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Should You Summon: June 2021 Gala Remix Banner Ft. Nino and Faeblessed Tobias

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Should You Summon: June 2021 Gala Remix Banner Ft. Nino and Faeblessed Tobias

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

Welcome to another edition of Should You Summon, an article that provides a secondary opinion as to whether the newly released or rerun units are worth your troubles to attempt to summon. As per usual, the middle of the month signifies the release of a Gala Remix banner, where one to two previously released Gala units are attainable at their initial focus rates yet again. Alongside these banners, two additional units are featured with accordance of the current mid-month onslaught event. This time around, this banner possesses four focus units; the newly released Nino and Faeblessed Tobias from the Blessed Bloodlines event, as well as the previously released Gala Chelle and Gala Reborn Poseidon.

The One with the Blessed Bloodline

Seeking to explore the world that has been kept hidden from her due to her sacred bloodline, Nino enters the game in quite possibly the most competitive weapon and element combination currently in Dragalia Lost. With the excellent damage output of Gala Ranzal, to the pseudo damage and support utility that Gala Leif dishes out, and the amazing damage that Mona’s AI outputs in a solo environment, Nino has a lot of obstacles to overcome.

Starting with her first ability Blessed Bloodline, this grants her a unique dragondrive gauge which provides several benefits while active:

  • Increase her strength by 15%
  • Increase her attack rate by 10%
  • Improves her standard attacks, dash attack and force strikes
  • These attacks can also fill the dragondrive gauge each time they connect with an enemy

As such, like most dragondrive units her maximum damage potential will be fulfilled by maintaining good uptime in her enhanced form. Her skills are also enhanced during this dragondrive form, allowing her to dish out even more damage to her enemies. Her first skill Faerie Stance deals 1 hit of 1389% at a reasonably low SP cost of 2714, and fills the dragondrive gauge by 750 UTP, which is approximately 20% of her gauge. While in dragondrive form though, this skill instead consumes 650 UTP to deal 1 hit of 938% and 6 hits of 79%, and instantly readies the skill for use afterwards. This is very much like the unit Bellina, whose skill 1 consumes dragondrive gauge to instantly ready it for use, allowing it to be used frequently as a main source of damage output.

Her Skill 2 Crescent Faeria meanwhile deals 6 hits of 234% and reduces the enemy’s strength by 10% for 30 seconds, though at a somewhat costly SP cost of 8415. While in dragondrive form, the skill instead deals 6 hits of 320% damage and provides the additional benefit of a 5% defence reduction for 10 seconds.  To round out the rest of her kit, her second ability is the Flurry Devastation perk, which increases her critical rate by 13% when the combo count is 15 or higher. She also comes with one the most desirable chain co-abilities in the game which is Combo = Critical Rate. This passively increases the critical rate of the user by 1% per 10-hit combo, up to a maximum of 20% additional crit rate. This chain co-ability is also unaffected by the Curse of Nihility debuff, making it an invaluable tool to increasing damage for other wind units.

Overall, Nino’s kit is entirely focused with dishing out the pain to her enemies, with excellent burst options to boot during break. Her main weakness going forward will be her lack of utility though within a team environment outside of this damage. While in some of the lower endgame content difficulties this is not much of a consideration, in higher difficulties, particularly Legend Ciella, having no access to dispel capabilities or affliction accessibility does somewhat reduce her value in teams. She also currently misses out on some of the added benefits that Bellina has in the shadow element that enables her to do as well as she does in dishing out damage. For one, she currently has no good dragon haste chain co-ability options to improve the rate she can attain gauge for her dragondrive. When you compare this to Bellina, she has access to Audric’s dragon haste co-ability and chain co-ability, and Ieyasu, who provides the strength co-ability on top of the dragon haste chain co-ability. Secondly is the fact that Nino mostly gains significant dragondrive gauge from the last two hits of her standard five hit combo, compared to Bellina, who can generate a good amount of dragondrive gauge regardless of which hit of her standard attack combo she is at. This means that Nino is not able to readily use her skill 1 as much as Bellina, which does drop her damage somewhat in the long run.

As such, while Nino’s damage is relatively good to the rest of the wind meta, these missing components means its hard to select her for endgame teams when other her competition provides great damage and utility options to counter mechanics in fights. While she will never be at the same level of power as Bellina due to the additional benefits she receives at low health, she is unit that currently has unfulfilled potential due to the available build options around her. Because of this, I do not recommend summoning for her at this point of time even if she is a fun unit to use.

