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Misinfo Danchou's Impressions (old)

Grace

Dark physical support with a fair bit of damage herself. She solved Dark 7-10 and is generally good.

• PriFes

Wraith Body deserves it's own section, since it's a bit finicky

• Grace gains 3 stacks when she uses her UB
• As long as she has at least 1 stack, she cannot be targeted by enemies (kind of like Alter Maiden's Flight)
• She consumes 1 stack every time she uses S1 and deals extra damage
• She consumes all remaining stacks when she uses S2 and doubles her Physical Attack buff

Her loop includes 3 uses of S1 and 1 use of S2. You want to ensure she gains enough TP to UB before the third use of S1 (best case) or at least before she uses S2, so she still gains the Physical Attack buff. Make sure you build a team that gives her enough TP to do this.

Pros:

• 100% Action Speed boost on UB
• UB and S1 buffs reach all Allies within 300 Range (Lima to C.Kokkoro, includes all relevant Dark Physical characters)
• Large Physical Attack buffs on UB and S1
• S2 gives 725 TP to self and 150 TP to all other Allies

Cons:

• Pretty far forward and squishy, might need a tank to protect her in some comps
• Needs TP support from other team members, since she probably won't be taking much damage

Recommendation: Very good, should spark next PriFes if you don't have to pity the rate up character (unless you have no Jimmies).

New Year's Saren

Light Magic DPS who also acts as a mini support. She is part of the solution for Light 6-10, but New Year's Yui is trash, so she looks less good than she really is. She will probably vastly improve when we get a better Light Magic support with a 100% Action Speed boost and Neneka 6*.

• Limited

Pros:

• Gains a Firebird stack each time an ally uses a UB (caps at 20)
• Double hit UB, S1 also gains a second hit at 10+ Firebird stacks
• UB and S1 damage increases by ~40% with max Firebird stacks
• Very high damage output; can be greater than Princess Kot if Log Barrier is active
• S1 is used 3 times per loop and gives her 250 TP
• S2 is used once per loop and gives her 250 TP + all other Allies 150 TP
• Increases Critical Damage received by the nearest Enemy and lowers their Magic Defense
• +1500 HP on her bonds

Cons:

• Pretty far forward for a rear character
• Light Mages are reliant on New Year's Yui for 100% Action Speed boost at the moment
• We don't have Neneka 6* yet
• You probably have no Jimmies

Recommendation: She's obviously good, but it might not have been critical to pull her on release, ask me for an updated opinion when she has her rerun.

New Year's Hatsune (UE Only)

S1+ adds a bit of extra damage and a small second hit it the target is Physical. It's 66% more damage on paper, but could be more if Log Barrier is active. She was a good Light Magic support before and just got slightly better. UE30 is probably fine if you want to save DAs/UE Spheres.

UE Stats:

• Magic Attack
• Magic Critical

New Year's Kasumi (UE Only)

S1+ adds a Magic Attack and Magic Critical Damage buff to the Ally with the highest Magic Attack. From my testing, she doesn't seem great when paired with Anna in PvP, but she might be seen more often with Summer Maho or Anne & Grea in CB/PvE. She doesn't have the biggest damage output herself, so you are probably not missing out on too much if you leave her at UE30.

UE Stats:

• Magic Attack
• Magic Critical

New Year's Inori (UE Only)

S1+ increases damage, adds even more damage against immobilized Enemies, and adds knockback. I used her a few times in PvP the first month after she came out and then never again. I haven't seen anyone else using her in my BA or PA brackets either. Her UE doesn't make her good, you can save on materials by not equipping it.

UE Stats:

• Physical Attack
• Physical Critical

Medusa

Dark physical multi-target. Kind of without a home at the moment since that category doesn't really exist yet. Cygames could add more characters to it, but we'll have to wait and see.

