"A" Units
| Ayisha | Stars | Tier: 2.5 Ascension: ✔️ | Rationale |
 | Can Stop | ⭐⭐⭐ or ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | 3 stars increases her Oath percentage to 20% and gets 5% increased attributes while 4 stars increases both Oath and On Duty to 20% |
| Recommended | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | The main benefit of 5 stars is 5% attributes, more healing, and 1 additional NRG sustain and 40% conversion |
| Role/Faction |    Tanky Magic ST DPS/Support |
| Reasoning | Ayisha is a highly mobile offensive defender that converts her physical damage dealt into magic damage, but still scales her primary stat as P.Atk. Magic ST DPS tend to be uncommon . She is not a selfish DPS like Estra who can only operate to deal with DPS herself and provide no utility to the team. Ayisha provides fantastic unique buffs that aim to partner with another unit and improve their bulk and offense alongside Ayisha. As sub DPS she is impressive but ideally wants Edda for maximum magic damage potential. She has outstanding mobility and has no range limit on her conditional teleports. In general play she shines thanks to her AoE charge instant, teleports and also enables riskier plays with squishy units. In more difficult stages she can let go of some mobility options to enhance her ST DPS without losing impressive bulk. She is an extremely solid unit, but top picks released after her tend to have higher synergy potential. |
| Post Ascension | Ayisha ascension improved her skill CD’s by letting her spam her skills every other turn as to waiting 3 turns before. with some cd support she will feel super solid. She also now gives 1 additional nrg to the ally + more dmg buff to the ally she's binded to. Overall not a meta breaking ascension but it makes her a more favorable pick for people who have full investment |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Can hit some of the highest raw stats to date with DEFs conversion(40% each). Can reach over 12k+ Atk High DMG% skill multipliers with high ST potential (285%) or on kill (405% total) Versatile with survivability & DPS builds [Oath] allies near Ayisha are nearly unkillable with her dmg share/special [Unyielding] with def buffs/healing. At 5 stars also grants both Ayisha and her [Oath] Ally 1 NRG once per turn Can shut down enemies with disarm on AoE + debuffs with Vuln2 Can block both ST and AOE, as well as magic damage and turn to face the attacker every direction Can lower cd’s of self by 1 every turn with “Dawn Moon” passive Has two conditional teleports (one on oath target death, another tied to ability) both of which have no range limit Impressive mobility if you want it | High CD on core skills Her AoE skill needs to kill/destroy something for cd refresh |
| Skills | Reasoning | |
| Rank 11 |   Dawnmoon Waxing Moon Shadow (could castalia) | Dawnmoon is her primary ST skill while Moon Shadow is for her counterattack build. However it is more important for her to unlock her ST first as the potential ceiling is quite high |
| Rank 9 |   Dispelling Strike OR/AND Feverish Strike(My pref) | Ayisha has enough healing from many sources, so it’s better to have the utility of “Dispelling Strike”. It also provides a 3% DEF passive. However at early stars, her healing values on traits aren't that high, so taking “Feverish Strike” can help top off. Realistically though the healing burden should be assisted by another true support, making Feverish less effective in most situations. However, Feverish is better with the counter build against stronger enemies and honestly there is an inherent satisfaction to seeing green healing numbers when you hit an enemy, even if you are full HP |
| Rank 7 |   Dawn Moon Moon Over The Mountain (castalia) | Dawn Moon is a fantastic 30% DMG and CDR reduction passive as long as you are [Healthy]. The Fortitude Leader aura is also fantastic and is easily put into a spot for min max ST |
| Rank 5 |  Shape Of Full Moon | Heals her for 50% of Mdef can block all DMG types minus piercing And lowers dmg taken by 10% just a good reaction |
| Rank 3 |   Moon Rising Moon Silhouette (could castalia) | Moon Rising functions as both her primary active AoE skill and a substantial conditional contributor to her ST nuking. Moon Silhouette grants fantastic mitigation + damage share to an ally and teleports to them and enters a counterattack stance. It can be used as an offensive tool to cover high distances at start and follow some other teleporter (think Luvata) later. Both are important skills that should be taken |
