Well, since I've done Pre-Release Reviews, I wonder if a Post-Release will stick?
The 3rd Anniversary has been out on the CN servers for about 2-3 days now, giving us time to garner first impressions via CN accounts and showcase videos. I thought it'd be useful to compile the current finds!
As with everything I do and say online, take the things with a grain of salt. We are still very early into the update (to the point that we don't even have Icehood calcs yet for anything but the Impromptu teams).
Rhiannon (LIMITED, Beast 6-Star)
I'm glad to say that Rhiannon has turned out much more reasonable than she looked on the preview!
Her Extra Turn is mostly inconsequential, taking literal years to build up at P0 and not improving by much at P2. In a standard 15 round fight, you will only be able to trigger about 2 times. It's only at P5 that the Extra Turn becomes somewhat of a broken mechanic, but that isn't a weird thing for a P5 to do.
In addition, it seems that small changes were made to its functionality. Unlike what was told to us during the 3rd Anniv Livestream, Rhiannon cannot actually extend the duration of Arrays. It is likely that the devs decided to exclude that feature for the purpose of balance, which indeed makes her less oppressive in Array-heavy teams.
That doesn't mean she doesn't shake up the meta significantly.
She has access to a wide variety of offensive buffs with great modifiers. In addition, her ability to go completely AP-free on Ult, generate Extra Turns and count towards archetype requisites with [Universal Fit] makes her a very wanted and flexible unit. Her Limited privilege carries her a bit, as I believe she wouldn't have these modifiers if she were a standard character, but I digress.
What we're seeing is the following:
- It is still tentative if Rhiannon replaces Cheng Heguang in the Follow-Up team (led by Liang Yue). Her buffing is superior, but unlike Heguang she cannot generate extra cards for Liang Yue. I suspect this won't be much of an issue, you can run Unfinished Tuning and effectively bypass this nitpick, but I'd like to wait for Icehood to do their calculations to see how much she improves on him.
- Dynamo is a weird one. It is essentially split into 3 teams. Brume, Corvus and Wheelchair.
- Brume now runs a standard Dynamo team and will either run Ulrich or Corvus over Anjo Nala. With Enigma now available, the [Pulsing Field 3] breakpoints are easier to hit with a full Dynamo set-up, and Brume's reliance on PF3 for damage overshadows Anjo's viability in the team.
- Corvus' raid team is an oddball. You forgo the standard selection and actually use [Corvus / Flutterpage / Rhiannon / Enigma]. The support core here completely opens the AP Area to Corvus, supplementing [Dynamo] funneling (also via Extra Turn and Enigma) and allowing you to ramp with a higher ceiling than normal.
- The Dynamo Wheelchair team that supports units like Recoleta, Silverwing Eagle and Coppelia is able to utilize Rhiannon over Ulrich depending on the Carry's preference. For Silverwing Eagle specifically, Rhiannon is able to satisfy the conditions to her kit solo, thus being optimal.
- The Impromptu teams were already pretty solid, but it turns out that Rhiannon's teamwide offensive buffs are really good at supporting [Impromptu Incantation] due to how it's damage calculation works. These are also the teams that we have preliminary Icehood DPT (midlength stage) calculations for.
- Plantpromptu already had a weak link in An-An Lee, so it is pretty clear that she was going to get swapped out sooner or later. The DPT difference here is honestly kind of staggering. The team of [Paper Heron / An-An Lee / Tooth Fairy / Kiperina] has a DPT of about 1.54M. Replace An-An Lee with Rhiannon and that number jumps up to 2.16M DPT, a considerable upgrade.
- Starpromptu didn't really have any weak links. The most replaceable option here is Tooth Fairy, given that she is more geared towards Plantpromptu (despite being Star herself). Since Tooth Fairy is so strong now, the DPT increase you see from replacing her with Rhiannon is a bit less than with An-An Lee, but it's still substantial. The [Barcarola / Aleph / Tooth Fairy / Kiperina] team will net you a DPT of 1.43M, whereas Rhiannon will bring that up to 1.99M DPT.