• Limited

Pros:

• Snek cunny
• Each use of UB adds 1 Evil Eye (up to 3)
• Evil Eye stacks increase the potency of all effects on S1 and S2
• S2 buffs last 18s
• S2 gives her 120 TP (180 with 3 Evil Eyes)
• S2 has a good Physical Attack and Physical Critical Damage buff (18% with 3 Evil Eyes)
• S1 has reduces Enemy Physical Attack and Magic Attack
• Decent AoE shred on UB and S1
• Sometimes Cygames makes DoTs good

Cons:

• She doesn't really have a team at the moment
• 300 Range might not be enough to hit all targets on a multi-target boss
• You would be pulling her on the gamble that Cygames makes her good with other characters later

PvP

• Full TP after opening S2 when paired with S.Saren or L.Nozomi
• Sits behind L.Nozomi
• AoE UB with Stun and DoT
• Looks like she's just a nuke option, but you have other good characters with AoE damage + disruption for nuke teams (ex: Mahiru, Tsumugi)
• DoT can hurt you by feeding the other team TP
• Don't pull her for PvP reasons

Recommendation: Wait unless giga whale, but make sure you have at least 1 in your clan. Her banner runs through the end of the month, so you can always pull her later if absolutely necessary for CB. Pull her on rerun if she ends up being good, but just borrow for now.

Alpha Labyrista

Water Magic DPS/support with TP Boost on her UB and part of the solution for Water 7-10. Encourages Water-only comps, since her UB field buffs only gives half the Magic Attack and no TP Boost to non-Water characters. Could also see some use in CB overflow, since she uses S1 3 times in her opening 4 actions for decent shred. Looks to be very good.

• Limited

Pros:

• UB field gives 15 TP Boost and Magic Attack to Allies within 350 Range (Uzuki* and back)
• Triple hit UB and S1
• S2 has a large self Magic Attack and Magic Critical Damage buff that last 18s
• S2 buffs double in size if UB field is active (19,960 Magic Attack and 18% Magic Critical Damage at Lv. 331)
• S1 has some shred
  *I think some rounding shenanigans are happening with Position and Range, Laby's field looks like it should reach Shefi, but doesn't; P.Shefi is harder to test

Cons:

• UB field TP Boost only applies to Water characters
• UB field Magic Attack buff is halved off-element
• Her S1 animation is fairly slow

Recommendation: High priority pull. I'm not seeing compelling reasons to skip unless

• You have every other Water Mage (I'd still recommend pulling)
• You have no Jimmies and want to gamble on Alpha Neneka being a better investment

Astral Yui (UE Only)

S1+ slightly increases damage, adds a small self TP Boost increase, and adds 55% Action Speed to all Allies with a Barrier. Not the replacement for New Year's Yui we were hoping for, but she might see some use as an alternative when the extra damage from Astral Yui outweighs the higher Action Speed boost and survivability that New Year's Yui provides. Looks good, but I'm not sure if it's game-changing. Stay at UE30 unless you need to go higher to survive.

UE Stats:

• Magic Attack
• HP

Astral Rei (UE Only)

S1+ slightly increases damage, increases the stun duration from 2s to 4s and adds 250 self TP recovery. Allows her to do a few things she couldn't before, but still PvP only. For example, she can now go up against Tsumugi tank teams and your team can kill Tsumugi a lot easier before she recovers and counters with her own UB. I don't think the UE stats really matter; I can't come up with a scenario where the extra HP would get you a win where you otherwise would have lost, and the Physical Attack increase is too small to matter. Overall, a minor improvement in versatility, but a welcome one.

UE Stats:

• Physical Attack
• HP

Astral Hiyori (UE Only)

I feel like we haven't seen her in a while. S1+ increases the value of the Physical Attack Buff/Debuff by +66%, increases the Physical Critical Damage Buff/Debuff by 2%, and adds 5 TP Boost for your team and -5 TP Boost for all Enemies. She might see some more use now, but I don't really think so. At least she'll be a bit better as Dungeon filler when we get EX8 (or for those of you who still haven't cleared EX7). You can probably leave her at UE30 unless you explicitly need higher HP to survive.

UE Stats:

• Physical Attack
• HP

Alpha Christina

Dark Physical Multi-Target DPS (and actually Single-Target too) who can deal some pretty extreme damage. Another case like Alpha Laby where she strongly discourages putting any element on your team other than Dark. Has a mechanic similar to Summer Suzuna where she uses her S2 once as her 10th Action for a massive permanent self buff, permanent Physical Damage Invulnerability, and gains Imaginary Numbers, which increases UB and S1's damage output.