| Rank 1 |   Healing Blow Legacy of Comrades | Take the one with 3% def as the actual abilities themselves do not matter here |
| Loadout | Skills | Notes |
| General |  | General PVE build that focuses on active gameplay using Moonrise rather than counters. You can replace her aura with another skill if desired. |
| Boss |  | Bossing mix of aoe plus st for max dps. |
| Fun Counter Tank |  | Tank built with counterstrikes. Unfortunately a pure counterstrike build is simply not practical based on testing. It is recommended you at least take her AoE skill like in the build below |
| Favorite General Build |  | My personal favorite build for general play balancing counters with active gameplay. Lunar Shadow can be swapped out for “Dawnmoon” for full uptime on the buffs from Moonlit Shadow or simply her Aura passive |
| High Mobility focus |   + | High-mobility build where Moon Silhouette is meant as an offensive teleport tool to keep up with your faster dps (think Rawiyah alt with + spd passive, Luvata) and get extra movement at start. You always take your instant for max mobility, the last slot depends on specific map/team composition. |
| Weapons | ||||
| Best |  Void Stab | Offers increased crit/crit damage for higher DPS. Easy to proc the condition due to her multiple instant abilities | ||
| Optional 1 |  Dawnmoon | Dawnmoon provides both Ayisha and an ally DEF and Ayisha herself increased P.ATK thanks to her conversion. Unfortunately Dawnmoon is not distinctly good enough to justify actually pulling, making it a niche weapon, especially when Guardian’s Will provides nearly the same benefit | ||
| Optional 2 |  Guardian’s Will | Like Dawnmoon, provides DEF to increase her P.ATK | ||
| Trinket | ||||
| Best |  Shield of Justice | The granted shield from the equipment activates the 20% DMG boost in the Defender Talent tree. The stats is also great | ||
| Usable |    Maverick’s Cloak Hourglass Crystal Burst | Maverick’s provides a high offensive boost Hourglass is a standard filler stat boost. If you don't want to commit to SoJ, then this is a good replacement. Crystal Burst offers improved bulk and increased damage for her counterattack build | ||
| Tarots | ||||
| Best |  Justice | Best for DPS. Preferred default option since Ayisha is preferably played as an offensive unit | ||
| Optional 1 |  Magician | Generic DMG | ||
| Optional 2 |  Devil | Best value when you can stack to max. Especially with crit support such as Hesha | ||
| Engraving | ||||
| Best |  | Standard Atk + DEF(Improves P.ATK even more due to conversion) | ||
| Optional |  | Same benefit as Sword + Wand, but with a difference in requirement. Due to Ayisha’s constant healing, it is easy to stay at full HP. Best at higher stars. | ||
| Unit/Skill/Buff Interactions | ||
| Balancing tarots and equip | Because of Ayisha’s unique DEF to ATK conversion, you want to balance CRITDMG and raw stats on your gear + tarot. For example, if you choose Devil as tarot, Void Stab will overtake by far even maxed Dawnmoon. While if you stick with Justice, it remains roughly equal for dps, with extra utility on Dawnmoon. | |
| Shield of Justice + Defender’s armament talent | Defender talent tree skill gives Ayisha up to 20% dmg buff while shielded. SoJ is a good way to keep this bonus up. | |
| Objects on map + Moon Rising | Destroying objects on the map will count as “defeating the enemy” for nrg and cd refund. | |
| Date | Comments/Retrospection/Examination |
| Acambe | Stars | Tier: 2 Ascension: ✔️ | Rationale |
 | Can Stop | ⭐⭐⭐ | At this point you get max nrg to 9 and secret signal to 3 CD both of which are mandatory for using him effectively |
| Recommended | ⭐⭐⭐ | 5 stars have notable benefit of extra 3 nrg at start, but most accounts will have way higher priority shard targets |
| Role/Faction |    Summoner Nuker/Support |