- Bloodtithe also isn't safe from the Falconer Witch. Especially with Nautika getting her Euphoria, the archetype is looking to climb back up into the upper reaches of the damage chat. How far they will go we have yet to see, but either way Rhiannon will take Sentinel's BiS slot in the team. She has better buffing and better overall utility in her AP-free state and Extra Turn.
- I don't see Poison benefitting from Rhiannon all that much. Her usefulness in the team relied mostly on her ability to extend the duration of [Horror Story Night], which she can't. Beyond that, [Poison] doesn't take into account her fantastic offensive buffing, so all she's providing is an AP-free Support slot with the occasional extra turn. It's possible that Rhiannon becomes a viable flex-pick for Willow (with Ramona now as Carry for the team) as Willow is exclusively single-target.
Rhiannon is not all-powerful though, and there's definitely a few things that prevent her from just beating all other Supports outright.
- While her buffing is good, it is spread across a wide selection of offensive buffs. In other words, unlike Flutterpage who specifically boosts Extra Action DMG by a bajillion%, Rhiannon spreads herself across a bunch of different effects with slightly lesser modifiers. Does that mean that Flutterpage is better than Rhiannon? No, I think Rhiannon is the better buffer overall, but in EA heavy teams it evens out due to Flutterpage's nuclear modifiers.
- Rhiannon genuinely has abysmal Crit Rate stats. A 420 Crit Tech is average at best, but with no Crit Rate buffs in her kit and her signature Psychube mainstat being DMG Reduction of all things, she is not seeing her damage potential anytime soon no matter how big that "Feast Call" modifier is. Ultimately this isn't that much of an issue, as she's a Support anyway, but most Limited characters have been adamant about bringing a high damage output.
Tier: S+
Coppélia (STANDARD, Mineral 6-Star)
Yeah, where to start really? Coppélia... isn't all that impressive unfortunately. If you take away the dressing that is the [Instrument], Coppélia is effectively just Windsong or Kaalaa Baunaa with slightly better modifiers. The same problems persist, and the fact that Regulus(E2) genuinely isn't worth building means that she has no Instrument allies that can support her currently. Thus she relies on the Dynamo Wheelchair, which does make her viable, but I believe that is more a testament to how strong that support core is rather than anything on Coppélia's part.
She plays, effectively precisely like how you would imagine a combination of Windsong and Kaalaa Baunaa to play. There also really aren't any gimmicks in her kit, beyond the functionality of her archetype, meaning she doesn't really have any argument for her use outside of potentially being a "bitcoin pull" depending on how good the Instrument characters are going to be when Bluepoch releases them.
In that sense her release echoes that of Impromptu, though Impromptu's difficult launch was softened considerably by the God of Reverse: Flutterpage, who was able to keep that archetype standing through her [Inspiration] generation. This allowed some kind of team to form between [Barcarola / Voyager / Flutterpage] and a sustain. Coppélia does not have this luxury, and will likely struggle to find her footing until the next Instrument character releases.
Tier: A+
Silverwing Eagle (FREE, Plant 5-Star)
A new age is upon us, the age of Silverwing Eagle.
I am very happy to announce that SP-Eagle is genuinely viable, and considerably stronger than the 5-stars we've had up until this point. Does this mean that she is in S+ and the best character of all time? Unfortunately not, but she is competing and that's what matters especially for a lower rarity unit.
Her damage is about the same level as Marcus, and edges out in specifically single-target situations. Her ability to quickly cycle her Ultimate and spam her FUAs (which also grants Moxie to Plant allies) makes her a surprisingly potent single-target attacker. Note that she doesn't do much the moment you got beyond one target, but that's an expected weakness for these types of units.
In addition, her buffing is fantastic. Adding up to +32% Ultimate Might, +32% Critical Rate, and +60% Critical DMG to all attacks from [Plant] characters is genuinely really powerful (especially coming from a Carry) for characters like Marcus, Hissabeth, Argus and Willow.
I suspect that this will grow in value as more [Plant] characters release, as far now she provides this buff mostly to just herself. This is because she uses the Dynamo Wheelchair core, with Rhiannon over Ulrich. Rhiannon provides the offensive buffing that she can't, and together they can satisfy the [Neg Status] conditions of SP-Eagle fairly easily.
Tier: A+