Recommended Builds: For co-abilities you cannot go wrong with the standard strength, wind and skill damage boosts that are found on blade characters, Mona, and wand characters respectfully. In the absence of Mona, the next best replacement is either Lin You, who provides the Above 10 Hits = Strength chain co-ability, or a standard critical rate co-ability found on dagger adventurers while playing in content with the Curse of Nihility debuff active.

For builds, the standardised wind wyrmprint setup shown below will work well for Nino, assuming that other adventurers within the team are applying good stormlash and poison uptime. In the absence of either of these afflictions, prints which boost her critical damage output or increase the amount of dragon gauge she receives via dragon haste effects will work well on her.

The second build is a typical doublebuff setup that is popularised within the wind meta thanks to the combination of Templar Hope and Dragonyule Xainfried. Again, in the absence of affliction uptime, prints which provide the flurry strength effect, boost critical damage output, or provide a broken punisher bonus can be supplemented to provide her with the best means of dishing out damage to her foes.

The Winged Protector

Joining Nino from the Blessed Bloodlines event, Tobias receives his first alt of the game thanks to the events which take place within this story. Unlike Nino, his kit is for the most part easy to manage and figure out, with only one mechanic that adds interesting opportunities to his gameplay.

Starting off with his abilities, Tobias possesses no unique abilities which are too complex to get your head around. His first ability Flurry Devastation, like Nino, increases his critical rate by 13% when the combo count is 15 or higher. His second ability Overdrive Punisher increases his damage to enemies in the overdrive state by 13%. While we do not see this ability too often within the game, it does provide some nice additional damage in fights which an enemy may stay within this state for a while. Tobias also has the Above 10 Hits = Critical Rate chain co-ability which, like the name implies, provides a 13% critical rate buff when the user’s combo count is 10 or higher.

Moving on to the bread and butter of his damage output, his Skill 1 Fae Judgement deals 2 hits of 1000% damage at a reasonably low SP cost of 2738, and inflicts freeze, which has a 160% chance. This allows it to have a 61% chance of inflicting freeze during the Ayaha and Otoha boss fight when the Toryanse (orange circle) buff is up, so this is not a particularly great substitute to the commonly used Lily shared skill, which provides a 100% chance thanks to the skills 200% rate of affliction. This skill however fills his second skill by 20% each time it is used, which is where the bulk of his damage will come from. This skill, Fae Lance, is at a whopping SP cost of 20000, and activate the Fae Lance buff for 10 seconds. During that timeframe, his standard attack pattern is changed and is significantly boosted to the usual lance attack pattern. The trade-off though is that he is unable to move, utilise force strikes, or dodge, meaning he is reliant on skills to iframe attacks denoted by red markers. During this mode, his skill 2 will be changed to Spiritual Purge, which when used deals 2 hits of 1750% damage, and inflicts frostbite.

However, if this skill is unused while he has this buff active, it will simply revert to Fae Lance, allowing him to rebuff himself and utilise this special mode again. And for most occasions, this is preferrable, as the boosts he receives to his standard attack are significantly better than him utilising this skill, and then refilling it via his normal attacks and his skill 1 like he did initially. Considering the significant modifiers of the skill damage though, it would be advised to utilise it as a finisher of a fight or during a break state to make the most of this excellent burst option.

Overall, Faeblessed Tobias possesses very solid damage output for water, particularly as someone who does not provide or utilise many personal buffs. However, like Nino, Tobias provides little to no utility to his fellow teammates, besides raw damage. His inability to move during his skill 2 use can also be a detriment during fights in which he may need to move around because of the boss’s movesets. A good example is that of Lilith, where players are forced to move regularly to avoid deadly attacks that she possesses. As such, players who wish to utilise Faeblessed Tobias optimally will need to learn the basics of the fight well to position him to maximise his full potential. But by only possessing solid damage, he struggles to compete well against other adventurers who also provide additional utility in Agito fights, such as the ability to dispel or high hit counts that units like Lapis or Gala Mascula present. His lack of buff reliance though may make him an excellent option in the future flame element Rise of the Sinister Dominion boss fight in the months to come. At this point of time though, you can safely skip summoning for him though as he does not make a significant impact to the water meta due to the specific mechanics that are needed to be overcome in current water endgame fights.

