Dreamer (Protocol Assimilation)

Level 100 5★ -> Level 100 5★ Maximum Potential

Unlike G&K Dolls, Ringleaders provide their Buffs to any unit in the Echelon that is tagged appropriately, making positioning less important. Instead, they operate via a series of 'Tags'. 

Dreamer is a weird Ringleader. Broadly speaking she functions as a single target Damage Dealer, with a bit of AoE tied to her active Skill. Dreamer can also function as a HOC, where she doubled down on her massive sniper weapon, dealing massive single target Damage. She backs this up with a high base Damage, along with some targeting and range-based gimmicks.

         Unlike most of the preceding Ringleaders, Dreamer does not have a unique auto-attack gimmick, although she does use backline targeting by default. This leaves her Active Skill Nirvanic Demolition, which will be familiar to those who have fought her in story. Jumping in front of the nearest target Dreamer fires her laser for 3 seconds dealing 4-6 hits of Damage.

         The good: This attack ignores Evasion and Armor, and hits each Dummy Link, which turns the 0.25x-0.4x Damage ticks into something much more respectable. For a bit of extra spice, the laser attacks have the capability to Crit if you're lucky. For some context that is between 200-300 Damage per tick to every Dummy Link, or roughly 800-2000 Damage per Link. This is good enough to kill most frontline enemies in the game over the duration without difficulty. Further, the laser extends across the entire screen, hitting everything along that path from Dreamer.

         The bad: how this operates in practice is extremely weird. While visually Dreamer jumps forwards her actual hitbox remains at her starting position and is not granted invulnerability during this window. Alongside this, the 'Dreamer' firing the laser does not update enemy targetting and does not make enemies stop moving, in the limited number of cases where that is applicable. Thus, the animation is a purely visual flare, that leaves Dreamer anchored in place, and vulnerable to tile-based attacks (Doppelsoldner barrages, or Rodel lasers for example), as she cannot be moved during this time period. Likewise, if for some reason Dreamer is being targetted by an enemy when her Skill 1 is activated that enemy will keep shooting her original location and dealing Damage. While this window is not large, and the rest of Dreamer's Echelon can be moved around, one should bear in mind that Dreamer does have these quirks. For a visual illusation of how this works, please see the video linked here by BLT. 

         Dreamer’s Passive Skills are a mixed bag. Hawkeye Protection is another Stance based Skill increasing Dreamer's Personal Range and Dreamer’s Critical Hit Rate/Damage when in Defense mode and gives Dreamer Sure-hit to all attacks. The Range extension is applied from Dreamer's position, so she can ignore your Echelons maximum range is placed in the front Row, but gains almost nothing is placed in the back. This is a rather niche application but does allow Dreamer to snipe some enemies with longer Range than player Echelons such as KCCO Archers before the frontline enemies are dealt with. This is not a common situation, and is not a reason in and of itself to raise Dreamer, but is a tiny niche that can give a tiny edge when fighting specific enemies. 

         When not in Defense Mode, Dreamer gives her Ranged Allies Damage and Rate of Fire boosts, while giving Melee units Damage reduction. On paper, Dreamer would want to be in a Non-Defense state at all times, as the boosts to her allies, in particular, the Damage reduction to Melee units are far more impactful than improving her own Crit rate from 20% to 22%. However, the design of many other Protocol Assimilation units run contrary to this, as your generalist Frontline unit, the Manticore is a Ranged Unit and Manticores lose their Knockback when placed in Non-Defense stances. While Manticores are an edge case that would benefit from increased Damage, being in a non-Defense mode does hinder other, proper, Melee units, removing the ability to micro them easily, and at least until SWAP Aegis come to global, cutting into the Damage reduction Skill of actual Aegis. There are other subpar interactions with more niche units, but they are less likely to see use alongside Dreamer.

         Masters of the Sky is hard to quantify the value of, due in part to the unclear nature of a ‘unit’. Broadly speaking, Dreamer will deal slightly more damage to units farther away from her, with damage peaking at the very edge of firing range, and dropping off the closer enemies get. Due to her passive backline Targetting Dreamer will in theory always be shooting the enemy where she gets the most bonus, and that bonus is not insignificant, capping at 0.2x. However, Dreamer’s active is not likely to benefit from this Skill due to the minimum range, and her jumping to the unit in question.

         Next, Dreamer as a HOC. She cannot Damage structures, does not deal AoE Damage, and has 3 Range. This makes Dreamer unsuited to SF Dragging. Outside of SF dragging, she fires one shot every 3 seconds, which is slightly slower than ATWs, dealing 2.25x sure-hit Damage that ignores Armor, and debuffs the unit hit. Potentially halving a units Rate of Fire is another theoretically great Skill with weaker practical value, due to many enemies using Skills for attacks, and the single-target nature of this debuff. Dreamer will excel in supporting Echelons fighting a few powerful enemies, but against the increasingly common hordes of mobs, she is going to struggle.