Sakura
Profile
Personal information
Combat information
Availability and VA information
Backstory
A Nikke belonging to Underworld Queen who is also the head of a yakuza group known as the Seimeikai. A woman of principle, the Seimeikai refrain from engaging in immoral acts thanks to her leadership. Under her guidance, the Seimeikai has become an organization with a well-deserved reputation for its honorable conduct.
Specialities
Normal Attack
■ Affects target enemy.
Deals 67% of ATK as damage.
Charge Time: 1 sec.
Full Charge Damage: 250% of damage.
Skill 1 - Cherry Blossom Tea
Passive■ Activates after 3 normal attack(s). Affects all allies.
Cherry Blossom Tea: 8.15% of DEF, stacks up to 10 time(s) and lasts for 15 sec.
Skill 2 - Falling Petals
Passive■ Affects all allies.
When attacking an enemy projectile, damage to that projectile ▲ 7.74% permanently.
■ Activates when entering Full Burst. Affects all allies.
Burst Skill cooldown ▼ 4.84 sec.
Burst Skill - Resplendent Cherry Blossom
Active 40 seconds■ Affects all allies.
Damage dealt by Wind code enemies ▼ 90.72%, lasts for 30 sec. Activates 1 time(s) per battle.
ATK ▲ 23.76% of caster's ATK, lasts for 10 sec.
■ Affects all allies when Cherry Blossom Tea is fully stacked.
Damage to interruption part ▲ 23.54%, lasts for 30 sec.
Analysis
Review
Sakura is a Burst I Sniper Rifle wielder who hates Wind element Bosses so much, she enables you to cheese their mechanics.
Her Skill 1 gives a massive DEF buff to all allies - 81.5% DEF at max stacks (and max skill level) that will improve their survivability by quite a good margin. Especially considering that it is super easy to stack since you don't even need to fully charge the shot to get a stack. This means that at the start of the battle, you can switch to Sakura, quickly get a few stacks, then just switch off her and allow her to continue stacking the buff.
Sakura's S2 provides a decent damage increase against enemy projectiles, so with her in the team, destroying the annoying bombs that the bosses just love to throw at your team is much easier. Also, the second part of the skill improves the Burst skill rotation time of the whole team which will translate into a pretty big DPS increase - but only as long as you can quickly generate enough energy to start another Burst rotation faster.
As for her Burst skill, the 90% damage reduction is massive and it lasts for 30 seconds, but the buff has two restrictions - it only affects Wind enemies and also activates once per battle. This means you will have to use Sakura's Burst right before the boss enters a phase in which he does more damage than usual and then you can basically ignore it.
To make things even better, if you combine Sakura and Ludmilla, you will basically make Ludmila immortal for 30 seconds because the damage reduction from Sakura stacks with Ludmilla's damage reduction on her S2. You can easily reach above 100% damage reduction which means Ludmilla will receive 0 damage.
And you can abuse the combo on one specific Wind boss, the one who is hated by everyone - Alteisen (Train). Seems that Sakura is the answer to all our prayers and just having her on the team will drastically reduce the difficulty of the hardest and most annoying Special Intereception boss. Just keep in mind that she's a Burst I character with 40s cooldown on her Burst, so you will need to build the team around her. As for the second part of the skill - the bonus damage to interruption parts will also come in handy in boss fights (and it also lasts for 30 seconds).
Overall, Sakura is a niche character that you will only use on bosses. While you can slot her into your team against non-Wind bosses if you lack better options (for the juicy DEF buff), she will truly shine against them only. Sadly, both in the story and in PVP she is pretty terrible and you should avoid using her there.
Important! While we rated her A on bosses, this is a rating for all bosses. Against Wind-element bosses, Sakura is SS tier at least.
Ratings
Pros & Cons
Pros
pretty massive DEF boost to all allies,
can cheese Wind-aligned bosses with ease (especially the Train).
Cons
she's just terrible everywhere else - her kit is so specialized that using her outside of her niche is pointless.
Gallery
Full design