• Limited

Pros:

• Multi and Single Target
• S2 is about the same speed as Summer Suzuna without any support or use of UB to cancel skills (S2 buffs apply at 0:52 vs 0:53 for S.Suzuna)
• S2 buffs are permanent and huge with a full Dark team (+79,680 Physical Attack, +40% Physical Critical Damage at Lv. 331)
• S2 gives +15 TP Boost
• S1 recovers 150 TP
• UB and S1 never miss and always crit with Imaginary Numbers
• UB and S1 gain a large extra hit with Imaginary Numbers that targets the Enemy with the lowest Physical Defense
• UB has small shred for all Enemies

Cons:

• Must be used with Dark only for S2 to give the maximum effect
• S2 Invulnerability might not matter much, since usually characters die near the start of a TL
• She uses a Spear as her EX weapon, and you are probably going to want a 5EX Spear for her at some point
• You'll probably need to get Medusa/Yamato when they rerun if you want to use Dark Physical Multi-Target

Recommendation: Yet another high priority pull. You'll need 2 of Yamato, Medusa, and Alpha Chris if you want to do Dark Physical Multi-Target, and pulling Alpha Chris now is the cheapest way to get one of them.

• 100 Free pulls gives a 50.46% chance of pulling her at least once

Alpha Neneka

Praise be to Gregor. Dark Magic Support with a summon who steals TP from Enemies and generates a good amount of TP for your team every 5 Actions. Locked into Dark for the greatest benefits. TP battery is very strong and might even see use on Physical Dark teams.

• Limited

Pros:

• TP Battery for the whole team
• Shred on UB and S1
• Critical Damage Received buff on UB
• S1 reduces Enemy Physical and Magic Attack
• S2 buffs last 18s
• S2 Buffs doubled for Dark Allies (most notably 10% -> 20% Magic Crit Damage)
• S2 Buffs hit all Dark Mages other than N.Kuuka
• S2 summons Gregor
• I could see her being used on Dark Physical teams occasionally for TP support

Gregor:

• Sits behind W.Djeeta, so you can still tank with her
• Has 24 TP Boost
• Same HP, P. Def, and M. Def as Alpha Neneka, but lower Magic Attack (about 88% of Alpha Neneka's)
• While summoned, increases Alpha Neneka's UB and S1 Damage and shred
• Steals 100 TP from all Enemies in 600 Range twice every 5 Actions
• Every 5th Action, loses all TP to give all other Allies 50 TP and all other Dark Allies extra TP proportional to the amount lost
• If Gregor has 1000 TP, all other Dark Allies gain 50 TP + 102 TP before TP Boost applies (weird number, I know but this is what I got from testing)
• Gregor gains 806 TP each loop without any help
• W.Djeeta/Eris ensure 1000 TP each loop on Dark Magic teams
• Grace should ensure 1000 TP each loop for Dark Physical

Cons:

• Needs a bit of additional TP support to ensure Gregor gains 1000 TP each loop
• Can't really be used outside of Dark
• If used with Dark Physical, only her TP is relevant

Recommendation: Pull her. It's Neneka, what did you expect? (I guess you could be brave and skip, but you're pretty much guaranteed to be doomed to pull every other Dark mage ever or be locked out of comps)

Fio

Wind Ameth (and actual Ameth) with a side of Eris. She is a Physical and Magic support, but her best bonuses are Wind only. She looks very good, and I expect we will see her in many/most Wind comps moving forward. We also have a new sticker with her - spam it to support your clan mates next CB.

• PriFes

Note - She doesn't lose stats going to Rank 36-3

Pros

• 
• UB is identical to Ameth's
• Supports both Physical and Magic
• 100% Action Speed for Wind Allies on S1
• 200 TP for Wind Allies on S2
• Good Attack and Crit Damage Buffs on S2
• Good loop (AA >> S1 >> S2)
• No buffs scale with her stats

Cons

• Not that strong off element
• Needs Barrier to be active for S2 buffs to be maximized
• S1 gives the whole team a 15% Damage Cut (to be fair, this might also sometimes be good depending on the boss)
• Her AA projectile moves weirdly fast (might make some manuals annoying if they use it as a tell)

Recommendation: High priority pull. However, she is PriFes; you are a bit safer skipping her if you need to conserve your Jimmies, since you can pull her again in 3 months.

