Solo Leveling: AriseCha Hae-In [The Pure Sword Princess]Information and Guide

Pure Sword Cha is a Water Attacker scaling with Defense that has powerful self buffs. This is the third time you release a celebration hunter being DEF based Netmarble, change your gears a little! Let's see how her kit works first!

Her Basic Attack is pretty..well, pretty basic and her Core Attack, Sword Princess Dance, will inflict [Airborne] on the enemy.

Her skill 1, Heavenly Strike, will [Knock Up] first and later [Knock Down] the target when the skill animation is over and her skill 2, Swordstorm, inflicts [Unrecoverable] on the enemy for 30 seconds, while also granting Cha [Super Armor] for the duration of the skill.

Her QTE, Sword of Judgment, activates a buff called [Sword Princess's Oath] that buffs her damage and Water damage for 15 seconds, encouraging a Quick-Swap rotation. Her Ultimate, Sword of Destiny, inflicts a huge amount of damage and Knocks Down the target. Lastly, her support skills apply [Unrecoverable] to the enemy for 30 seconds and apply [Sword Princess's Oath] to Sung Jin Woo, for a nice little buff tied to debuffing utility.

Ascension Passives:

At A0, she will activate an instance of damage from her Heavenly Swords every 0.5 seconds when using her Core Attack or her skill 1. Using these skills will also charge her [Will of the Sword] Gauge. Before talking more about her other passives it's important to clarify what these Swords and Gauges are.

The Heavenly Swords float around Cha and the number of swords depends on how full her [Will of the Sword] Gauge is. This bar is portrayed above the line with all her buffs and looks like..well, a sword. You can fill this bar by using her skill 1 or Core Attack, that will in turn create more Swords. This contributes to Cha's core loop where she builds swords to increase her damage and also get her buff. It's important to note that the damage caused by the Heavenly Swords is counted as Skill Damage for buffing purposes.

Every time Cha uses those two skills she gains one stack of [Will of the Sword], granting her 5% Defense, 2% Critical Rate and 2% Critical Hit Damage, stacking up to 6 times.

A1 Her Skill 2, Swordstorm, becomes Quick Attack: Swordstorm and Basically gains 60% extra damage. Additionally, using her skill 1 will activate the [Blade Master] buff and also improve the [Will of the sword] buff, bringing the Defense value to 10% per stack.

The [Blade Master] buff is super important as it changes Cha's Core Attack to Dance of Scattered Blades. When she uses this new Core Attack, she gains [Super Armor] and doesn't consume her Core Attack Gauge. This means she can stack her swords quicker!

A2 adds some QoL buffs: her skill 1 now also inflicts [Unrecoverable] and when she uses her Ultimate, Sword of Destiny, she also Paralyzes the target for 3 seconds.

A3 makes it so that when the [Will of the Sword] Gauge Hits the cap, it will activate the [Sword's Resolve] buff as well, granting Cha an extra 60% damage when using her skill 1. However, she will consume all her [Will of the Sword] stacks when this happens. This is super important and we'll talk about it later in the should you roll part of this guide.

A4 is a super powerful passive granting Cha 7% Critical Hit Rate and Damage per Water ally, up to 21% max. Huge.

Lastly, A5 buffs the [Will of the Sword] buff - which now grants 4% Critical Rate and Damage per stack, leaving the Defense % part untouched, it also grants Cha the [Pure Sword Princess] buff when she enters a stage, adding a 60% damage to her Ultimate and both the normal and buffed version of her skill 1.

Weapon and gear

Cha's weapon, Valkyrie's Oath, grants DEF % every time she gets a [Will of the Sword] stack. Fairly simple and tremendously powerful, granting up to 360% Defense with an infinite duration.

As per her gear, Cha has a LOT of options.

Starting with the worst, we originally thought Iron Will would be a powerful set on Cha. Unfortunately, the fact she gets so many Defense % bonuses means this set gives her a lot of diminishing returns, making it an average choice.

Another option is the Solid Foundation set due to the relevance of Core Attack in Cha's kit. Not the best option but solid for players who are just starting out.

Moving to the better options, Cha can make great use of Curse and Infamy set pieces.

She can run a combination of 4 Curse, 2 Curse 2 Infamy or 4 pieces of Infamy on the left side. Meanwhile, on the right side she can either use 4 pieces Obsidian or 4 pieces Infamy to complete the set.

What set combination works best depends on the content you plan to play Cha in: 

• In teamfights 8 Infamy will be the no brainer choice;

• Meanwhile for normal content you can use 4 Curse or 2 Curse/2 Infamy with Obsidian as the skill bonus damage will contribute nicely to her performance.

For Cores, Cha's build is relatively simple.

She can use either the Critical Damage buff for Core Attacks or the Critical Damage buff after Ultimate and the Skill MP consumption Core. For the Defensive Core either 7% under 70% MP or the 6% Defense under 50% MP work.

The secondary stats should complement the stats you have on your gear depending on if you need more Critical Rate, Damage or you may want to patch up your Damage Increase/Defense Penetration depending on the content.

Team suggestions:

Cha pairs very well with Meilin and Seorin. There's little to say about Meilin at this point and Seorin being able to buff Cha's Defense while also increasing the Water damage the enemy takes is just...icing on the anniversary cake.

Should you roll for Cha?

Admittedly, this should be a no brainer yes.

Cha is super powerful and we needed an Alicia upgrade to elevate the Water Team to current standards.

Her buffs are insane as she gets a lot of free stats from it, making gearing especially easier for new players and allowing great levels of optimisation for older players.

However, you might remember we said that her A3 was very interesting. It is interesting indeed, as it makes Cha absolutely broken, but not in a good way.

Her buffs for filling the [Will of the Sword] Gauge last for 15 seconds and give her the biggest power boost in her kit. However, at A3 she loses all her [Will of the Sword] buffs when her [Sword's resolve] buff expires and this buff only lasts 6 seconds. This creates a hysterical situation where the performance of an A5 Cha is actually inferior to an A2 Cha. This is significant, as you either sacrifice the stronger buffs that come with advancements or the huge CP gain that comes with the extra dupes - and add a good 2.5k CP for any dupe past A5.

It's not much of a bug but rather a design flaw that we hope Netmarble will be quick to address, as it turns the potential strongest unit in the game into a more average hunter.

Until this is fixed, our general suggestion is to roll for her A2 and then wait until we see more updates regarding this matter from Netmarble. You can still roll for her copies past A2 but we advise to not actually advance her until we get more details regarding this specific interaction.

One final advice is to keep in mind the new WOBL is in the game. The weaknesses are Wind and Water.

Cha will be a super powerful asset for those aiming to clear this mode - and we are already working on a guide! - but it's also important to keep in mind the TP situation for those who will attempt clearing hard mode. Currently, Goto Ryuji has been added to the standard pool, making it doable to get his dupes to increase your overall TP to challenge the hard mode. Seorin will not be in Custom Draw for a while and compared to her, Seo might not be as powerful with Cha, plus Wind has currently one of the strongest Sung Jin Woo weapon pairs in the game - DKD and Stormbringer. 

That's also the reason why we suggest stopping at A2 for Cha right now and see what Netmarble has in store for us for the rest of the celebration, as it will help you make the best choice for your account!