Himeko Nova Best Build Guide

[Overview]

Himeko Nova is another entry into the delayed flagship carry archetype (the one that pops off hard). She deals tremendous damage in both AoE and single-target scenarios. She has access to a new Assist Skill mechanic where allies can use their action to use Himeko's special Skill. Himeko Nova has specific synergy with other members of the Astral Express, letting them use the Assist Skill and then still retain their regular action. Depending on which exact AE members use this Assist Skill, Himeko Nova gets put into one of two forms that are beneficial for different combat scenarios. She has a lot going for her, and as a member of the Express, you can expect her to remain relevant for quite some time.

[Intro]

Following in the tradition of the Express Crew, Himeko gets a wardrobe change and suddenly pulls out what looks like a mix between a Gundamn and an Orbital Frame. Has she had this giant mecha all this time?? That would have been useful in Penacony...

This particular kit is following a particular trend, you know the one, the one where the kit has quite the verbosity despite being really quite simple in reality. Very much a case of 'I like your funny words, magic man'.

A classic hypercarry DPS with excellent self-buffing abilities, and with the capacity to deal with both single-target and AoE scenarios. She even has unique — wait she doesn't have a unique Energy mechanic? You mean to say that very obviously unique Energy display is because she's just quirky like that? Well consider me fooled.

There is some funkiness with the two forms that Himeko Nova can be in, Decimation and Verdict, since it depends on the exact Express Crew teammates that use Himeko's cool new Assist Skill mechanic, but this is also something that can be understood far more easily at a base level than it may initially appear.

Also, you know a character's got aura when they warp the entire battlefield into their own personal domain expansion.

[Abilities]

Gotta start with the Talent because it helps bring the kit together.

When Himeko Nova is on the field, she will automatically deploy a Territory that makes her giant mecha 'Starblazer' to show up and chill behind the group. The entire arena also gets changed to be thematic for Himeko Nova. The Territory grants Himeko Nova 20% RES PEN and 80% CRIT DMG, and she ignores Weakness Types when dealing Toughness DMG, causing Fire Break if she Breaks an enemy.

In addition to this, all ally characters will gain access to an Assist Skill command for one time. Using this on their turn will have Starblazer fly in and slam into the enemies on the field, and this Assist Skill is explicitly considered as Himeko Nova using her Skill. Any time an ally uses the Assist Skill, they get 4 Energy.

This is a very cool mechanic because it allows Himeko to essentially get more hits in than her own Actions would otherwise allow, and having it always scale off of Himeko's stats means you can trade a support's action at the start for more damage.

The Assist Skill itself will deal 160% ATK to all enemies, followed by 3 Bounces for 24% ATK to a random single enemy. This is enhanced when used by Himeko Nova herself, becoming 200% ATK to all enemies, and having 4 Bounces for 32% ATK (and getting a sick bass boost too).

If a 'Trailblaze Companions' character besides Himeko Nova uses the Assist Skill, a Special® Effect™ will become active depending on the exact character that used the Assist Skill.

These are the two 'forms' that Himeko Nova can be in.

'Trailblaze Companions' count as the following: Trailblazer, Himeko (because using both is allowed), Himeko Nova (though she excludes herself for effects concerning things), March 7th, Evernight, Dan Heng, Welt, and Sunday.

There's the Verdict form, during which Himeko Nova's DMG dealt increases by 100%, and her Ultimate's DMG dealt increases by an additional 100%. In this state, a counter of X/2 appears over Himeko Nova's Energy gauge, and allies actively using their Ultimate will increment this by 1. At 2 points, Himeko Nova will automatically use a full power Assist Skill against enemies at no cost.

And then there's the Decimation form, during which all allies' CRIT DMG is increased by 100%, and CRIT DMG for Skills specifically is increased by an additional 100% on top. In this state, a counter of X/9 appears over Himeko Nova's Energy gauge, and this will increment by 1 for each enemy hit by an ally. At 9 points, Himeko Nova will automatically use a full power Assist Skill against enemies at no cost, though this particular attack cannot gain points of Charge.

You can switch between these forms dynamically throughout the fight, assuming you have the correct teammates to do so, and the amount of Charge for each form is counted separately and saved between form switches, so it's not like you'll have to start from scratch every time you switch. The free Assist Skills can trigger up to 2 times per battle, with the number of remaining uses visible under Himeko Nova's Ult gauge, and the trigger count resets after Himeko Nova uses her Ultimate.

Verdict granters: Trailblazer, Sunday, any Dan Heng.

