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Dreamer (Protocol Assimilation)


Stats

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

HP 1091→1091 Evasion 186→202
Damage 862→902 Rate of Fire 113→125
Accuracy 136→151 Armor 0
Critical Rate 20% Critical Damage 150%
Armor Pen 15 Move Speed 15

Tile and Formation Buff

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'. 

Unit Type All
Effects Base Max Analysis
Accuracy 9% 15%
Evasion 9% 15%
Unit Type Ranged
Effects Base Max Analysis
Damage 6% 10%
Crit Rate 6% 10%

Skills

Nirvanic Demolition
ICD: 6 Seconds
Level 10 Effect Passive: Dreamer prioritizes the most distant target from herself.

Active: Attack the closest target with a piercing beam. The beam is active for 3 seconds and inflicts 6 instances of 0.4x guaranteed damage that ignores armor and scales with Dummy-links.

Peak Value Analysis 4: Increase guaranteed damage from 0.4x to 0.5x. (Cooldown: 12 seconds)
Execution Time
HOC
Level 10 Effect Support echelons within a 3-node radius. During battle, perform a long-ranged sniping shot every 3 seconds that targets the enemy unit with the highest HP and inflicts 2.25x guaranteed damage that ignores armor, while also reducing the target's rate of fire by 50% for 3 seconds. This sniping shot cannot damage structures. (Cooldown: 3 seconds)
Hawkeye Protection
Passive
Level 5 Effect When in Defense Mode, increase effective attack range to 16 while also raising critical chance by 10% and critical damage by 10. Every attack deals guaranteed damage.
When not in Defense Mode, all friendly ranged units gain 10% damage and 10% rate of fire, while friendly melee units gain 20% damage reduction.
Master of the Sky
Passive
Level 5 Effect Dreamer deals more damage the further away her target is from her. She starts gaining damage bonuses at the range of 5, to a maximum of 0.20x multiplier at the range of 12.
Skill Animation

Analysis

Beware of an essay about a tiny sky gremlin, because her Skills are pretty weird.

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.

Skill Priority

Nirvanic Demolition
ICD: 6 Seconds

High-Medium Priority

Boosting Dreamer’s Active will improve her Damage potential considerably, making this a very worthwhile investment.

Do it Palpatine
Execution Time
ICD: 0 seconds

Low Priority

Unless you have a specific use case, Dreamer’s abilities as a HOC are a secondary concern, and this Skill can wait.
Hawkeye Protection
Passive

Medium-Low Priority

Poor Scaling and clunky unit compatibility mean that this Skill can be safely leveled last.
Master of the Sky
Passive

Medium-Low Priority

While the Damage boost from this Skill is great, the somewhat fight dependent nature and relatively limited Scaling mean that this Skill can usually be taken to Skill Level 3 if you have the spare data and want to wait, or simply wait until other units, such as Alchemist, are finished.

Peak Value Analysis

Potential Level Effect
1 Tile Buff Improved (All units values increased from 9-15% and ranged units values increased from 6-10%)
2 Damage +40, Evasion +16
3 Rate of Fire +12, Accuracy +15
4 Skill 1 Improved, see Skill description.

Rank Up Costs

Level Petri Dish Rarity
70 300 ★★★★
90 450 ★★★★★
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About the Author(s)

aka Soulmuse basically everywhere. Discord: soulmuse#8741.

Guide writer for Girls Frontline. KSG and G3 Propagandist. Writes the occasional fanfic.  

Feel free to send guide suggestions and feedback via DM on Discord or Reddit. You can also find me in the GFL section of the community discord. Also on twitter

Just your average EN mengxin looking to help the GFL community and spread the love for kawaii, hard worker LWMMG.

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