Recommended Builds: For co-abilities, as a lot of his damage can boil down to his enhanced standard attack from his Skill 2, those which provide benefits to this are prioritised. As such, the strength, critical rate, and standard attack boosts found from blade adventurers, dagger adventurers, and the adventurer Tiki would be advised to get the most out of his attacks. Gala Mascula and Renee specifically would be solid options as they provide buff time chain co-abilities which extend the timer of his Fae Lance buff, meaning that you do not need to spend as much time constantly renewing this effect. In the absence of Tiki, a skill damage co-abilitiy can provide some more offensive utility to the damage of his first skill and enhanced skill 2. In non-Curse of Nihility content, the Above 10 Hits = Strength chain co-ability found on adventurers such as Xander can also provide additional offense to his enhanced standard attacks.

For wyrmprints, it is advised to at least run one which boosts critical damage, such as Moonlight Party, as Faeblessed Tobias can attain a good critical rate thanks to the combination of the Agito skill for water adventurers, his innate flurry devastation ability, his chain co-ability, and additional critical rate boost prints selected. Besides this requirement, Tobias should run the typical water damage setup, which includes flurry strength, skill damage, frostbite punisher, and flurry devastation effects.

This next build is the typical doublebuff build which can be used if running in a team which can provide a significant amount of defence buffs. Due to his good base critical rate Faeblessed Tobias can make the most out of the Felyne Hospitality wyrmprint, which boosts the critical damage modifier by 15% for 15 seconds per defence buff received. For both builds, in the absence of frostbite units on a team you may wish to run a broken punisher print to fully capitalise on his burst potential from his enhanced Skill 2 variant.

The Princess with the Rapid-Fire Manacaster

The first of two returning Gala units, Gala Chelle has become the focus once again as only one of three current rapid-fire manacaster units in the game. Since her release, Gala Chelle has become a solid staple in the Legend Kai Yan fight thanks to not only excellent damage, but her overdrive shred during Berserk phase because of an innately strong force strike. Her damage mitigation utility also provides added survivability from Kai Yan’s more potent attacks. This is further impressive when you consider her best dragon option currently is that of the 80% strength shadow dragons in the game, including Andromeda and Fatalis. With the release of Gala Reborn Nidhogg imminent if the developers continue with there pattern of reborn dragons per element, Gala Chelle will be further positioned as one of the top damage dealers overall.

However, while Gala Chelle as a unit is solid enough, questions do remain as to whether she will have relevance within the Rise of the Sinister Dominion content, especially as the Shadow element has strong damage and support options in the form of Gala Alex, Lathna, Veronica, Summer Patia and Natalie to name a few. The desire to summon for her is further reduced when you consider that players have permanent options to shred the overdrive bar during Berserk in solo Legend Kai Yan, such as the 5-star adventurer Linnea, and the 3-star adventurer Vida. Players also have cheaper investment options if they wish to pursue a cooperate clear in the form of the popular defence buffer Patia. Because Gala Chelle is somewhat substitutional and not a must pick to currently complete shadow endgame content, I do not recommend summoning for Gala Chelle unless you need a solid overdrive shredder for Berserk phase of the Legend Kai Yan fight.

The Ruler of the Seas

The second Gala unit to return is that of a dragon, Gala Reborn Poseidon to be specific. It is a bit of an understatement as to how dominant this dragon has become within the water meta. His passive ability to adventurers is leagues and bounds ahead of any other dragon within the element, boasting a static 70% strength boost and an additional 30% to the damage modifier each time an adventurer attains 10% dragon gauge. The ruler of the seas also possesses one of the strongest dragon forms in the game, having excellent standard attack and skill damage that has no competition standing next to it. If you require a significant boost to your water teams damage output, I highly recommend summoning for him.

Conclusions

On summoning Rate and Wyrmsigils

  • As a Gala banner, the accumulated rate to summon a 5 star is 6%.
  • Each focus adventurer boasts a 0.5% rate to summon individually, while the dragon has an 0.8% chance to attain
  • Not only are you able to spark the focus units of the banner, but the dragons Gabriel and Midgardsormr Zero are also sparkable on top of it.

Final Verdict: Skip unless…..

You do not possess Gala Reborn Poseidon; in which case this should be a priority summon for you unless you have low summoning stocks. For the rest of the player base, while the two new adventurers add some additional firepower to their respective elements, their lack of utility against competitive options makes it a hard sell to summon for. In the case of Gala Chelle, while her solid damage and support utility are great, the other options available within the shadow element does not make her an invaluable asset to desperately summon for as of right now. If future content though, such as further Rise of the Sinister Dominion bosses, does appreciate her damage mitigation options and output, then she may have value for players to certainly summon for down the road.

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