Decimation granters: Regular Himeko, Welt, any March 7th.

Having said that, you may already be looking at this and thinking that it's pretty clear when you'd want to use which, given that you've already seen what the Assist Skill can be doing. Picking one and sticking to it is generally the easier and simpler way to play Himeko Nova, and seeing the specific buffs that each form gives already gives away what type of content favours what.

Himeko's 'real' Skill will regain all uses of Assist Skill on use. It also grants a buff to Himeko Nova called Navigator's Semaphore, which lasts for 3 turns and ticks down at the start of Himeko's turn. During this, all allies' DMG dealt increases by 20%. Seems rather paltry compared to the buffs from each form, but hey, damage is damage.

More importantly, while the buff persists, Himeko Nova regains a use of Assist Skill every turn, meaning she herself can be constantly using the Assist Skill to attack, never needing to rely on filling space with mere Basic ATKs. Do note, this functionally only recovers the Assist Skill usage automatically for Himeko Nova to use for herself (for now, a Bonus Trace addresses this).

You may think it could be cool to recast this and get some more Energy or Assist Skills, but nah, the Skill is locked until its duration naturally runs out. Womp womp.

Speaking of the Ultimate, Himeko Nova's Ultimate. She yoinks the team all Power Ranger style and we pilot the mecha Starblazer, and it's got a colossal laser blade... gun, err — it's a giant mecha, just sit back and watch the fireworks. This is a genuine piloting too, and you get two actions that you can take, and it's a fairly standard 'resource builder into resource spender' loop. 

The 'Basic' action will have the giant blade swing through all enemies on the field, dealing 32% ATK and gaining 1 point of Source Energy per swing. It's visually a very obvious 3-hit combo, so this loops with the 'Skill' action very easily. This Basic can be used 6 times in total.

The 'Skill' action will spend 1 point of Source Energy to deal 20% ATK to all enemies. If Source Energy is more than 1 when used, for every 1 total points of Source Energy consumed, an extra Bounce hit is added, dealing 30% ATK to one random enemy. This can end up dealing a total of 110% ATK if only a single foe is considered.

After the final uses of the Basic are used, the Skill is automatically used to deplete the remaining Source Energy, and then a final dramatic attack is automatically launched, dealing 3 Bounces of 80% ATK. If either the Skill or Basic of Starblazer deal fatal damage, or if enemy HP can no longer be reduced (important stipulation), the Final Hit is automatically launched, and the Ultimate will resume from where it left off.

This does in fact mean that if you can trigger this condition, you will gain an extra Final Hit, as oxymoronic as that reads. This... Doesn't actually matter. It's technically more damage, yes, indeed, but it launches when the attack is fatal so it's not actually real damage, it's just a way to prevent losing out on the attack due to overkill (which is still pretty good).

As dramatic as the kit seems, it's really not that difficult at all to understand. Verdict and Decimation are also really strong just generally, so even if you can only afford to stick to one in a situation where it's maybe less optimal than the other, you're still going to be destroying things pretty easily. It helps that her Energy economy is actually pretty good already as well.

Final mention is her Technique. It's an insta-gibber like Phainon's and Acheron's and the like, but against enemies that don't insta die, this has an extremely important effect where Himeko Nova automatically uses her regular Skill at the start of combat, and also again forcefully refreshing it at the start of every single wave. This'll reset the trigger count for the Assist Skill automatically, extremely useful for your allies who are undoubtedly going to be much faster than Himeko Nova. And of course, it's a huge influx of free Energy which can lead to very expeditious uses of her Ultimate.

[Bonus Traces]

A2 will allow Himeko Nova to use her Assist Skill on her turn without consuming any uses of the Assist Skill. This is what I was alluding to earlier, and this lets allies actually make use of the Assist Skill properly. Additionally, if the current uses of Assist Skill is at the maximum limit for you, Himeko gets an extra 5 Energy at the start of her turn.

The Energy is nice to have occasionally but likely won't come up too often. The much more impactful part is the free Assist Skill. With this, you can now actually have your allies use the Assist Skill how you would want. This is either by having the Trailblaze Companions use it to switch to the form you want to be in, or to have a non Trailblaze Companion spend their turn on damage if they have nothing else they need to be doing.

A4 continues the trend by giving a huge boost to the Trailblaze Companions. When a Trailblaze Companion besides Himeko Nova uses an Assist Skill, that character immediately gets 1 extra turn during which they can use their Ultimate. This effect cannot be repeatedly triggered within the extra turn you gained.