| Reasoning | Acambe, the historical ToA slayer. If you are ranking very high, you are probably gonna need Acambe at some point. He often appears in the most optimized clears. Very unsuitable for general play. Acambe plays by summoning assassins who do not directly attack, but does assisting attacks twice a turn and has an AoE nuke manually triggered by Acambe that can overlap onto the same enemy from multiple assassins but with reduced damage with additional hits. However, his main skill that summons his assassins can only summon a maximum of two a turn. Due to the cooldown of activating the assassin’s AoE, he has to choose between waiting a turn to summon more assassins or simply casting it early and suffering waiting for the three turn cooldown, requiring his output to have inconvenient conditions to set up for optimal performance. The assassins themselves are extremely fragile and once killed, increases the cooldown of his primary means of summoning any more. This gameplay style makes it unfavorable for general play. Moreover due to power creep, the damage penalty from subsequent assassins is now more so a hindrance that gates his ceiling and prevents him from competing offensively with other magic dps. |
| Post Ascension | Acambe’s role as a support didn't change at all due to his “High ceiling” requiring too much work to get going and is easily outpaced by just slotting a more modern ST unit who doesn't need much set up outside your bread and butter support. But it did improve NRG gains which made him more self-sustained. |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| 5x3 Knockback skill Unique group gathering which is also an instant so it can be abused with engraving resonance from cup/wand Possesses one of the few skills that reduce ally CD on active skills Big summon range allows him to deal damage in multiple areas at the same time Produces summons on the board that can trigger traps/similar spots, can be swapped with / teleported to (through reaction) and soak heavy hits from enemies Synergizes with other summons too | For pure bossing it’s very hard to optimize his damage or put it on other dps levels Assassins can be passed through, can’t be controlled and by default have 0 move which gives them less utility than other summons NRG hungry, also limited by CDs and per-turn limits on summons When bringing down CD - it’s only his allies (not himself) and only active skills (not traits), also it’s not instant, unlike his gathering skill Can be very hard to use/clunky |
| Skills | Reasoning | |
| Rank 11 |  Darkest Annihilation | In some cases Acambe has to do the job himself, however you wouldn't really use this in most scenarios |
| Rank 9 |  Charged Attack | Acambe doesn't really take advantage of either |
| Rank 7 |   Burning Riches Rewards and Punishment | If you want to do damage with the summons, you have to Castalia Rewards and Punishment. It notably doubles as it first increases Acambe’s attack, which is then calculated for his Summon, then afterward the Summon itself also gets the increase. Burning Riches provides Acambe a powerful knockback utility. |
| Rank 5 |  Special Clauses | Block swapping with a summon can save Acambe. DMG 2 from Rage does not affect his summons |
| Rank 3 |  Squander | 2 skills in one. Acambe’s main use : Gathering enemies is still a unique skill used in the very hard modes to this day. His NRG restoration is appreciated. |
| Rank 1 |  Potential Burst | Potential Burst is a nice buff, though Acambe directly casting abilities should be avoided if possible |
| Loadout | Skills | Notes |
| General |   | General 1: Summons double dip on the attack granted by Rewards and Punishments and the DMG increase make it the BiS for Summon damage. Squander is useful in general to debuff enemies and position them to take most damage from Shadow Assassin. The buff portion can be used to buff summon damage massively but this is usually reserved when paired with another summoner or when supported by “Act Again”. It is technically also useful in a purely support capacity for non summon teammates however Acambe’s primary focus should be dealing damage General 2: If you don't want to use a turn to just debuff or support, you can swap it out for Burning Riches |
| Knockback |  | Niche for KB scenarios. Can replace the Aura for Shadow Assassin. Squander can make KB much easier |
| Weapons | ||||
| Best |  Starry | His summons scale off his stats, making the M.ATK provided ideal for an offensive setup | ||
| Good for NRG/Hard Stages |  Corn Staff | The NRG sustain can be crucial to the success of ToA or other challenge stages | ||
| Optional 1 |  Nightmare puppet | In case you want some M.ATK and apply debuffs | ||
| Trinket | ||||
| Best General Play |  Fancy Hat | Fancy Hat’s effect of immunity allows Acambe to be unaffected by the debuff [❌NRG Restored] from his skill “Burning Riches” | ||
