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Should You Summon: Gala Reborn Agni Ft. Vania

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Should You Summon: Gala Reborn Agni Ft. Vania

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!

Another month has gone by, and another Should You Summon article has appeared to coincide with the release of the usual Gala banners. This time, Agni takes the stage as a reborn gala dragon, hoping to mark his mark as a dragon in an element dominated by the presence that is Gala Mars. Along with Agni, Vania makes her debut in Dragalia Lost, entering an archetype that already has some excellent options in the forms of Veronica and Gala Cleo. Do note that, like other Cygames characters that have appeared in multiple properties outside of Dragalia Lost, Vania is a permanent addition to the summoning pool, and as such can be summoned outside of this Gala. The only limited unit to appear is Gala Agni, who will only appear on subsequent end-of-month Gala banners, or Gala Remix banners where he is on rate-up or on a normal summoning rate.

The Firelord's Rebirth

Dude, Agni looks amazing in his new form. With the amount of firepower he is bringing, I wouldn't want to be standing in the shoes of our enemies.

Starting with the Gala unit, Reborn Agni brings some serious firepower to the flame-element dragon roster that may just usurp that of the meta-defining Gala Mars. Starting with his innate abilities, which are like other reborn gala dragons before him, he grants a 70% strength boost to flame attuned adventurers. He also provides a 30% flame damage modifier buff during quests for 45 seconds (non-stackable) each time the dragon gauge is filled by 10%, which is relatively easy to pull off and maintain uptime on. These two abilities already grant him a slightly stronger damage boost passive to the raw 90% strength that Gala Mars grants.

Analysing his dragon form then, Agni brings to the table a strong skill in the form of Blazing Strike, which deals 1 hit of 1078% and 1 hit of 1470%, which is one of the highest currently in the game. It also has the added benefit of applying scorchrend, allowing for units utilising the associated punisher to maintain good uptime with it when not using their standard adventurer skills.  For context, Midgardsormr Zero, who currently boasts the highest amount of damage inflicted by a dragon skill, sits at around 2619%, which is only roughly 60% more than Gala Reborn Agni. Like other reborn dragons, Gala Reborn Agni has the capabilities of unleashing his skill a second time when their shapeshift time ends, enabling him to boast some excellent firepower when using him in battle. A drawback of his dragon form though is that his skill damage receives a 25% skill damage reduction when the enemy is in break state. This has probably been implemented by the developers to ensure his burst damage during this state does not outright delete the HP of a boss with additional buffs and defence down setups going.

However, even with this potency Gala Mars still has a slight advantage over Agni due not only his ability to grant skill prep at the end of a shapeshift to all equipped skills, but to also grant the user a 20% strength buff for 20 seconds each time he uses his skill. This allows him to have strong standard attacks in dragon form without the reliance of other buffers and enables adventurers to immediately deliver high damage after reverting with their prepped skills with 40% strength boost attained. As such, for most content where buffs are enabled Gala Reborn Agni acts more as a side grade or equal counterpart to Gala Mars for most adventurers in flame. However, in an environment where curse of nihility is applied, Gala Mars misses out on the bonus 20% strength buffs he provides with his skills, reducing the potency of an adventurer’s skills when exiting out of shapeshift form. This allows Gala Reborn Agni to have a slight damage advantage of roughly 7% to 12% for different adventurers. If you care at all this damage upgrade, I recommend pulling Gala Reborn Agni only if you want to best optimise damage for curse of nihility for flame attuned adventurers, do not possess Gala Mars, or you wish to flesh out your solo team with stronger dragons for your AI or controlled adventures.

The Vampire Princess

Wait, why does this girl have fangs. Is she a vampire?! But she seems quite nice though. Well, as long as those fangs of hers don't come near me I'll totally get along with her just fine.

Besides the featured Gala dragon, the vampire Vania joins this banner as a shadow wand adventurer, entering a competitive field that is dominated damage wise by the explosive Veronica, and support wise by the buff zone generating Gala Cleo. However, like recent units she brings with herself the ability to generate strength amps for herself and the team, which may allow herself to carve a niche into the shadow roster.

Starting with her Skill 1 Crimson Order, it deals 3 hits of 525% and 1 hit of 644% damage at an above average SP cost of 3525. This skill also restores her HP with a decent recovery potency of 15% and grants her one ‘Blood Pact’. This ‘Blood Pact’ effect is tied to her first ability Vampiric Potential, which grants her additional effects when the number of Blood Pacts is maxed to 5. At this point her Skill 1 Crimson Order then gets upgraded to Bloody Absorption, which now deals 3 hits of 550% and 1 hit of 1040% damage instead, as well as having the ability to dispel one buff from an enemy and restoring the users HP with a recovery potency of 28%. However, even with the additional damage benefits presented in this upgraded form, this damage pales in comparison to the skill damage possessed by Veronica, who possesses improved mods at a slightly reduced SP cost overall.

