critical Damage. Then, unless she is with Prika, she switches states whenever she uses Burst Skill, activating additional buffs corresponding to the state she enters.

• If she doesn’t have a previous state (lost it via not Bursting for a single rotation or it’s the first Burst Skill), or if she was previously in Singing state, she will enter Dancing state. In the Dancing state, her Full Charge(s) heal the team.

  • Heal is triggered immediately on release, but the next proc is delayed by 1.5s. Subsequent procs have 1.0s intervals. Because of this, Mint’s healing speed on Auto is not 1x/s but ~0.8x/s due to cover time.

  • Heal is useful for SR, especially in MirandaTr/ZweiTr comps, which lack inherent healing. It might be crucial even against some bosses or in Campaign.

  • Healing can continuously trigger Crown’s S2 (if Crown is used as off-burst).

  • In PvP, as long as she is alive, she can continuously heal the team.

  • This is considered to be Mint’s weaker state.

• If she was previously in Dancing state, or if Prika has burst at least once before Mint, she will enter Singing state. She buffs the team with additional Crit Rate, Projectile Explosion DMG, and Pierce DMG. Her Full Charge(s) will also considerably buff the team based on her base ATK.

For Mint without Prika

• If Mint’s and ZweiTr’s S2 are fully leveled, the combined Crit Rate is 98.57%, enough to assume every unit always crits, especially if they have 1 Crit Rate OL.

• You might need to delay the activation of B3’s Burst Skill or pre-charge Mint to allow her caster’s ATK buff to amplify a B3’s Burst Skill damage.

• Aside from this Full Charge buff, all additional buffs are triggered upon entering Burst Stage 3, which means they are guaranteed to buff all Burst Skill damage.

• Since Mint activates Singing state in every second burst, you want your hypercarry DPS to burst second as well.

For Mint with Prika - MiKa!

• Prika is ideally the first burst rotation, with Mint being the B2 for all of the remaining bursts of the stage, be it bossing or be it campaign. Prikas’s skill 2 now enforces Mint into a permanent Singing State.

• MiKa, starting from 2nd burst, now provide very high offensive buffs and consistently good healing on every rotation, transforming into general buffers that every DPS can utilize. You probably still want your primary DPS to burst second.

• The main drawback of using this duo is that non-CDR B1 units like MirandaTr/ZweiTr cannot be paired with them since a B1-CDR is needed for the team to properly function.

• Notably, pierce DPS and DPS that rely on their projectiles to deal damage (e.g. RL units) get buffed more than others.

All buffs triggered on Full Charge in either state last 3s. This means they would disappear if Mint reloads without Resilience or Reload Speed. They also bleed to the next Burst since the status swap only happens on Mint’s Burst Skill. Hence, nukes like Cinderella’s or Helm’s bursts can fully take advantage of the ATK buff from Mint’s Singing state.

Important Mechanics and Team-building Tips

Without Prika

Because Mint’s major buffs are in even rotations (2nd, 4th, 6th, and so on), you must ensure your team can Full Burst 14 times to take full advantage of her. This is hardly possible or not possible with old CDRs (stacking types, such as Liter’s or Dolla’s), but sometimes this is OK if it leads to increased damage, such as using SHelm to make the boss take more damage.

You may also want to Burst with the hypercarry DPS secondly, unless their attacks can be held (read next paragraph). Units such as MiharaBC inherently want to Burst second anyway, but units such as Cindy are more flexible. This is very important because the B3 who Bursts during the Dancing state will receive weaker buffs. This also makes attaining 14 FB very important, otherwise your strongest DPS will Burst fewer times.

If you are using Charged DPS, such as SW, you can trigger SW’s Burst during Dancing state, hold it and only release it in the next rotation where Mint is in Singing state. This can allow both B3 to receive her gigantic buffs, and this is even more necessary for SHelm variants due to their having only 13 Full Bursts (you need SW to Burst first, so she can Burst last).

If pairing with DPS with frontloaded damage (strong Burst Skill Damage), e.g. Cindy, pre-Full Charge Mint and release shot before triggering B3’s Burst Skill so that they can benefit from Mint’s ATK buff. Get used to this because slow activations can lengthen rotations and instead cost damage.