| Best Support |  Scrolls of Auguste | Speed tune | ||
| Usable Offense |  Armguard | The active effect triggers the assisting attacks from his Assassins. BiS for offensive setups | ||
| Optional Filler | Hourglass | Generic stat filler | ||
| Tarots | ||||
| Best |  Devil | When stacked, provides significant stats that is also inherited by Acambe’s summons | ||
| Optional 1 |  Fortune | Variety of random but useful effects | ||
| Optional 2 |  World | This provides NRG sustain and cooldown reduction to allow better uptime on certain skills | ||
| Engraving | ||||
| Best |  | For maximum stats for his summons | ||
| Optional (Best for Challenge Stages) |  | Useful for resetting his Squander or Burning Riches and I think his Trait skill? Helps sustain NRG as well. | ||
| Unit/Skill/Buff Interactions | ||
| Cocoa | Summons can take advantage of happiness buff to auto-proc their AoE attack at the end of turn without secret signal | |
| Space-time Ring | A staple in PvP : summon assassin and warp to him, effectively extending your or other unit’s range by a few tiles | |
| HM Agent ( Safiyyah summon) | Assassin can be a useful body to swap HM agent into otherwise not reachable place | |
| Armguard + Shadow Assassin | Summon assassins and immediately trigger their assist attack with armguard to damage and debuff the enemy | |
| Assassin | Can be used to body block shots. | |
| Date | Comments/Retrospection/Examination |
| Afra | Stars | Tier: Fun Ascension: ✔️ | Rationale |
 | Can Stop | ⭐⭐or⭐⭐⭐ | Afra gains +1 move at 2 stars, and applies 1 Tier 2 debuff at 3 stars at the end of her turn. Each star also increases her nightmare range by 1 |
| Recommended | ⭐⭐⭐ | Good balance between gain and shard investment |
| Role/Faction |  Support Healer/Dot/DMGCopy |
| Reasoning | Afra’s primary role is a hybrid of support buffs and offensive debuffs that deal piercing damage through cooperating with your other units. While her support is alright, getting value out of her offensive side is quite difficult in general play because most units die without any input from her own damage. Overall she is more suited for bossing or challenge stages and also wants 5 stars to get the best offensive value out of her. There are very few units that can hard crowd control like Afra can, and when circumstances permit her effectiveness, she is a great unit to draft ignoring her tier, which is largely a reflection of how common her circumstances of effective use are. In general though, she is a great amplifier for piercing damage due to her access to “Nightmare Puppet”, and can be a Vuln2 applier if you lack one. |
| Post Ascension | Afra gets access to her whole entire skill tree split between her human and deer form and 40% more piercing damage & +1 range to ranged skills & 30% DR on ice tiles. |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Sleeping aoe/st mechanic that can't be interrupted Double healing, with passive in dear state + aoe heal Self sufficient on her own nrg Unique nightmare debuff 5% dmg taken and 5% pierce dmg taken Provide buffs to all allies across the battle (atk 2, def & mdef 2) 1 time resolve with high dr in deer state Can use nightmare puppet (Kvare sig) and apply it in aoe | Unique team record dmg having a limited cap and can't crit too because it's considered a type of piercing also it can't be buffed using piercing debuffs or buffs. It's tied to her matk% and team dps. Cd problems on ult she can only heal allies or basic attack in her downtime rounds Loses global buffs while in deer state |
| Skills | Reasoning | |
| Rank 11 |  Light of healing | You are realistically never using the left skill as it has too high an NRG cost and is a low priority over using her other abilities Light of Healing is a good skill to provide AoE healing during her human form |
| Rank 9 |  Proverb in Fantasy | Basic guarantees sleep if enemy is injured |
| Rank 7 |  Phantom in Fantasy | AoE Bound, Vuln2, Piercing2 is good |
| Rank 5 |  Run my Fawn | Solid defensive reaction |
| Rank 3 |   Tread on snow (castalia) Dream Telling game | “Thread on Snow” is Afra’s primary method of forcing a transformation for her other skills, as otherwise the only way is getting hit. “Dream Telling Game” provides NRG sustain as well as passive supporting during periods where you are in your human form, as this passive skill does not trigger when you end in your deer form |
