Should you pull Spathodea?

Spathodea is another addition to the Beast Carry category, and she is a bit of an odd one, sticking her fingers in both the Crit Carry and Debuff Carry pies while dishing out extremely high single-target damage. She is a boxer through and through, and definitely takes the spot for highest burst in the game, but there are a few caveats.

Combat Role: Carry

Spathodea is a 6-Star Carry of the Beast Afflatus. Her kit is centered around single-target burst damage, which puts her in the same realm as Melania. Unlike Melania, however, Spathodea synergizes with Crit/Burn-oriented supports and prefers to deal intermittent bursts of high damage rather than Melania's continuous ramping.

By casting "Ignition Point", Spathodea can continuously stack [Preignition] and [Exhilaration] on herself, increasing the amount of [Burn] inflicted by and the Crit Rate of her next attack respectively. This also causes her to automatically draw her "Little Boxer" skill with the corresponding rank. This passive ramping using stacking buffs is required for her to set up her Ultimate: "Flame Within The Fire", as its Crit DMG is dramatically increased if the target is carrying over 15 stacks of [Burn].

Because she's casting "Ignition Point" in place of more attacks, her overall DPT appears to lag behind that of similar Carry characters, this is then resolved when her Ultimate is unleashed, as Spathodea quite comfortably outdamages most others in terms of single hit bursts of damage given how easily she can guarantee Crits on her attacks and ramps up her Crit DMG. In essence, instead of blindly spamming hits, Spathodea aims to make every hit count to the fullest.

Conclusion

Spathodea falls into the "single-target Carry that hits really hard" trope that Melania started back in 1.1 and faithfully delivers on the premise. Her kit is extremely self-reliant, and being able to essentially guarantee Crits is always a niche bit of QoL to have in a character that relies on it. On the other hand [Burn] is probably the worst DoT effect in the game because its really hard to get to stick consistently, but Spathodea solves this by turning [Burn] into essentially a counting system that says "if I hit this amount use my Ult and watch the nuke go off".

The one gripe we have with Spathodea on-release is that her only option in terms of supports to help her with [Burn] is Ulu, who is a rather weak character and not really someone you want to use in 3-man settings, resulting in Spathodea not really getting to fully bloom as a Carry. This is resolved later with Isolde's release in 1.7 as she is the primary Support for Burn-related teams (though she shines everywhere else too), but that's a whole 2 patches (3 months) later. Even so (and especially in 1.7) Spathodea is and remains as one of the primary single-target Reality carries and excels in content where she can take up the space (and AP) to set up her big hits.

Pros & Cons

Portrays aren’t required on Spathodea but she starts dealing considerably more damage when Portray 2, 3 and 5 are acquired. 2 to round out the Crit Rate and allow you to build more ATK into her Resonance, 3 and 5 entirely for the extra damage on her Ultimate, which is what you are likely using her for.

Here's how Spathodea damage compares to other damage dealers:

1-target

3-target

You can find the source of those charts here and big thanks to Irisvoya for giving us permission to share them here.

Spathodea doesn’t have many direct synergies, relying on either the Crit or Burn niche to facilitate her damage. Ulu is practically made for her but has this really painful anti-synergy in generally being a weak unit while simultaneously being the only true Burn support until 1.7. On the other hand, Spathodea has a lot more options in terms of Crit, though she can generate a lot of it herself, units like Voyager and Tooth Fairy are almost always welcome in her team.

Here are the best Psychubes you can use on Spathodea:

Long Night Talk

Blasphemer of Night

Luxurious Leisure

• Long Night Talk is Spathodea’s signature psychube, synergizes really well with her due to being able to proc a bunch of [Status Pos] with her “Ignition Point” skill.
• Blasphemer of Night is hard to proc but undeniably powerful as a psychube, if it’s triggerable it is one of the strongest psychubes on her.
• Luxurious Leisure is useable in extended fights due to Spathodea’s big hits being in her Ultimate.

Standard Teams

Highschool Occult Club [GLB]

Damage Dealer

Support

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• Fulfills Spathodea’s Crit niche and allows her to invest into ATK though Tooth Fairy’s -CRIT RES debuff. Both AAL and 6 are functional, though AAL is preferred to help Spathodea cast more.
• If you need extra defensive anchors, 6 is potent to provide a slew of random defensive buffs and debuffs while performing a similar sort of job to AAL. He also has an easier time proccing Blasphemer of Night for Spathodea in case you went that route.

Wildfire [GLB]

Damage Dealer

Support

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• A team if you want to run Burn Spathodea. There’s not much to say besides the idea being that Ezra can also help fulfill Spathodea’s Crit niche a little by providing extra Crit damage. Ulu generally is just extremely weak though so there’s little reason to use this.

Highschool Occult Club [CN]

Damage Dealer

Support

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• Spathodea’s BiS team by far. Isolde provides immense amounts of damage output, consistent and high Burn application and synergizes with Spathodea perfectly with a -Reality/CRIT DEF debuff that helps maximize Spathodea’s damage.
• Tooth Fairy is here to provide the -CRIT RES debuff and extremely high healing output to keep the team running through any storm.

Raid Teams

A Menace And Her Parents

Carry

Support

Support

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• Essentially one of the primary Raid teams, combed together with Isolde and 6 as a base and then running Spathodea as the most synergistic Carry possible in the team, with Tooth Fairy’s defensive backup.
• Before Isolde, Ulu can be run in this team but you’d be better off running AAL or even a Reality debuffer like Bkornblume if you need one.