UNIT ANALYSIS - SANGUINE HOOD CIARA

UNIT ANALYSIS - SANGUINE HOOD CIARA

7-star form of Ciara has finally been revealed! Let's see what Ciara can bring to the team! 

OVERVIEW

Game Area	Rating	Notes
Arena	8/10	9/10 As a Leader, 7/10 as a Sub
Challenge Arena	8/10	Powerful in multiple roles, low drop check attack.
Questing	10/10	Proficient for speeding up quest runs
Trials	6/10	Useful buffs but very fragile, hard to use without Gazia's BB
Grand Gaia Chronicles	7/10	Fragile but damage bonus + elements are much appreciated for some GGC's.
Frontier Gate	6/10	Useful buffs but clearing requires defensive strategies, of which Ciara has none.
FG Farming	9/10	Big upgrade from Michele or Quaid. Less useful if you use Griff's batch.
Frontier Hunter	10/10	Can utterly replace Quaid, more suited for OTK/UBB strategies than 3TK.
Raids	9/10	Replaces Quaid. Efficient & powerful. LS has potential in some circumstances.
Overall	8.2/10	Excellent unit only let down by a sub-par HP/DEF combo.

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STATS (6/10)

Stats	HP	ATK	DEF	REC
Base	4,630	1,875	1,478	1,326
Lord	6,515	2,675	2,125	1,895
Anima	7,407	2,675	2,125	1,657
Breaker	6,515	2,913	1,887	1,895
Guardian	6,515	2,675	2,363	1,776
Oracle	6,515	2,675	2,006	2,252
Max Imp	1,000	600	300	400
↑ ↓ Final, in-game stats may differ slightly

Ø  Excellent attack and mediocre everything else.

Ø  This is Ciara's main weakness. She is a glass canon like Mifune, albeit not quite as severely.

Ø  The excellent ATK almost makes up for it, relegating her to "B" and "C" teams for trials but making her the preferred choice for all damage-grinding content like Raids or FG Farming.

SKILLS (7/10)

LS - Arcane Aspect:

+120% ATK (Fire/Water/Thunder/Earth), +100% Elemental Weakness Damage (All) & +100% BB Damage.

Ø  For the Arena it only really works for teams with no Light/Dark units. Michele/Hadaron/Rahgan preferred but I might pick Ciara over Toutetsu, Quaid or one of the mono leads.

Ø  For Raids it could be utilized to take advantage of farming certain boss parts that are crit-resistant. Someone like Chrome or Zenia would probably be better but Ciara is at least usable for those lacking in alternatives.

Ø  For the right elements we're talking +220% BB Damage and +100% Weak Element damage which could be substantial in the right situation. It has huge potential in Challenge Arena where you get to see your opponents ahead of time.

ES - Red Guardian of the Woods:

Absorb 5-10% HP when attacking & adds DEF Ignore to BB/SBB

Ø  The Good: Unaffected by spheres, HP drain is needed to combat her frailty, DEF Ignore has niche applications

Ø  The Bad: No stat boosts, nothing to rectify her frailty. DEF Ignore is extremely niche, not valuable most of the time.

COMBAT (8.5/10)

BB - Savage Reave (9/10):

15-Combo, 300% Fire & Dark attack on all enemies for 24BC. Boosts ATK by 115% & adds DEF Ignore for 3 Turns (ES).

Ø  Overall an excellent BB. The 300% modifier rivals that of 42-cost units and the innate ATK Boosts effectively gives you a 415% BB with DEF Ignore and guaranteed neutral elements.

Ø  This BB should rip anything to shreds in the Arena and probably the Challenge Arena as well.

Ø  Outside of the Arena her SBB is largely preferred but if you already have elemental buffs, you can at least take comfort in the fact that you're not sacrificing too much damage if you have to resort to her BB.

SBB - Arcane Furor (9/10):

18-Combo, 500% Fire & Dark attack on all enemies for 22BC. Boosts ATK by 140%, Adds Fire/Thunder/Water/Earth & DEF Ignore to allies' attacks for 3 turns (ES).

Ø  This is what makes Ciara such a good unit. It's basically Quaid's SBB but it tacks on DEF Ignore (ES) and a massive ATK boost. It pretty much outclasses Quaid for anything except possibly Terminus FH runs where Ciara might actually deal too much damage too fast for 3TK strategies.

