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Should You Summon: April Gala Remix Ft. Humanoid Mercury, Child Ranzal and Gala Laxi

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Should You Summon: April Gala Remix Ft. Humanoid Mercury, Child Ranzal and Gala Laxi

Elementary Escapades

Disclaimer: The opinions below are written by GamePress and do not actually reflect Nintendo, Cygames, or the fairy Notte's opinions... probably. If they somehow do, it's merely coincidental!

Welcome back to another edition of Should You Summon, where we analysis the performance of new units introduced via the latest banner to provide an alternative opinion as to whether should you spend your hard-earned summoning currency or save for the future. This time around another Gala Remix banner has appeared in the middle of the month, bringing with it two new permanent adventurers, and bring back a previous gala unit as an additional focus. For this banner, the two new permanent adventurers starring are Child Ranzal and the much-hyped Humanoid Mercury, while Gala Laxi returns on focus for the first time since her release last year.

Why is there a child on the battlefield?

OMG Ranzal looks adorable as a child, especially with that cute get up. Though, is he wielding a baseball bat in his hand? I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of his swing, unless I wanted to make a quick get away from a sticky situation.

Beginning with the weaker unit of the two new additions, Ranzal has received a child variant to coincide with the comedy that is the Elementary Escapades event. As a 5-star flame axe adventurer his only competition right now is that of the units Ramona, whose damage nowadays is not comparable to the top meta picks for flame, and Halloween Mym, her occupies a more support-oriented playstyle. As such, you would think it would be easy for Child Ranzal to make his stamp within this classification. However, becoming younger has seemingly brought out a weaker side to him that comes from non-existent battle experience.

Starting with his Skill 1 Swing of the Fences, this skill deals relatively low damage to enemies ahead, with a weak 1,015% modifier, and a relatively high SP cost of 3,230. While it does come with the ability to apply scorchrend to foes, enabling the use of scorchrend punisher abilities, the damage to SP ratio is one of the worse seen in the game for attack-oriented adventurers. Moving onto the Skill 2 Grand Slam, this skill grants the user a strength amp, and immediately readies his Skill 1 at a cost of 7,583 SP, relatively respectable. Note that his maximum team strength amp level is 2, so at most he could get the 40% team strength amp if he achieved maximum level. This also grants his next Skill 1 the ability to deal critical damage guaranteed. To coincide with this skill, he has good synergy with his third ability Strength Amp = Attack Rate +8%, which grants him an increase to his attack rate by 8% while he is equipped with a strength amp. To further enable this guaranteed Skill 1 critical damage, his first ability Power Hitter II adds 40% modifier to critical damage, as well as granting him an additional strength amp when his Skill 1 deals critical damage. However, it comes at the cost of his critical rate being always limited to 10%.

Overall, while Ranzal is currently the only unit within the flame-element to posses’ strength amps and has respectably quick build up with his Skill 2 and Power Hitter II combination, its hard to really make up the deficit of an extremely low Skill 1 modifier. Even with a guaranteed critical hit, his Skill 1 damage modifier is not explosive enough to make much of an impact compared to the excellent damage options that the flame meta boasts without this niche condition. To make the most of this skill you would need to stack a significant amount of critical damage into this one burst option like Chrom, but unlike Chrom his base modifier seems too poor to get anything of value from it compared to other adventurers who you could do the same with. His critical hit limit also ensures any additional damage dealing skill shares will be unlikely to deal great damage, which is a poor compromise when players can easily run decent critical hit builds within the flame element thanks to excellent flurry devastation prints and chain co-abilities such as Kimono Elisanne and Serena.

At the very least, his ability to accrue strength amps via his Skill 2 into Skill 1 combination may enable him to attain his team strength amp level 2 variant without too many troubles, which could make him a good pseudo damage and support option. However, even then Kimono Elisanne provides excellent buff utility in a dominion environment for flame with her unique Skill 1 buff, and the current agito meta does not require heavy support utility for flame adventurers to deal with the Legend Volk Fight. This also goes without saying that, with any release of a new buff mechanic, the development team will most likely ramp up more additions to the strength amp adventurer roster via both new units and future mana spirals. As such, I do not recommend pulling for Child Ranzal as his damage seems poor, and his support utility, while nice, is not necessary with the other and potential future options.