| Rank 1 |  Echo of Revelry | “Fantasy Whisper” is a decent skill but is redundant because Afra has another skill that does the same in an AoE Right healing offers improved sustain while using other skills of higher priority. |
| Loadout | Skills | Notes |
| Main Build |  | or could also be used in place of the passive |
| Weapons | ||||
| Best | Nightmare Puppet | Amplifies both her own damage and allies who deal piercing damage, as well as allows Afra to spam debuffs | ||
| Optional 1 | Starry Sky Heritage | More M.ATK improves her trait and healing | ||
| Optional 2 (Support) |  Reorganized Cube | When Afra heals,this adds dispels | ||
| Trinket | ||||
| Best |  Cooling Powder | Afra is often frontlining and depends on healing to stay alive. There are many enemies that heal block, and “Cooling Powder” prevents it | ||
| Usable |  Disaster Bottle | To apply more debuffs | ||
| Technical BiS |  Deceptive Shadow | Not ordinarily available, but great if accessible as it provides [Bound Immunity] | ||
| Tarots | ||||
| Best (General) |  Judgement | Afra excels in harder environments, which often suggests damage amplification to be applicable and beneficial | ||
| Best (Support) |  Priestess | Improves her already solid healing | ||
| Optional |  Fortune | For the random AoE healing to self/allies and NRG for self | ||
| Offense |  Death | Amplifies her trait’s piercing damage | ||
| Engraving | ||||
| Best |  | To reset “Phantom in Fantasy” | ||
| Optional |   | Cup + Cup for improved healing values Sword + Wand to improve her trait damage cap, improve healing, and increase defense | ||
| Unit/Skill/Buff Interactions | ||
| Deer state | While in deer state you lose “dream telling game” passive | |
| Ascension | Her 40% piercing dmg does not effect her trait. | |
| Date | Comments/Retrospection/Examination |
| Agata | Stars | Tier: 3 Ascension: ✔️ | Rationale |
 | Can Stop | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Increases her wound piercing damage to its maximum. |
| Recommended | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | You'll receive Jump and Climb with [Armor Piercing] and +1 tile movement at 5 stars, which is a solid boost. Unfortunately with the introduction of her new free signature she is required to get five stars to make maximum use of it due to movement requirements to activate the benefits |
| Role/Faction |   Piercing Buffer/self sustained tank dps with heals |
| Reasoning | While Agata is bulky and deals solid damage, she does not provide a critical value to a team composition. She is largely a convenience suited for general play that does a solid job at many things. Post Ascension: Her unique ascension skill grants her a little bit of everything, from increased health, DMG3, increased piercing damage, damage mitigation, and regeneration when she defeats an enemy. However none of it is particularly game result altering and her role remains exactly the same. Her main place in the meta is just on high end piercing teams as a debuffer. |
| Ascension 1 | Provides DMG3/DMGres3/Piercing dmg buffed by 20% while also lowering her queen's announcement CD on kill pretty good for mobbing. |
| Ascension 2 | She applies a wound in 1x3 aoe using permafrost and gets 1 more trait proc with that. Really good at spreading ice + wounds and dealing st dmg with feast. |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Highest HP 30%+ sig 20% unit to date, Super bulky. Very versatile with builds. can be a healer full piecing support or even a sub dps physical dot buffer Wound buffs piercing by 48~%(multiplicative) at max stacks Free signature. (Feast) can max out wounds on st. | Does not inflict [Wound] on physically shielded mobs Hybrid dmg while being watcher class will result in pretty mediocre damage. Her Ult “Feast” does not benefit from [Armor Piercing] from 5 star trait if the enemy does not have wound stacks prior to attack |
| Skills | Reasoning | |
| Rank 11 |  Feast | Her main ST skill. Applies max wound stacks instantly and the AoE heal portion is actually nice due to her high HP |
| Rank 9 |  Silencing Attack | Honestly either one works, but Silencing has an actual effect and provides 3% HP |
| Rank 7 |  Taste of Prey | Gives her +2 tile move and +1 NRG every turn on attacking, very useful. Wild Surge is niche but can be useful in solo situations |