Ø  The SBB is effectively a 640% 5-Elemental attack with DEF Ignore. It's the antithesis to Melchio's attack and, in fact, I'd say it's a lot better offensively. Nothing in the Arena is going to survive this without a truly bizarre combination of fluke circumstances.

Ø  The cost is reasonable and it synergizes with many other units. Ciara works great with Gazia who can take her ATK boost and utilize it to bolster her shoddy defenses. For the Gazia-less, she also works nicely with Melchio who buffs the one element she has nothing to do with.

Ø  She can safely replace Michele and Quaid on many teams, basically doing their jobs better than they can. She adds more to the team than Quaid and doesn't add a below-average Crit Buff like Michele, which can be more of a liability than a benefit.

UBB - Phantasmal Harvest (7/10):

21-Combo, 1200% Fire & Dark attack on all enemies for 20BC. Boosts ATK by 250% for 3 turns & BB Mod by 500% for 2 turns.

Ø  On the surface this almost seems like a let-down. It's Zenia's UBB but there's no HitCount+ buff and the full effect only lasts for 2 turns. It's only benefit is the 1200% modifier (slightly high).

Ø  If you're not going to regular attack then it's about as effective as Zenia's UBB since it has the same boosts.

Ø  It costs 5 less than Zenia's and at 20BC, you can equip Queen's Tear to Ciara and use Shida's SBB to fill her gauge giving you guaranteed UBB without a potion in 2 turns. That's a nice boon for Mid/End farming since you can save your potion for Shida in case he can't get his BB up in that time.

Ø  Generally you'd prefer someone else's UBB like Nemeth or Zedus but barring those options, Ciara's should be totally usable for FH and FG farming.

Ø  Otherwise nothing special. It's a "Nice to Have" for people avoiding Zenia because they have Gazia. Zedus, Avant and Yuura's UBB's do rely on Crit damage a lot so this might be a good UBB for Raids if you're not using Zenia.

CONCLUSION

Ø  Ciara is a solid unit. She's been upgraded substantially from her 6-star version and she's a good choice for a lot of different content where you need a good damage boost. I'd say she's a direct upgrade to Quaid in terms of offense. Ciara's main weakness is her frightening stat spread. In order to get damage modifiers in line with 42-cost units they really sacrificed her defenses. Her stat total is even below-average for 40-cost units by about 250 points.

Ø  If you have one, she's worth evolving. She probably will not see much trial use because of her squishy nature (Anima, Imped Shida would probably be just as good & the 10 BC fill is desirable on trials) but there are plenty of game modes where extra damage and elemental buffs are essential. She really shines anywhere that she can obliterate opponents without much fear of a counter attack.

Ø  NOTE: Ciara can solo any type of parade with ease since she hits hard and has multiple elements. She can kill imps even with her BB so she can excel at Parade farming if you don't mind her slightly segmented animation.

ADDENDUMS:

Ø  Ciara is not Mifune-status as far as glass cannons go, but she IS below-average. So while she's not a complete pushover, her stats are just bad enough to prevent her from having the sphere freedom that units like Gazia and Griff have. Rather than going for all-out damage you are kind of forced to use at least 1 decent defensive sphere on her (Occult, Fallacy, etc.).

Ø  Also it's worth noting that I don't mean to imply that she's somehow overtaking the FG or Raid meta. Mainly she's a Quaid/Michele upgrade. If you're not currently utilizing those or similar units, she still may not have a place on your team, especially if RNGesus has blessed you with many Griff-batch units.

RECOMMENDED SPHERES

Ø  Guardian Sliver + Revelation Book - This patches up her DEF issues while not totally sacrificing damage.

Ø  Guardian Shard + Revelation Book - This is more for an offensive setup, without completely forsaking bulk.

Ø  Scarlet Pin + Heavenly Bud/Geldnite Axe - Again, boosting damage while avoiding an HP Nerf.

Ø  Malice/Buffer/Occult + Fallacy Orb - For Raids you may have to focus on defense and let her team support stand on its own. Prized Mercy could work here and obviously Prized Light if you face water enemies.

(Click here for Pumleficient Semira Unit Analysis)

(Credited to u/saggyfire)

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