Recommended Builds: Regarding builds for Child Ranzal, you can either push for an offensive oriented build, where you try to maximise his critical Skill 1, or a support build, in which you try to procure strength amps as fast as possible. For an offensive build, I recommend the use of a critical damage, skill damage and strength co-abilities to further improve the prowess of his Skill 1, while for a support build I recommend the skill haste co-ability, and where applicable for non-element attuned lock restrictions, the attack rate co-ability, to further reduce the time it takes him to activate his Skill 2 again.

On the wyrmprint side, it is recommended to at least run The Cutie Competition to provide a boost of 25% damage to scorchrent foes, which is easy for him to apply thanks to his Skill 1. If you can run the popular Formal Joachim skill share, you may also wish the run The Plaguebringers for an additional 25% damage boost to poisoned foes. Besides these two, the following lists provide additional recommendations of prints that you may wish to use for your offensive (damage oriented wyrmprints) or supportive (skill haste oriented wyrmprints) Child Ranzal build:

Offensive

Supportive

The Waterwyrm's Fury

Mercury looks totes beautiful as a human, no wonder she is receiving a few stares from the people around her. Though, I do hope they try to not get on her bad side. I've heard that with one stare she can make her foes drop their weapons and flee to the hills.

Humanoid Mercury, after being teased within the Dragalia Life comics, has finally entered the game, boasting an impressive offensive kit, with some excellent survivability to boot. Starting with her Skill 1 Raging Ocean, it deals 3 hits of 540% damage, inflicts frostbite, and grants 4% dragon gauge if the attack connects, at a reasonably low SP cost of 2,800. However, this skill has a boosted form when Mercury has a team strength amp, in which the skill now boasts 4 hits of 600% damage and raises the dragon gauge by 5%. To help her achieve this team strength amp condition, her Skill 2 Aquatic Rain deals 6 hits of 322% damage, and grants her a strength amp, at a relatively high SP cost of 8,000. Like her Skill 1 though, this skill has a boosted version where after shapeshifting once, it will deal an increased 9 hits of 322% damage instead. Do note that her maximum team amp level is of 2, and she can only increase the team strength amp maximum level by 15 seconds if she builds up and converts 2 stacks of individual strength amps. Due to her relatively high SP cost on the second skill, its unlikely that she will ever be able to achieve team strength amp level 2 on her own and will need other amp allies to achieve this goal.

Like both Humanoid Midgardsormr and Gala Mym before her, Humanoid Mercury comes with her unique first ability Waterwyrm’s Nature, which not only provides bog immunity and an increase of 14% to the modifier while in dragon form but grants her a unique Mercury shapeshift form upon first shapeshift. Upon the second shapeshift, she will instead transform into High Mercury. Both forms however, compared with the modifier increase, have impressive modifiers that rival the likes of Gala Poseidon, considered one of the strongest dragon forms in the game. Her third ability Bubble Shield grants her a ‘Sphere of Protection’ effect while in the possession of a team strength amp, which not only provides decent recovery healing to herself, but also can nullify damage up to 30% of the user’s maximum HP. To further add to her defensive capabilities, she comes with the unique chain co-ability Team Strength Amp = Burn Res, which grants full immunity to the burn affliction while the user has a team strength amp. This means that Humanoid Mercury can possess full immunity to 3 afflictions at once, impressive for a non-gala unit.

From this analysis, Mercury possesses some excellent damage capabilities currently within the water meta. Her Skill 1, while not hard hitting underpowered, will only get further improved as more strength amp users are implemented into the game, which should enable her to stay within the empowered variant for longer periods of time. One benefit Mercury does possess though is excellent burst potential during break with her hard-hitting Skill 2 and dragon form, enabling her to catch up with some of the top tier damage units during those critical times. The use of allies utilising the Gaibhne and Credence dragon form should also enable her to get her amps quicker, making her damage relatively better. In the Dominion environment, while she misses out on some of the benefits that dragon abusers possess via shapeshifting boosting wyrmprints, she can still pack a punch and be a useful addition to teams in both solo and co-operative environment thanks to her added strength amp support utility, and her lack of buff reliance. As such, I can recommend pulling for her due to her great damage and support utility in both the Agito and Dominion fight environments.