| Rank 5 |  Elegance of the Queen | Elegance is a generally useful reaction. Vitalization is not that bad however |
| Rank 3 |   Silver Severing The Queen’s Announcement (castalia) | “Announcement” is Agata’s main source of AoE and the Vuln 2 is quite good. Silver Severing is a good use of castalia, as it increases her mobility and allows her AoE build to increase stacks on a few units faster, since "Announcement" can only apply 1 stack. |
| Rank 1 |  Knockback Pursuit | Some circumstances where KB can be useful. Neither skill is used normally |
| Base skill |  Permafrost | You want to use it for her second ascension |
 SP SKILL |  |
| Loadout | Skills | Notes |
| General |  | General build consists of AoE and mobility, less focus on piercing/wound stacks |
| Boss |  | Boss enemies are usually not doing melee attacks, so the other reaction increases her piercing damage and is better suited |
| Second ascension |  | More wound more st dmg |
| Weapons | ||||
| Best |  Frostspine Grip | Minor sidegrade and improvement one can receive for free from the Lighthouse | ||
| Optional 1 |  Newborn Blade | Best non-sig option | ||
| Filler |  Senator Blade | Only for the health% | ||
| Trinket | ||||
| Best | Crystal Burst Armor | For the health increase | ||
| Usable | Cooling Powder | Agata sustains herself through her Ult and sometimes regen. This prevents her healing from being blocked | ||
| Optional Offense | Maverick’s Cloak | For the cases where you want to maximize her offense. Mobbing builds in particular like this | ||
| Tarots | ||||
| Best |  Fools | Fantastic 20% health increase and damage | ||
| Optional 1 |  Death | Buffs her piercing damage directly | ||
| Optional 2 |  Devil | Stats | ||
| Engraving | ||||
| Best |  | Improves both her physical and piercing damage | ||
| Optional |  | Double Pent allows higher HP rolls. Good for maximizing her piercing damage and bulk | ||
| Unit/Skill/Buff Interactions | ||
| Date | Comments/Retrospection/Examination |
| Dio 6/28/2025 | Her main place in the meta is just on piercing teams as a debuffer / comfy day to day clearing |
| Alexei | Stars | Tier: 3 Ascension: ✔️ | Rationale |
 | Can Stop | ⭐⭐⭐ | 3 star dispels 2 debuffs when triggering Unlimited Resolve. 4 stars only provides 5% attack |
| Recommended | ⭐ or ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | While 3 is technically a balance between gain and value, ultimately Alexei is a very low priority unit to shard, and if you want to shard him, you go all in and aim for 5, as he is largely ineffective at his main niche without an additional turn of Unlimited resolve. |
| Role/Faction |  Unyielding Tank/DPS |
| Reasoning | Alexei is the first counterattack gameplay style focused damage dealer. Despite being a defender, he has one of the highest base attack stats in the game for a defender to date.. Unfortunately he can only deal damage to one unit at a time with his counters, and he requires both high star investment, proper equipment and an adequately invested talent tree. Rather than any focus on surviving through mitigation, he depends entirely on the duration of his Unlimited Resolve where he can not be killed in order to wring out value, putting the scenarios where he can shine to be very limited. Future reactive units are generally far more versatile and practical for general play without a dependence on immortality to perform, making Alexei a unit with little appeal for practical performance |
| Post Ascension | Alex can resolve back to back with cd support for 4 turns of being unkillable. While he's immortal his AOE skill gets 2x dmg. Pretty good ascension for him |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Goredrinker provides a permanent 60% DMG/Lifesteal buff when stacked Unkillable for at least two turns Most effective user of the Invincible Hero command Skill Only defender to benefit from the bonuses when hurt/dying on the Talent tree His Unlimited Resolve cooldown can be reduced through Whirlwind Axe, allowing for potential cheese of much longer immortality durations if he managed to kill many units with it His Basic provides 1 NRG on killing an enemy, which is particularly easy to do since his entire kit relies on counters | Heavily dependent on 5 stars Lacks AoE and reach against enemies, particularly outside Counterattack Storm Most of his skills have large NRG costs/Cooldowns Attempting to take any form of support for his team such as through Wild Howl substantially decreases his own potency due to his reliance on skill slots to increase his offensive potential. The likewise applies to his only mobility skill. Sort of forced to use Cooling Powder Trinket |