This isn't 'extra turn where you can only use Ultimate', this is an extra turn that actually allows you to use your Ultimate. This has never happened before, and is entirely unique to Himeko Nova for the moment.

Not only do the Trailblaze Companions get to deal damage with Himeko Nova's Assist Skill, they then get to act completely as normal, using whatever they feel like and getting to Ult as if it was a normal turn as well. Try as you might, you will never escape the throes of DDD or Eagle, and stuff like this cements it.

Lastly, the A6. When using Ultimate, you immediately gain 3 points of Source Energy. If you have 3 or more points of Source Energy when you use the Skill of Starblazer, the DMG multiplier of the Bounces against single enemies increases by 30%. Big. Money.

[Eidolons]

The usual disclaimer, but with a caveat. This is a member of the Astral Express, this is MAIN main character energy, and historically these guys have gotten very good support and have very good staying power. If you're considering who to vertically invest in, this is a pretty good shout.

E1 increases the number of times the Assist Skill can be triggered from the Talent (the free one you get from the form points) by 1, meaning there is now a trigger count of 3 between Ultimate uses.

When in Verdict, the number of Ultimates required to launch the Assist Skill is reduced by 1, meaning a single ally Ultimate will trigger the free Assist Skill. When in Decimation, the Charge required to launch the Assist Skill is reduced by 3, meaning you only need to hit 6 enemies in order to launch the Assist Skill. Lastly, when Himeko Nova herself uses the Assist Skill, she gains a 5th Bounce strike.

This is a very stacked first Eidolon, and it has a tremendous amount of value without completely changing what you're looking to be doing. It's just a very well-rounded addition, giving more damage, more flexibility to Trailblaze Companions, and more Energy for even faster Ultimates from Himeko Nova. It's a considerable boost to the Verdict form, and a very appreciable buff to Decimation.

E2 is funny, as always. The maximum uses of Himeko Nova's Assist Skill becomes 2 per her turn instead of 1, and the DMG dealt by the Assist Skill and her Ultimate becomes equal to 130% of the original damage. Bruh.

During the Navigator's Semaphore state (her regular Skill's buff), she recovers an extra 1 use of Assist Skill at the start of her turn, meaning that you're always restoring 2 and always making use of the increased Assist Skill cap. And lastly, now whenever a non-Trailblaze Companions character uses the Assist Skill, they will also benefit from the unique extra turn granted by Himeko Nova's A4.

You can do some ungodly things with this Eidolon. It raises the skill ceiling by letting you potentially switch forms more often, and by giving you even more Assist Skills to work with, just the raw frequency increase in DMG dealt will result in your overall damage skyrocketing. It's impeccable.

E4 makes the All-Type RES PEN from the Talent apply to allies when using the Assist Skill from the Talent (meaning manually). Himeko Nova then gains an additional 10% RES PEN when this effect triggers. There is no duration.

Finally, the E6. Himeko gains 20% more RES PEN, and the max amount of Source Energy is increased to 6 points. When an ally uses or triggers an Assist Skill, the DMG dealt increases by 75% and grants Himeko 1 point of Source Energy, meaning that when factoring in the previous Eidolon effects, you can actually start the Ultimate with 6 points of Source Energy. Using Starblazer's Basic will grant 2 Source Energy instead of 1, and when using the Skill, if Source Energy is at 6 or more, there is an additional hit of 160% ATK to all enemies.

Kiss me sunlights, what a kit.

[The Rest]

I'm gonna be honest, I could copy and paste the same thing I said for Mortenax Blade and put it here, and it's pretty much identical, save for the difference that Himeko Nova is a DPS.

It's definitely one of the longer kits in the game, but it's not that bad at all to understand. I know, I know, the addition of one new button to combat is very scary, especially for all my favourite larpers online! Even just going through the trial will have you going 'oh okay I get it now' in like a couple turns.

Verdict is for more low-target scenarios with more of a traditional hypercarry setup, and Decimation is for high-target, high attack frequency scenarios with supportive DPS alongside your own. Switching between the two forms on the go, as mentioned, is definitely an option for the min-max crowd that can sometimes come up depending on the exact nature of the fight (such as if the number of enemy targets fluctuates dramatically over the course of the fight). You do kinda need to know exactly what you're doing though, and that means knowing how to play each individual teammate well as well, so for the majority of players, pick a form to build around and stick to it.

You always want to bring at least one Trailblaze Companions character to the team no matter what, or else you literally cannot enter either form. While this is true, you also don't need the entire team to be exclusively Trailblaze Companions characters either, especially if you're not looking to be form switching mid combat, though do try to take care that you're not losing out on Assist Skill uses by NOT taking another Express member.