Ceremonial Ranfa

Wind Magic Multi-Target/Single-Target who is weirdly punished with lower damage if used against multiple targets. Is part of the solution for Wind 7-10. Seems decent-ish? Honestly, it's a bit hard to tell at the moment, but I think she will have her uses.

• Limited

Pros

• UB and S1 have 2 hits
• UB and S1 apply their Debuffs before the second hit lands (second hit will do more damage than the first)
• Both UB and S1 have decent shred
• S1 increases Crit Damage Received
• S2 has a Magic Nullification Barrier which can help Fio's Buffs apply (stacks with Fio's Barrier)
• S2 Magic Attack Buff and Barrier size increase depending on the Magic Attack of the nearest Ally (double at 200,000 Magic Attack)
• Due to UB and S1's good scaling and Damage reduction mechanic, she seems usable against Single-Target as well as Multi-Target
• S2 reaches P.Shinobu and back

Cons

• UB and S1 Damage is divided by the number of targets Ceremonial Ranfa hits
• Fio/Summer Misora seem to be the most obvious candidates for helping Ceremonial Ranfa's S2; Fio's Magic Attack isn't the highest and Summer Misora isn't Multi-Target (also you probably skipped her)
• Seem to lack great partners at the moment
• S2 increases your Allies' Magic Defense (could be good or bad)
• S1 decreases Enemy Magic Attack (could be good or bad)

Recommendation: Your call really. I feel like she is slightly above average, but this might be a Yamato/Medusa situation where Cygames makes us regret skipping later. You might want to wait until we get a bit more info on Ceremonial Chika before deciding to pull Ceremonial Ranfa. Wind Abyss Hunt is active and uses her from what I've seen, but hopefully you can still get all the rewards if you decide to wait.

Winter Yuni (UE Only)

S1+ increases the Physical Attack Buff by 33%, increases the Physical Critical buff by 40, adds a 6% Physical Critical Damage Buff, and adds 150 TP Recovery for Winter Yuni. Winter Yuni was already really good thanks to her 100% team-wide Action Speed boost, so this is just a small improvement other than the TP, which might be a bit more impactful but still not game-changing. For some reason her UE only gives Physical Attack; this does increase her healing, but I don't think that's important unless some niche TL needs it for your team to survive. Equip it, but don't feel compelled to level it unless you must.

UE Stats:

• Physical Attack

Winter Chloe (UE Only)

S1+ deals 20% more Damage than S1 and adds a 6% Crit Damage Received Debuff to the nearest Enemy at 66+ Stacks. Kind of underwhelming. Honestly, just wait until you find a TL that absolutely needs her before equipping or leveling.

UE Stats:

• Physical Attack
• Physical Critical

Vampy (6* Only)

Her 6* does away with the mode switch and just makes Beth permanent after the first UB. Vampy gains a new stacking mechanic with Dragon Fruit: each time she uses a Skill after her first UB, she consumes 1 Dragon Fruit to steal TP from the nearest Enemy (steals 80, gains 40). She also now heals all Allies for 2% of the damage dealt by her UB. She was kind of niche before, but I could see her becoming more common in battles where you need to stop a Boss from using their UB and maybe when you need a bit of extra healing beyond what Eris can provide.

Weirdly enough, with the mode change becoming permanent, Vampy will lose access to her permanent Magic Attack Buffs on her standard S1 and S2 after her first UB. These were fairly small, but I wonder how much it will affect her. She'll deal more damage overall now from spamming SP1 (Damage + good Magic Defense Shred) and SP2 (Damage + Self Magic Attack Buff), so that should more than make up for it. I'm not sure how much her damage will go up though, as I haven't had a chance to test her 6* yet.

As a final thought, Vampy is a Debuffer. The extra 6* bulk and Role Masteries will help her tank (HP, Physical Defense, Magic Defense). Do be careful about leveling Debuff Increase though (See here for why).

