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Should You Summon? Elena and Stella Harpa

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Today we’ve got our first Ice Soul Weaver in quite a while, Elena. She possesses a unique kit with the first teamwide automatic heal, the first teamwide debuff resistance buff, and a cleansing S1.

The normal banner mechanics apply:

  • No other 5* Heroes can be pulled on his banner

  • 121 pulls guarantees you an Elena, regardless of the rates

  • Your actual chance to pull her before you reach the pity summon timer of 121 pulls is ABOUT 61.9% (this is no guarantee, just the odds of getting there in 120 summons or fewer)

  • There IS a rate-up Artifact on this banner - 

That being said, let’s examine the pros and cons in summoning at this time.

Short Analysis

Elena is a non-limited Ice Soul Weaver with Invincible + Debuff Resistance on her S3, a teamwide damage reduction from AoE and heal when struck by AoE, and an S1 that cleanses 2 debuffs from allies each time it is used. In addition, her S1 can be Soulburned to remove all debuffs from all allies.

On paper, that looks good; however, Elena suffers from many problems.

As a jack-of-all-trades Soul Weaver, she is a master of none.

Her healing is fairly subpar and it also doesn’t proc unless the team is hit by an AoE attack. Her S1 and S3 both do damage, but her attack values are pathetic, even for a Soul Weaver, sitting at just 649 base ATK. Her Speed is also nothing to write home about - for a hero who ideally wants to go first and apply her S3 to the team, her low base Speed of 103 hampers this significantly.

Pros & Cons

PROS (reasons to pull)

  1. AoE Damage Reduction + Heal

  2. Invincibility and Debuff Res+ Is a strong combination

  3. If she can attack, she can cheaply remove debuffs each turn

  4. Debuff Resistance can be stronger than Immunity in select scenarios (mostly against enemies that remove your buffs)

  5. Her heal is entirely passive - you don’t have to spend precious turns healing

  6. Slot compression - she brings a passive damage totem, healing, and invincibility/resistance in the same package

  7. Soulburn is fairly decent, though pricey

  8. S2 procs both Magaraha's Tome and Rod of Amaryllis

That being said, there are also cons to pulling right now.

CONS (reasons NOT to pull)

  1. Can’t cleanse and heal simultaneously (without artifact)

  2. Needs the first turn but can’t get it on her own

  3. Lengthy cooldown on S3

  4. Actual sustain is fairly poor - a 20% AoE heal every two turns isn’t exactly good, AND the team must be struck by an AoE. In addition, her passive can’t be improved by Prophetic Candlestick

  5. Her ATK value is pathetic and having Soul Weavers attack isn’t a good thing in the current Arena climate

Additional Considerations

In addition, there are the following things to consider at this specific time -

  • Arena is very unfriendly to her, as Basar and Seaside Bellona are still very popular

  • You might be protesting Smilegate’s treatment of the community as a whole

  • Diene Incoming? (I’ve said this one for quite a while, it seems…)

  • You might be waiting for a new random banner (lol)

  • You have Troublemaker Crozet (she’s his new best friend)

And Now for Someone Completely Different

You can think of Elena as Crimson Armin with the addition of healing (with her S3 being very similar and her S2 having teamwide damage reduction) and

  • Crimson Armin offers Invincibility and Debuff Immunity

  • She offers a way to take the heat off of her teammates with her 75% Provoke on S1

  • She’s personally beefier, sporting much higher HP and a fair bit of DEF

  • She has access to the fantastic Knight artifacts, including Aurius

Of course, those are just the pros. There are also cons when compared to Elena:

  • Crimson Armin has no sustain and must therefore be paired with a healer

  • Lower base Speed (6 lower)

  • Must use Aurius for maximum utility - Elena has many choices including extra healing via Celestine, more healing via Shimadra Staff, more debuff removal via Wondrous Potion Vial, and so on

  • Elena arguably makes the team tankier as long as the enemy does not use Unhealable, as the effective HP is better with her innate heal

  • Crimson Armin has less synergy with other Knights, who can bring Aurius and who also work well with Elena

  • Debuff Resistance makes it significantly harder for enemies to Dispel your buffs, which is something that Debuff Immunity can’t do. It’s also one of the only ways to raise your EFFR past a certain point

Crimson Armin might offer more as a standalone, but I honestly believe that Elena has more utility on a heavily defense-focused team.

Stella Harpa Rate Up

Stella Harpa

The current rate-up Artifact, Stella Harpa, is basically a modified Soul Weaver-exclusive port of the existing artifacts, Crimson Seed and Timeless Anchor, with a proc rate somewhere in between them at 60% and the ability to remove debuffs from allies or herself.

It faces heavy competition from Wondrous Potion Vial, a 4* artifact which is both easier to get a hold of AND Limit Break, making its usefulness… questionable. It also has a much higher floor - the 60% on Stella Harpa isn’t a proc chance that you want to rely on.

Soul Weavers also have many other good artifacts, and using this over other artifacts such as Rod of Amaryllis, Shimadra Staff, Wondrous Potion Vial, etc. is rather unlikely. Even for Elena, the focus Hero, Celestine is far better.

Build Advice

Build Advice

If you DO pull Elena, here’s a short recommended build for her while we wait for the dust to settle on where she belongs.

Sets - Speed, Immunity (or HP)

Subs - Speed, HP, EFFR%

Artifacts - Celestine, Magaraha's Tome, Rod of Amaryllis


Elena needs Speed and HP to allow her heal to come up more often and heal for more. Her damage is not worth investing in, and she doesn’t need Wondrous Potion Vial, as her S1 is already a very strong cleanse (and she’ll be using it on ⅘ turns). This gives her good mileage out of Celestine, which is my recommended artifact for her.

Her S2 also possesses unique interactions with Magaraha's Tome, which can provide turn steal, and Rod of Amaryllis, which can provide extra badly-needed healing. Of course, since S2 doesn't proc when hit by ST attacks, don't bring those artifacts unless you're expecting to get hit by AoE attacks.

TL;DR

Elena is a good compromise between sustain and tankiness, while also serving her primary purpose as a damage-reducing totem.

She is particularly strong against cleaves that don’t possess Unhealable/Unbuffable, and you’ll like her a lot if you use her with strong bruisers. If making incredibly beefy teams isn’t your cup of tea, however, this banner is a solid skip.

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About the Author(s)

Video game and gacha enthusiast who majored in U̶n̶d̶e̶r̶w̶a̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶B̶a̶s̶k̶e̶t̶ ̶W̶e̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶, er, English.

Find me on Reddit at /u/Burtgang or check out my small community Discord at https://discord.gg/bBZEfhB

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