With Prika

To enforce Mint into a permanent Singing state, the Burst order for B2s should be as follows:

Since Mint is no longer oscillating her buffs, the possible DPS pairings now become much more flexible. While using SW, SWHA, Mihara is still possible, it is no longer the ideal pairings since they are ideally used with MirandaTr/ZweiTr. This is not possible with the duo due to the critical need of a B1-CDR.

While RL DPS like AnisS enjoy MiKa’s projectile damage buffs, it is Pierce DPS like Red Hood, BMilk, or Alice who are considered as the top pairings for the idol duo. With MiKa as a duo, units who deal damage consistently throughout their Burst (like Red Hood) are preferable pairings over units who deal frontloaded damage (like SW). SWHA can still be an effective pairing with the duo, but she also pairs well with Mint alone, provided that you have ZweiTr or MirandaTr built.

Tier List & Usage Analysis

Campaign: SS

Without Prika, Mint’s primary weaknesses in Campaign are the requirement to Burst and lack of ATK (and offensive) buffs in odd rotations (1st, 3rd, 5th, and so on). You cannot pair her with other B2 who want to Burst or use her as off-burst, limiting her versatility. Her buffs coming and going is also a huge problem. Unless you are using True DMG, you want to maximize ATK to ensure your units don’t deal just 1 damage. Without ATK buffs in odd rotations, and equipped only with 30% ATK DMG, which is lower than what standard buffers give, you may not have enough damage to clear an important wave.

With Prika, Mint’s primary weakness vanishes since from the second burst onwards, she will now buff your units to her maximum ability. Prika also provides healthy healing to counter incoming damage. However, the QoL difference from the top meta B2: Crown, is extremely apparent since if the deficit is high enough, your units will not survive the one shots that we often face in Campaign. Crown’s shield is a protector from such types of damage. It is also notable that the first burst is a considerably weak burst with minor buffs, which may not be ideal for some stages.

Still, MiKa together form a potent duo. They can assist commanders to progress in stages, and might even be particularly useful as meta for bosses where Pierce is abusable, such as Stormbringer in Chapter 18’s boss stage (spoiler if you didn't already know that, sorry!). They can perform above the level of most B2s that are often termed as ‘replacements in case you don’t have Crown’ or ‘tribe tower only’ buffers, such as Bunny Ade.

That said, even without Prika, if you can plan your attacks well, you can actually exploit her peaking buffs by lining them up against heavier waves, such as the stage target’s. This is even more true if you pair her with Explosive Damage units, Neon and Anis: Star being the first in mind. Her Max Ammo can come handy if you are a beginner too. Have you found your RRH reloading too much? Try force-reloading and finishing it right after Mint uses Burst Skill. Voila! Now, she has 120 extra ammo to shoot.

You can also use Mint in Tetra Tower if you lack Blanc or BAde, all the more so if Anis: Star is in team. Be careful when using her with SAnis as Mint’s Burst increases Max Ammo. If you can survive the first burst and reach the second one, MiKa will be the top choice B2s for that Tetra Tower stage.

This is further discussed in Prika’s review as well.

Bossing: SS

Even without Prika, Mint shines in Bossing thanks to her collaboration with MirandaTr/ZweiTr, especially the latter. One of ZweiTr’s innate weaknesses is the absence of a B2 Crit DMG buffer, and Mint delivers in that regard. Even better, she fills another of ZweiTr’s holes—her not-maxed-yet Crit Rate▲ and nonexistent ATK▲. By giving an additional 19.94%, you get 98.57% with them both (incl. base Crit Rate of 15%), which almost guarantees crit with anyone in Mint’s Singing rotation. This makes ZweiTr not only usable for SW (who has built-in Crit Rate▲) but also everyone that scales better on crit (SWHA, MiharaBC, Cindy, BMilk, etc).

What does this mean? ZweiTr will now see increased use, enough for us to finally promote her to S. While ZweiTr + Mint will not directly supersede MirandaTr (there are comps where MirandaTr is better, such as those with MiharaBC and Takina/Ein/Ada), they challenge her, overtaking some of her sovereignty. Mint can also synergize with MirandaTr despite redundant buffs because she heals. If a Miranda’s team needed healing, you would have needed to resort to HelmTr or Nayuta. Now, Mint can fill that spot. She can also synergize with MastM, but that would require MastM to be completely off-burst.