Ceremonial Chika

Sex Chika. Multi-Target Magic Buffer who is clearly made to partner with Ceremonial Ranfa. Their Buffs/Debuffs compliment each other well. Ceremonial Chika's skills are set up to provide substantial additional Buffs to the two nearest Allies. Ceremonial Chika counts as one of the two, and Ceremonial Ranfa will nearly always be the other, since Ceremonial Chika stands right in front of her. Seems pretty good on first impression and makes Ceremonial Ranfa better in hindsight.

• Permanent

I'm going to do things a bit differently here, since I think just discussing Pros/Cons misses the mark this time. Let's look at Ceremonial Chika and who I think she'll be paired with most of the time.

Offensive Synergies

• Ceremonial Ranfa
  • AoE Magic Damage
  • Magic Defense Shred
  • Crit Damage Received
  • Magic Attack Buff that scales with the nearest Ally's Magic Attack (C.Chika; caps at 200,000)
• Fio
  • 100% Action Speed
  • TP Recovery
  • Magic Attack Buff
  • Magic Crit Damage Buff
• Ceremonial Chika
  • AoE Magic Damage
  • Magic Attack Buff
  • Magic Crit Buff
  • Big (>20k) Magic Attack Buff for herself and C.Ranfa
  • Magic Crit Damage for herself and C.Ranfa
  • Her Magic Attack is only slightly lower than S.Misora, so you aren't really hurting C.Ranfa's S2 Buffs by using C.Chika
  • TP Recovery & TP Boost for herself and C.Ranfa

Defensive Synergies

• Ceremonial Ranfa
  • Magic Attack Reduction
  • Magic Defense Buff
  • Magic Nullification Barrier
• Fio
  • Physical & Magic Defense Buff
  • Physical & Magic Damage Cut
  • Healing & Regen
  • Permanent Physical/Magic Nullification Barrier
• Ceremonial Chika
  • Physical Defense
  • Physical Nullification Barrier
  • Healing

That's a ton of defensive potential and all three Barriers stack. We might see a boss this CB that requires this level of tanking from a Wind team.

Pros

• S2 Buffs last 18s
• Rather huge Buffs for her and C.Ranfa
• Still decent Buffs for the rest of the team
• More ah memes (previously I thought she didn't do it from incomplete testing, but I was wrong)

Cons

• Seems railroaded into being paired with C.Ranfa
• Only UB deals damage
• S2 only used 1/5 Actions
• S2 increases your Allies' Physical Defense (could be good or bad)

Recommendation: Perma = skip, unless you must pull her for non-gameplay reasons (I understand). If you have a lot of Jimmies though, it wouldn't be a bad investment to pull her to avoid gambling on getting spooked by her later. Personally, I'll be skipping but I'm not thrilled about it.

Magical Girl Kasumi (UE 2 Only)

I was expecting a modest buff, but she just received one of the biggest buffs out of nowhere. She was already a PvP staple, but now she's probably going to be one of the most centralizing PvP characters for good while, like Nebia. Maybe this is an apology for slowly killing Kasumi 6* with Roles? Max UE 2 immediately. If you didn't pre-farm her, start now.

S2+ does an unreasonable amount of things:

• Does a bit over 5x more Damage than S2 (she now one-shots S.Echidna & P.Kot)
• Adds M. Def Shred (209 at Lv. 247)
• Due to the extra Damage and Shred, she can now break through H.Misaki's Barrier
• She can also break through a quick Ameth UB on a good chunk of characters (ex: she now Stuns Aoi 6* with a Crit)
• Range increased from 280 to 400, from testing this means:
  • NY Muimi no longer protects S.Kasumi and back
  • Lima no longer protects NY Kasumi and back
• Adds TP Recovery for Allies within 100 Range
  • Starts at 60 and increases by 48 for each Character she deals Damage to with S2+ (caps at 300)
  • The Allies that gain TP are somewhat hard to test, since a where a character stands gets modified by what position they are in
  • Example: MG.Kasumi's TP can reach Nebia if she is right next to Nebia, but can't if there is a character in between
  • You'll have to experiment team by team to see who gets her TP
  • Here's a visual explanation of what I mean; Yuni stands in a different spot depending whether she is in Position 1-5:
  • 

UE 2 Stats:

• +90 Magic Defense
• +90 Physical Defense
• +1800 HP
• +900 Magic Critical

Magical Girl Shiori (UE 2 Only)

A decent UE 2, but seems PvP oriented (I like PvP, but you might not care). I recommend farming MG.Shiori as well, but you don't have to be as vigorous about it as you should be with MG.Kasumi. I also recommend farming enough normal Shards to get her UE 1 high enough so her P. Crit is over 2000 for guaranteed Crits in PvP.