However, she may yet be able to add some value to you team thanks to her Skill 2 Scarlet Gift. This ability grants herself a strength amp and increases the entire team’s max HP by 3% for the remainder of the quest. At a SP cost of 7100, you would not think she would be able to achieve her maximum team strength amp level of 2 her kit comes with. But she can thanks to the second effect of her Vampiric Potential, which also fills her Scarlet Gift skill gauge automatically by 7% ever second when she has attained 5 Blood Pacts. This means that, without any additional inputs by the player to generate skill gauge, her Skill 2 takes 15 seconds to automatically fill for next use.

Combine this with her second unique skill HP 70 = Skill Haste, which increases her skill gauge fill rate by 8% when meeting the 70% or above HP condition, as well as a skill haste focused build, and Vania could easily become one of the best amp buffers in the game. She has no troubles cycling through her individual strength amps to continuously extent and maintain her team strength amp level 2 ability, allowing her to provide consistent team support of a 40% strength buff that would certainly be handy in a Curse of Nihility environment. As such, I can recommend pulling for Vania if you want to prepare a shadow amp buffer for future endgame fights that have the Curse of Nihility debuff in action. Outside of Curse of Nihility environments, the use of the attack rate buff from the shadow agito weapons enables her to fill her skill gauge for her Skill 2 in an quicker timeframe, allowing her to push more for builds that are focused towards a pseudo DPS/Support role. Do note though that her overall damage is poor in the shadow element because of her average Skill 1 damage compared to the heavy hitters. As a result, I can only recommend pulling for Vania in non-Curse of Nihility environments if you are in need of an adventurer to fill a pseudo dps/support role for your shadow roster.

Recommended Builds: For co-abilities, you cannot go wrong with the standard skill haste boosts found on bow units, as well as the attack rate boost found on Joker. Both of these allow Vania to use her skills in a quicker timeframe, allowing her to attain the full effects of Vampiric Potential much sooner. This should allow her to have a bit more leniency for her to generate amps during times in a fight where she may be unable to attack a boss due to having to dodge incoming attacks. Outside of these two co-abilities, the typical strength boost found on blade units and critical rate boost found on dagger units will help serve her to further increase her offensive prowess on the battlefield.

For wyrmprints, it is recommended to run a setup that combines some skill haste with some damage boosting perks in a curse of nihility environment. This is due to the lack of access to the shadow agito weapon attack rate skill, which means she will generate her skills at a slower rate. You could also focus on going full in on skill haste to maximise team strength amp level 2 consistency, by maximising the skill haste bonus granted from wyrmprints, as well as rocking wyrmprints which grant the skill haste affinity bonus, and running the skill haste passive dragon Azazel. The two prints listed below are strong recommendations for any sort of skill haste build in most of the game.

If you are not investing into a full skill haste setup to maximise amp uptime or you are in a non-Curse of Nihility environment, then you may wish to invest into the following prints which will further improve her skill damage and strength output during a fight. Do note that the final 3 prints are geared towards punishing bosses that are afflicted by either poison or shadownlight respectively, so only run these prints if a unit on your team has the capabilities of maintaining good uptime on that affliction.

Final Verdict

On Summoning Rates and Wyrmsigils

On free summons

  • A daily free summon event will occur for the duration of this banner, where you can pull one unit for free per day. Due to this I recommend holding off on summoning until you have used up all your available free summons, in case luck favours you in pulling one of these focus units for free.

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

  • Vania and Gala Reborn Agni are the sole focus units of this banner, having a focus rate of 0.5% and 0.8% respectively
  • The rest of the 4.7% remaining rate is shared equally among the other permanent adventurers and dragons summonable from normal banners
  • Gala Reborn Agni and Vania are the only sparkable units for this banner, so only use your wyrmsigils if you are unlucky to get these two units in 300 or less summons.

Final Verdict: Maybe

This units on this banner are certainly more geared towards your individual team requirements for future endgame content. Gala Reborn Agni is going to be a yes for players without Gala Mars, but your need for him outside of this is more a case by case basis, where players who currently struggle for dps for their flame solo teams or wish to best optimise their damage for Curse of Nihility fights will have more of a demand to summon for him. If you are still uncertain after this article, I would recommend seeing how much trouble the new Jaldabaoth Sinister Dominion fight gives to you as a good indication as to whether or not you need to bolster your flame team. 

Regarding Vania while she is an excellent amp buffer and decent pseudo dps/support shadow unit the next Sinister Dominion fight won't be until Early July, where Shadow may then be required for use in this endgame content. As such, there is potential for more and possibly better shadow amp units to be released between now and that possible time, so unless you desperately need her, it may be better to skip her for now.

I would also like to point out that this month the previous two FEH collaborative event banners will be rerun, so you may wish to save your summoning currency for those limited time units. There is also the potential for another FEH collaborative event to be rerun at the end of the month, so it may be better to hold off summoning on this banner until the next This Month in Dragalia Lost article comes out for more information. We also have a second part banner to this event which will most likely have Grimnir and the Rose Queen as summonable adventurer and dragon respectively, so you may wish to hold off to view the preview of this banner before making any summoning decisions.

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