Probably the most impactful thing to consider is that Himeko Nova gets to use quite a few varied teammates, and some of them really aren't that contested these days. Heck, even just the fact that you want at least one or two members of the Express means that even in the most dire circumstances, you still always have someone you can use with her, even if it's not the most optimal, and that's really not something almost any other characters have the privilege of.

Sunday is the first we'll talk about. Sunday's definitely had better days, and outside of Aglaea comps and maybe Jing Yuan, he's not really anyone's first pick anymore, especially not since Sparkle got buffed and usurped him in almost every team Sunday was good in.

Well he's back, and he is a very good teammate for Himeko Nova, for a Verdict setup, for the same reasons he's always been good. Additional actions is always good, especially when the character you're advancing has specific benefits for taking their turns, such as, oh I don't know, refreshing the most integral part of their game plan in the form of an Assist Skill, just as an example.

Since Himeko Nova also likes having Energy to Ult as much as she can to refresh the free uses of Assist Skill from her forms, having a percentage based restore from Sunday is also really very good for that, and some extra CRIT Rate on top is fine by me.

Naturally Dan Heng Permansor Terrae is a great choice for a sustain, especially if he's the second member of the Crew on the team as he can quite easily alleviate the aforementioned potential issue of losing out on Assist Skill uses. He synergises very well with Sunday as well to ensure that Himeko Nova is always getting the absolute maximum boost from Sunday possible by sticking the Souldragon onto her.

These two together make for a great Verdict composition, leaving the third slot for powerful generalist supports like Sparkle and Mortenax. If you're not at risk of losing Assist Skills, and she's not occupied by another more Elated setup, then Huohuo can be used to replace DHPT in this team, providing much more Energy to Himeko Nova.

The Remembrance Trailblazer is also a very good fit for a Verdict setup, allowing the occasional action advance and granting a huge amount of True DMG as well, which scales very nicely with the amount and frequency of DMG that Himeko Nova deals, though do keep in mind that Mem's advance can become desynced with other advancers if you're also running Sparkle or Sunday alongside them, and Mem sadly can't Assist Skill. Absolutely rigged. Mortenax is therefore generally a better pairing for the Remembrance Trailblazer in this Verdict setup.

You absolutely must try Cerydra with Himeko Nova. Put her in with Sunday and DHPT and you will have the absolute time of your life watching Starblazer repeatedly crash into the enemies like a cat with the zoomies, because the Assist Skill is in fact, a real Skill. You can stack up Military Merit very quickly, and since Himeko pretty much doesn't use SP at all, you can very reasonably cede some of your Skill Points to Cerydra to progress the Merit gain even more.

For Decimation teams, it's the GOAT himself, Welt. He's got everything you want, and with the SP you'll have floating around, you don't even need to think very hard to keep up his Energy and his buffs. Especially in Decimation, the insane 100% DMG that Welt can end up granting is not at all at odd with the ludicrous CRIT DMG buffs that Himeko Nova gains in this state, and thanks to the Assist Skill, Himeko can stack up Welt's DMG buff very quickly and easily.

Welt also has the benefit of being a pseudo-sustain, so you can fit him into the Verdict team as well in place of the sustain and just forgo using the Assist Skill on his turn, or alternatively, put your thinking cap on and run a dual form setup with  him as well. It's an incredibly strong pairing, arguably the best of the bunch, though do keep in mind that since Welt is gonna be built for maximum speed, he's going to be acting way more times than Himeko Nova is, so he's just gonna be acting normally most of the time because the Assist Skill generation literally can't keep up.

The same things can be said for Mortenax, he's just an exceptional generalist buffer and plays right into the playstyle of Decimation, letting you get off far more of those free Assist Skills much more quickly and accelerating your gameplan. He is also a great filler for Verdict only teams, and doesn't interfere with form shifting, though do keep in mind that his Ultimate usage may end being less frequent than alternatives due to how you want to play with Mortenax's field.

Like most great things, putting them together results in an even better thing. Putting both Blade and Welt together makes for probably the strongest Decimation core Himeko Nova can have, and it absolutely slaps, for all the reasons you already know. This can even then transition into being a fully sustainless comp, having someone like the Remembrance Trailblazer as the final member of the team, and then either not using Assist Skill on them to preserve the Decimation state, or again, turning it into a dual form comp.

Gasp, what's this, an extra section is appearing in the review?