S2+ is kind of reminiscent of Substitute + Focus Punch if you've played Pokemon. MG.Shiori gains a large Dual Null Barrier (66% bigger than Ameth UB) ~1s after casting. If she keeps this Barrier up, she gains a massive self Physical Attack Boost, deals massive Damage to the every Enemy in front of her, Shreds their Physical Defense, ignores 50 Physical Defense, and Stuns for 3s (remember she is a Booster, so this Stun is RNG on Tanks and Jammers).

The most direct comparison is with Rino 6*, who can get off S2+ and UB by 1:22 for comparable damage vs MG.Shiori's S2+ hitting at 1:19. MG.Shiori will likely need some sort of disruption support to last long enough to fire off S2+, but your reward is only ~15% more damage than Rino 6* and a Stun. The Stun can be good, depending on the Enemy team, but a lot of PvP matches will already be decided before MG.Shiori can contribute with S2+ (the rest of her kit sucks). Still, I'm sure she will have some uses.

UE 2 Stats:

• +108 Physical Defense
• +3600 Physical Attack
• +90 Magic Defense
• +3000 HP

Pilot Aoi

Can we please have a character that's obviously bad? Tokusatsu meme Aoi. Really strong support with good Single-Target and Multi-Target damage output. Has pretty big Physical Defense Shred, TP Recovery, Barrier, Physical Attack Boosts, and some Physical Attack Debuffs. Already took Light 7-10 from whale tier to semi-auto or full-auto, depending on the team. Needs her UB Field up to reach her full potential, but this is quite easy to do.

• Limited

Pros

• Good TP stats (47 Boost, 12 Retain)
• Big Physical Defense Shred on UB Field (slightly more than Makoto UB)
• Small Physical Defense Shred on S1, but used 2/5 Actions in her loop
• 200 self TP Recovery and +100 team wide TP Recovery on S2 (includes Pilot Aoi)
• Self TP Boost on S2
• Big self Physical Attack Buffs on UB and S2
• Stacks a Physical Null Barrier on herself and Dual Absorb Barrier on the whole team when she uses S2 while UB Field is active
  • This is about 21k worth of Barrier on Pilot Aoi at Lv. 337
• Some Physical Attack Debuffs
• Good Damage and some Multi-Target Damage
• S1 Physical Attack scaling increases if UB Field is Active (makes her huge self boosts better)

Cons

• Needs her UB Field up to be really helpful
• S2 only used 1/5 Actions in her loop
• Cygames already drained our Jimmies with Anniversary

Recommendation: Priority pull. You might be able to skip her and borrow, but Cygames will make us use her next CB, so plan accordingly. I wish I had more Jimmies.

Aerial Croce

Fire Magic's 100% Action Speed Booster is here. Basically an upgrade over Halloween Kyouka except her buffs are not permanent However, Aerial Croce deals Damage, unlike Halloween Kyouka. Has an interesting mechanic on S1 & S2 where she consumes all Barriers on herself to heal and recover 100 extra TP. She uses S1 & S2 every other Action in her Loop, so to maximize this, you would need to give her a Barrier every other Action. I'm not sure this is possible at the moment, but a future character might enable it.

As an interesting aside, we now have a 100% Action Speed Booster for Physical/Magic teams of every element.

• Limited

Pros

• 100% team-wide Action Speed Boost on S2
• Magic Attack on UB and S2
• Decent Damage on UB
• Decent Shred on UB and S1 (S1 Shred is AoE)
• S1 has Debuffs for all Enemies
  • Physical & Magic Attack
  • Action Speed -50% (Bosses are usually immune, but this might be helpful in Deep Quests)
• AoE Magic Crit Received Debuff on S1 & Magic Crit Damage on S2
• Physical & Magic Defense on S2
• A lot of self TP generation, more if you can spam Barriers on her
• Boosters get TP Charge
• Has Flight