Mint’s complementary kit secures her place in the meta in one SR element: Iron-weak, with possible use in other elements. She can be used in Electric-weak (Cindy or Neon + MastM), Fire-weak (MirandaTr + MiharaBC), or Water-weak (ZweiTr/MirandaTr + SWHA). This shows that she deserves a high rank, but she’s still niche, ideally used only in Raids and with certain other units. Because of that, we are placing her in S…. Or that's what we would've done, if not for a surprise kit from her comrade: Prika!

With Prika, Mint can now perform as a general buffer for all bosses, regardless of the element, and finally opens herself up to proper use cases for Union Raids as well. MiKa form the 3rd strongest general B2 buffer pairing, in which they're the best in their niche of buffing Pierce DPS that deal damage throughout burst, like Red Hood. Even if they are paired with a front-loaded Pierce DPS like Snow White, they still shall be considered the best general B2 pairing for that unit, but Mint might have better pairings than Prika in this case. However, not everyone is blessed with limited units like Helm: AquaMarine, so Prika may still be all-important to such players.

This duo formation with MiKa pushes the limits of usability, flexibility, and peak effective ability of Mint, and hence, we shall bump her up to SS tier to reflect the importance of this synergy. This duo is further discussed in Prika’s review as well.

PvP: B

Mint in PvP is just a regular B2 buffer with small team healing throughout Full Burst if she survives. Her kit seems lackluster here. Despite her wielding a Rocket Launcher, which generates more burst gen than most other weapons, she offers nothing special. She doesn’t fit any PvP archetypes. She is more suited for Attack rather than Defense. Even with Prika, she is practically useless in PvP.

Investments

Gear Investments

In PvE, Mint only wants leveled Helmet, Gloves, and Vest for higher base ATK, which determines how much ATK your DPS get from her caster’s ATK buff. This includes OL but not rerolling. In PvP, Mint might benefit from the extra HP from Boots, but unless you use her there or her healing is inadequate, there is no reason to upgrade them.

Mint might need some Max Ammo for burst gen, especially in Raid comps where she might be the only one spammable, but this does not happen all the time or at all. For a start, we don’t recommend rerolling, but you should keep the above concern in mind.

• Ideal: 1-2× Max Ammo

• Filler: -

• Priority: 6

• Note: Mint does not require gear reroll, except if you need CP padding or Max Ammo to spam shots for burst gen.

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 10

  • ATK▲ is a universal buff that helps combat deficit and improves damage. It is also something that ZweiTr’s lack and wants.

  • While it only activates in even rotations, those are where most of her team’s damage lies.

  • Improves healing for both PvE & PvP.

• Skill 2: 7~10

  • Lv. 10 ZweiTr’s S2 & Mint’s S2 result in 98.57% combined Crit Rate. This means there is still RNG involved for big shots (turn on values on enemy) unless you get Crit Rate OL or the unit has built-in Crit Rate▲. This also means, if the skill is below Lv. 10, the RNG widens.

  • Because of that, we recommend maxing it, especially if you pair her with Explosive or Pierce DPS. Value diminishes without these DPS.

  • Unlikely to activate in PvP because most fights will only involve her Dancing state.

• Burst Skill: 10

  • ATK DMG▲ is a universal buff that activates every rotation. You don’t want Mint’s only buff in odd rotations to be weak.

  • Critical DMG▲ pairs well with ZweiTr’s lack of Critical DMG buff and provides a substantial damage boost.

Cube Investments

In PvE, Mint should use Resilience. This is because her base reload time is 2s. Otherwise, she would lose the 3s buffs from S1 whenever she reloads. In PvP, she can use Vigor for survivability + stronger team heals or Tempering to reduce Damage Taken.

Doll Investments

Mint has caster’s ATK buff, which means she scales with Doll well. 45% caster’s ATK means she translates 45% of the Doll’s stat to your DPS. This will give a noticeable damage boost. The Damage Reduction is also sometimes important, so is the extra CP.

In PvP, we mainly only care about Damage Reduction and heal strength. She needs Doll there, but given that she is only situational, her priority is low.