Recommended Builds: As a dragon-centric character, you may wish to invest into co-abilities which grant the dragon claws chain co-ability, to further boost her strength after each shapeshift. It is also recommended to run a standard attack co-ability if possible, to further improve Humanoid Mercury’s damage output while in dragon form. Besides these two options, the skill damage and strength co-abilities are excellent options to further boost her damage output. It is also advised to try to choose co-abilities which have dragon haste as their primary function or as their secondary chain function, to further reduce the time it takes for her to call upon her shapeshift form.

For wyrmprint options, the typical damage and dragon affinity options seen on units like Humanoid Midgardsormr or Gala Mym will most likely work well for Humanoid Mercury as well. As with any standard damage setup, Mercury, having the ability to maintain good frostbite uptime with her Skill 1, should run the His Clever Brother wyrmprint to boost her damage to frostbitten foes by 20%. Besides this, the following lists give examples of wyrmprints to help build her damage, with those focused on her shapeshift form named separately:

Raw Damage

Dragon Oriented

  • An Ancient Oath (Permanent Strength bonuses each time a shapeshift occurs up to 3 times)
  • The Red Impulse (Permanent Skill damage bonuses each time a shapeshift occurs up to 3 times)
  • The Bridal Dragon (+18% Dragon Damage)
  • Dueling Dancers (+10% Critical Rate when the hit counter is at 15 or above, does come with the dragon affinity)
  • Sisters of the Anvil (+10% Strength buff each time the user receives a defence buff, does come with the dragon affinity, applicable within teams which boast lots of defence buffs)

Eden Mode Engaged

Last up, as a part of the Gala Remix banner name, Gala Laxi has returned as the focus rate up for the first time since her release last year. Gala Laxi continues to be an excellent source of damage within the flame element, boasting impressive critical abilities that promote her to have a strong dragon form to boot. While its hard to compete with the prowess that is Gala Mym, Gala Laxi can still make a name for herself with excellent raw damage which is not reliant on shapeshifting abuse, positioning herself as the second place DPS unit currently in the simulator. However, while Gala Laxi remains strong the competition for flame meta positions has only gotten fiercer over time, with additions such as Panther, Gala Leonidas, Mikoto, Ezelith, Naveed and Faris being added to the mix, which not only provide great offensive prowess but, in some cases, excellent support utility. In the dominion environment she unfortunately loses access to her Critical Frenzy perks because of Curse of Nihility, which does slightly dampen her damage capabilities there. As such, I can only recommend Gala Laxi if you still lack good damage dealers in the flame element, and if you wish to complete your Gala collection.

Final Verdict

On Summoning Rates and Wyrmsigils

Being a Gala banner, 5 star adventurers and dragons are summonable at a boosted 6% rate.

  • Child Ranzal, Gala Laxi and Humanoid Mercury share a focus 1.5% rate, each boasting an individual 0.5% rate to pull them respectively
  • The rest of the 4.5% remaining rate is shared equally among the other permanent adventurers and dragons summonable from normal banners
  • Gala Ranzal is also summonable in this banner, but at an off focus rate it is not recommended to pull for him unless you truly wish to test your luck
  • For wyrmsigils, on top of the 3 focus adventurers you are also able to spark for Horus and Gala Poseidon respectively. If you desperately need these dragons to improve your support oriented flame adventurers, or water damage adventurers respectively, this is your chance to get them guaranteed, at the cost of alot of summoning currency

Final Verdict: No unless you really want these characters

If you desperately are missing out on an excellent damage option for both water and flame elements respectively, then this is your best chance to fill out both of these slots with the additions of Humanoid Mercury and Gala Laxi. However, if your flame and water teams damage wise are doing well then your desire to summon on the banner comes down to whether you desperately want to use these characters or not. While both Mercury and Laxi are excellent damage options, both are not at the absolute top of their respective metas for Agito or Dominion fights. And you also have to risk pulling Child Ranzal as a focus character, who seems abysmally weak as a 5 star adventurer. As such, for most people I would recommend holding off on summoning this time, and to instead save for the next end of month Gala banner.

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