Cons

• No ability to give herself a Barrier
• Consuming Barriers may be a negative in some cases where she needs to survive

Fire Mages with Barriers

• X.Lailael
  • S2; used 1 out of every 4 Actions in her Loop
• Lind
  • S2; used 1 out of every 5 Actions in her Loop
• Wurm
  • S2; used 1 out of every 7 Actions in her Loop
• Emilia 6* (you didn't pick Rem instead, did you?)
  • UB

Recommendation: High Priority Pull. She has 100% Action Speed for the whole team while being a strong support. If you were able to function by borrowing Halloween Kyouka, you might be able to skip, but Aerial Croce should be used quite a bit more than Halloween Kyouka was. Keep an eye out for a future Fire Mage who spams Barriers if you decide to skip.

New Year's Suzume (UE 2 Only)

S2+ gains a small Magic & Physical Attack Buff, and now has both a Physical Null Barrier and Magic Null Barrier - not a Dual Barrier, 2 separate Barriers. Unfortunately, her Barriers are not big enough to do terribly much. I did a bit of testing and found she can stop Kasumi 6* (who was already dead from Roles) and protect a S.Saren Tank from Mifuyu (yay?).

MG Kasumi still breaks through her S2+ Magic Barrier, so she's not the check I expected her to be. Disappointing, but she wouldn't be Suzume otherwise. Don't bother farming.

UE 2 Stats:

• +4800 HP
• +4200 Magic Attack
• +60 Physical Defense
• +60 Magic Defense

Rei (UE 2 Only)

S2+ turns a useless skill into a fairly good one. It doubles the Damage, adds a second hit, adds a buff that lets her ignore 1 Stun, and changes her Attack Pattern (effectively just removes 1 AA). I'm not sure this makes her viable again, but she's definitely better. You have 2 nodes you can farm for Pure Shards, so there really is no reason not to max her out if you didn't pre-farm.

UE 2 Stats:

• +6000 HP
• +3000 Physical Attack
• +180 Physical Defense
• +180 Magic Defense

Ho-oh

Cute KFC that delivers itself to you. A Physical Fire Healer with lots of Physical Attack Buffs, TP Support, and various defensive buffs. Has better boosts for Fire characters, so you might not be able to use her off-Element. Has a mechanic where her Physical Attack Buffs and UB Damage scale off all other Allies' remaining HP up to 5x, making her numbers much better than they appear on her card.

Compared to the other Fire Physical supports, she looks like a straight upgrade over Sa.Saren and a side-grade with notable improvements compared to V.Shizuru and AkiSaren. Ho-oh's definitely the best of the bunch now, though V.Shizuru can still make a case for herself when Defense Shred is more important.

• Limited

Pros

• Dual Absorb Barrier, Physical/Magic Defense, and 15% Damage Cut on UB
• S1 gives all Physical Allies an HP Absorb Buff for 12s
• UB Damage scales up to 5x with HP of all other Allies
• Physical Attack Buffs scale up to 5x with other Allies' HP (max scaling at 320,000 HP gives ~20k on UB and ~10k on S1/S2 as of Lv. 338)
• Healing with more for Fire characters
• S2 is for TP, with better effects for Fire characters
  • 8 TP Boost
  • 50 TP Recovery for Fire
  • 10 TP Regeneration
  • Additional 10 TP Regeneration for Fire (Field and non-Field TP Regeneration stack)
• EX gives HP (always good for TP generation from taking Damage, just not in CB anymore)
• Quite tanky especially when factoring in her UB
• Her Fields reach everyone

Cons

• Not as great off-Element
• UB Defense and Damage Cut will affect TP generation outside CB
• HP/TP Recovery depend on Fields; these could be lost when you move forward after killing Enemies (think Deep Quest)
  • With how big her Fields are, this is probably less of a concern than I initially thought
• Probably not super great full SET, you'll want at least AUTO or a Semi-Auto TL to maximize S2 TP
• She uses Daggers as her EX Weapon, so she can't hold the Fubuki Sword like V.Shizuru and AkiSaren

Recommendation: Medium-high priority. If you are missing other key Fire Physical supports, consider pulling a bit more strongly. V.Shizuru should still compete with her for a spot on your team, and I don't think you will have to use both.