[An Aside about Welt Yang]

I'm gonna cut to the chase. I have been noticing increasingly more and more that people online have this view of Welt that he is useless before his E4. I genuinely don't know where this view came from, because the people saying this must not actually play the game.

E0 Welt is one of the best general units in the game, with his biggest drawback being that he is hard to pilot. I believe this encompasses all of his drawbacks, because they can, for the most part, be played around. This is because his Delays are hard to plan and play around, and his Energy is harder to maintain, and keeping the debuff active on enemies in scenarios where they're respawning or waves are changing is challenging, and thus naturally SP management becomes a hassle as well.

He is hard to play. Perhaps, even annoying, for some. But the Eidolon that seemingly everyone (hyperbole) believes he becomes 'viable' at, does absolutely nothing to alleviate any of these aforementioned things. The E2 helps his Energy economy by a good bit, and that's fair, but I would argue that that matters the most when trying to run Welt as your pseudo-sustain, because the active Delay of the Ultimate becomes much more valuable.

But if you are just trying to use him as the amplifier, you will have to contend with these same concerns. If you wait to get E4 Welt before using him, you will still have to actually learn his intricacies if you want to get those speed clears.

The notion that Welt is only 'viable' at E4 seems like straight up agenda-posting, and the fact that this belief is so widespread now, and that E0 Welt is being actively devalued as a result, is nothing short of a travesty, in my opinion.

Why am I making a section about this in the Himeko Nova review? Well, because Welt is one of the best supports for her and an integral part of the Decimation team setup. I have seen these takes about Welt already even before Himeko Nova's release, and am essentially pre-empting this in my review for the crowd that will inevitably start saying things like 'Don't use Welt if he's E0'.

I implore people to actually play the game and stop taking such devastating takes at face value. For the far more intricate problems that any character may have (and it is all of them after a certain point), it is statistically insignificant for the overwhelming majority of the playerbase, because you're probably not 0-cycling with low cost teams, and therefore do not need to consider the impact what such minute differences can have on your clear, and if you think E4 solves these issues for Welt, you're very mistaken. Only you, the player, can solve those issues.

[The Rest of the Rest]

I blacked out for a second, what happened? Oh, right.

Yeah, you have a lot of different mix and match options for teammates for Himeko Nova, and you can really go with anything else. If I haven't mentioned a specific character here, that doesn't mean you can't use them, it's just going to be a little less powerful, and can potentially result in rotation misalignments and japes.

Even though quite a few of these characters are also quite contested for other teams, Himeko Nova has enough teammates to choose from that you can always construct a strong team for both or either forms. Even without factoring in that she's a damage monster, this is quite the boon to have now that we've entered into the era of 3 team endgame.

A final honourable mention goes to March 7th, Hunt edition. It's definitely a somewhat niche pick at E0 Himeko Nova, and isn't really that recommended (but don't let that stop you), but it can actually result in some very funny results if your Himeko Nova is at least E2. Thanks to the extra Assist Skill uses, you can somewhat abuse Hunt 7th's self action advance to get a 0 AV double Assist Skill on a new wave. This not only does a whole load of damage, but it frontloads it, and every single one of these is also building Charge for the free Assist Skill from Decimation.

You can get so many Assist Skills off this way, and since Hunt 7th is very fast acting and also a frequent attacker, it fits perfectly, even in a single-target scenario where you'd ordinarily have much less Charge income. Add Cerydra for even more amusing amusement.

Also, yeah, any other fill teammate can work great: Tribbie, Cipher, Tingyun, Silver Wolf, et cetera. Go nuts, Himeko Nova's an excellent character.

The best part for me is that this new Trailblaze Companions tag means that any future additions to the group chat can also automatically be used with Himeko Nova, so even her longevity is significantly improved compared to those who came before her.

They just need to remember to add more characters down the line. They'll definitely do it. They definitely will not forget.

[Wrap up]

She's amazing. That's it, that's the review. Probably has some of the best vertical investment in the game to boot. Truly no expense is spared for the Navigator of the Astral Express.

Well, except for maybe the character animation on Assist Skill use. Like 'Go, girl, give us nothing!' why does she just stand there like that, I can't.

For those of you who read to the end, I am forever grateful for your patience and attention. You keep this train moving. Oh, how about this: when this tier list update, as of the time of writing, inevitably gets posted to social media, comment 'Zone of the Enders is a timeless classic', or 'Bionicle Heroes was legendary', or 'Dark Souls III.' and then I'll know who's read the review or not.

Or don't, I don't care (I care a little).