| Skills | Reasoning | |
| Rank 11 |  Counterattack Storm | Important for drastically improving his main few turns of damage output |
| Rank 9 |  Frenzied Slash | The NRG gain is important and deals more damage than the other basic, which is effectively useless |
| Rank 7 |   Goredrinker Anger of icefield | Huge buff that is easily stacked and essential to his sustain and damage output |
| Rank 5 |  Brutebear Counter | This counter reaction is his primary source of DPS |
| Rank 3 |  Burning Bridges | While Wild Howl is effective, it has too long of a cooldown and Alexei’s own effectiveness should be prioritized. |
| Rank 1 |  Leg Slam | “Fight to the Death” is not used in a final build, and in the early game there isn't any reason to play around dying status, especially when pre 5 stars. Meanwhile Leg Slam has an actual niche use, as there comes times where you require/want KB |
| baseskill |  Whirlwind axe | Lowers his trait cd by 1 when used. |
 SP SKILL | Outside of the current action: Physical Attack increases by 10% , and each stack of [Goredrinker] increases Physical Attack by an additional 10% . Increases counterattack attempts by 2 After a counterattack or active attack, gain 1 stack of [Goredrinker], lasting 2 turns. |
| Loadout | Skills | Notes |
| General | | For maximum damage with no sp skill. |
| General 2 |  | Throwing in a little mobility |
| Post sp skill | | Best build |
| Weapons | ||||
| Best |  Hammer “Dragon Rise!” | Provides lifesteal and increased DMG | ||
| Optional 1 |  Brutal Axe | Alexei is usually almost always at a lower hp than the enemy, making this an easy condition to meet | ||
| Optional 2 |  Tuning Hammer | For the P.ATK mainly | ||
| Best⭐ |  Alex sp weapon. | Gives crit/crit dmg/atk. Beats all axes in the game. | ||
| Optional 3 |  Undying Flame | Better then first weapons if you have it. | ||
| Trinket | ||||
| Best 1 (QoL) | Cooling Powder | Alexei depends on either immortality or lifesteal. This helps prevent the latter from being blocked | ||
| Best 2 (Offense) | Maverick’s Cloak | BiS for damage | ||
| Optional 1 (Offense) | Crystal Burst | Increases his counterattack damage, but does not provide as much offensive value as Mavericks. Usually more accessible though, making it a solid filler option | ||
| Tarots | ||||
| Best |  Tower | Best for damage/lifesteal | ||
| Best 2 |  Devil | Great for the stats | ||
| Engraving | ||||
| Best |  | Counterattacks will grant him various T2 buffs | ||
| Optional |  | Generic stats but not ideal | ||
| Unit/Skill/Buff Interactions | ||
| Credenza | Her reset cd can make alex have inf uptime on his trait | |
| Date | Comments/Retrospection/Examination |
| Auguste | Stars | Tier:Fun Ascension:✔️ | Rationale |
 | Can Stop | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Breakpoint for max start of turn rage stacks. |
| Recommended | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Very hard to recommend starting up August outside of using him in Pioneering Journey may as well get OG rawi’s rank 13 and have a mini ogu. But besides that 4 star will give him all the tools he needs to perform well in his role with some downsides Very low priority |
| Role/Faction |   Physical DPS |
| Reasoning | One could say Auguste is the game's first serious DPS. Overshadowing every other unit before him in damage output. However he is gated by a combination of cooldowns and his rage mechanic requiring to overlap with CD cycles, low mobility as a breaker, and requiring higher levels of support to perform well in higher difficult content. In the time since his release, he has largely been overshadowed by newer DPS units that fix his issues or trade them for less significant ones such as Tristan, Estra, etc. Auguste has largely fallen off and his high shard farm demand makes him an undesirable unit to recommend, especially with Rawiyah OG’s R13, which has been proven to bring her ST nuking on par with Auguste’s burst. Moreover Rawiyah is a unit which does not require shard farming and is free while getting free shards from Voyager missions. |
| Post Ascension | Auguste’s place and usefulness is not in any way affected by his unique ascension. His bulk was improved and he can sync his rage generation with his cooldown without requiring an Armguard, which arguably is a buff as it allows him to run a trinket that can actually boost his stats. Between this and the 20% damage increase from acting “Hassle”, his second rotation will have good improved damage,but nothing worth changing one’s perspective of Auguste on. |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Rage Outburst-3 AT 4* gives 70% conversion on magic attack 5* and grants armor piercing Trait+Reaction+Wrath Debuff provides solid self sufficiency in boosting DMG when you are lacking support options Bosses with large hitboxes can be hit one additional time by Wrath-Scorch due to the AoE on the sides counting as a separate damage instance Ascension makes Hassle usable in his normal rotation; it has lower cds and gives him more rages, stacks and buffs. His Ascension allows him to sync his rage generation with the cooldown of “Wrath” without the use of Armguard, while also offering the ability to sync with the CD if you have a [Banner of Convallaria] up if you do decide to keep the Armguard | Short legs(Little movement) Homa pair perfectly with him. Can't sustain Act Again due to lack of actions he's able to perform once armband runs out 3cd on his main dps skills will create grips in his dps cycle. His Ascension skill does not address core flaws of Auguste’s kit. Moreover since “Hassle” is not an instant, using it the first turn wastes his [Act Again] and he will not be able finish with “Wrath-Scorch”, leaving him unable to take advantage of the unique DMG gained when using Hassle with the Ascension skill on the first turn. The skill was designed explicitly to improve his consistency across longer battles |
| Skills | Reasoning | |
| Rank 11 |  Wrath Devastation | AOE option with stun |
| Rank 9 |  Charged Attack | Useful during downtime to get extra damage out of your next skill afterwards. Unfortunately the other basic does not grant Auguste any additional NRG when depleting enemy NRG |
| Rank 7 |  Atk Command | Atk 12% buff for teammates |
| Rank 5 |   Strength Activation OR Contempt(Can castalia) | Strength Activation is much more preferable for newer accounts as it allows consistent self sustain of DMG2 when paired with Warm Touch. If you already possess a reliable external source of DMG2, it’s better to take Contempt |
| Rank 3 |   Warm touch Hassle(castalia) | Hassle is important post 2 star and pre 4 Star in order to gain Rage turn 2. Warm Touch is also important in activating his Reaction skill. |
| Rank 1 |  Knightly Spirit | Crumbling Smash has too high an NRG cost and never takes priority over his default skill. Knightly Spirit is simply better |
| Loadout | Skills | Notes |
| General |  | Just a comfy general set. |
| Post 2 Star, Pre 4 star, and rank 13 |  | Technically the main general loadout pre 4 star and rank 13 loadout |
| General With Outside DMG Buff |  | If you don't need his DMG2 reaction, you can run the first general loadout with Contempt or something like what is shown here |
| Boss |  | Max dps while having a bit ATK% buff support for allies |
| Weapons | ||||
| Best |  Gale Sword | Fantasy ATK + Crit Damage. Not accessible for post Night Crimson accounts except through Cornucopia(paying) | ||
| Best 2 |  Feast Axe | Best non-sig option for damage. Armguard can be used prior to engaging with his burst to proc the condition | ||
| Optional 2 | Tuning Hammer | Enemy buffs are a common way to enhance their strength in most stages, making Tuning a decent option to remove the buffs. Provides a lesser amount of P.ATK, but unconditional | ||
| Trinket | ||||
| Best | Shield of Justice | Provides great stats | ||
| Best 2 | Armguard | Synergizes with Homa and Feast Axe, and helps Rage sustain | ||
| Situational |  Maverick’s Cloak | While it provides the highest amount of potential damage, Auguste isn't particularly good at keeping his distance due to his lack of mobility | ||
| Usable | Hourglass | If SoJ isn't an option, hourglass is a great filler for stats | ||
| Tarots | ||||
| Best |  Justice | Crit provides the best damage output, though it is a bit inconsistent | ||
| Optional 1 |  Magician | For reliable damage output | ||
| Engraving | ||||
| Best |  | For stats | ||
| Unit/Skill/Buff Interactions | ||
| Flying armband + trait | Will give him more rage stacks. up to 3. | |
| Date | Comments/Retrospection/Examination |