Rabbit’s Reviews #351: Tlaloc (4* Pretender)

Introduction

We’ve been getting Pretenders at a pretty good clip. Not that long after our first welfare Pretender, we have our second non-limited SR. She’s a pretty decent Quick looper, especially for a non-limited SR—she has a battery, good steroids, decent loop specs, the works—but she’s actually more interesting as something of a weird semi-support. At base, she provides a few small damage buffs, but if you happen to be fighting an enemy with removable guts, the damage she provides skyrockets. This is especially notable for Arts Servants who benefit from waterside fields, since Tlaloc provides that too.

…That is to say, Tlaloc is an incredible support for Nemo specifically, in fights where she can remove guts buffs. What a broad and widely-applicable use-case!

Otherwise she’s a mostly ordinary Quick looper. She has some kinda nifty stuff going on, but not enough to make her a particularly valuable pull unless you just want her for variety.

Servant Data

Pretender

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

6

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 12,344

HP Rank

Max ATK 8,721

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,453	Base HP	1,975
Max Atk	8,721	Max HP	12,344
Grail Atk	10,559	Grail HP	14,967

Territory Creation EX

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 12%.

Divinity A+

Apply Damage Plus for yourself (Total Card Damage +210).

Waterside Work A+

Increase own Critical Strength by 20% when battlefield is [near water].

Alliance of City-States A

Increase Arts Card effectiveness by 8% for all allies except self while on the field.

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	6
Per Hit	0.58%	0.58%	0.58%	0.58%	0.58%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.58%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	97
	Star Generation per Hit	19.8%

Overview

Tlaloc has much lower attack than the other two SR Pretenders, and pretty low attack in a vacuum as well. This isn’t great for a damage-dealer and lends credence to the idea that she was envisioned as a semi-support rather than a full DPS. It’s not ideal regardless—more attack would be better even if she were more obviously support-oriented. Her internals are fine—as an AoE Quick unit with solid Quicks, she generates a lot of stars, and her Arts and Quick NP gain are both pretty average for her deck.

Meanwhile, Tlaloc has a really odd set of passives. She starts with Territory Creation EX, which would be fantastic on an Arts Servant but is just okay on Tlaloc. It helps prop up her card-based NP gain a bit and marginally increases damage on what is in practice her least-damaging card. She also has Divinity, which is mostly for flavor and weaknesses as usual. The other two passives are unique ones. Waterside Work increases Tlaloc’s crit damage on waterside fields (which she sets). Crit damage buffs on Quick Servants are somewhat iffy, especially when small, as both Skadis provide so many crit buffs they tend to get washed out… but more damage is more damage, so eh. Tlaloc’s final passive is Alliance of City-States, which buffs the party’s Arts performance a little. In CQs, this is functionally a small boost to NP gain for supports. It also means Tlaloc is marginally better as a semi-support for Arts Servants than for other types, which reinforces the fact that she’s… basically meant to help Nemo out in specific situations. This is probably not a coincidence, given their interactions in LB7, but that’s neither here nor there.

For appends, Mana Loading is the most important, as always. The other two are pretty forgettable. If you don’t have a Moon Cancer or Berserker you like, Anti-Avenger damage could be kinda nice, but even with a bit of extra attack damage Tlaloc is unlikely to be your best neutral option against Avengers. The Extra card buff is decent, though, since it helps Tlaloc’s effective NP gain in CQs.

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x8 Proof of Hero x8 Void's Dust
3	150,000	x8 Octuplet Crystals x8 Phoenix Feather
4	500,000	x8 Eternal Gear x8 Tearstone of Blood
Max	1,500,000	x8 Aurora Steel x8 Reactor Core of Dawn

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x8 Proof of Hero
2 → 3	200,000	x8 Octuplet Crystals
3 → 4	600,000	x10 Homunculus Baby
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Tearstone of Blood
5 → 6	2,000,000	x10 Cursed Beast Gallstone
6 → 7	2,500,000	x12 Aurora Steel
7 → 8	5,000,000	x12 Divine Leyline Spiritron
8 → 9	6,000,000	x12 Sun Leather
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x8 Void's Dust
2 → 3	200000	x8 Phoenix Feather
3 → 4	600000	x10 Eternal Gear
4 → 5	800000	x10 Mystic Spinal Fluid
5 → 6	2000000	x10 Mystic Gunpowder
6 → 7	2500000	x12 Reactor Core of Dawn
7 → 8	5000000	x12 Ashes of Forgetfulness
8 → 9	6000000	x12 Obsidian Knife
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Tlaloc has the usual AoE DPS tools, plus a bit of extra support and utility, which means her skillset is solid overall. Recommended skill order is 1>3>2.

Start Np

Nahui Quiahuitl A

Increase own NP Gauge.
Apply to self: Increase own NP Gauge each turn (3 turns).
Apply Field Change: [near water] to self (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
NP Gauge per turn +	5%	5.5%	6%	6.5%	7%	7.5%	8%	8.5%	9%	10%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Nahui Quiahuitl is a battery that also gives charge-per-turn. The passive charge is important here as Tlaloc’s base loop specs are on the low side and she needs the extra charge to make up for it. Aside from that, it also sets waterside field, which provides some marginal-but-important buffs within Tlaloc’s own kit and is the reason why she’s an option for supporting Nemo. Mostly, though, this skill is just Tlaloc’s looping tax—she needs charge to loop reliably, so she gets charge. Better than not having it, but not inherently interesting.

Dmg Up

Xochiyaoyotl A

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all allies (3 turns).
Apply Sure Hit to all allies (3 turns).
Remove 1 Guts Buff from all enemies.
- If above Guts removal succeeds, decrease DEF for all affected enemies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Crit Dmg +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
DEF -	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Xochiyaoyotl is, at its core, a Charisma variant. It increases the party’s attack, provides a mostly-negligible crit damage buff, and lets the party ignore evasion. None of this is bad, though 20% crit up is passive-skill-tier and is not going to be super noticeable, especially with other crit buffs in play. The most interesting part of this skill is the last bit: the skill can remove a single guts buff from enemies, and it applies a huge defense debuff when this succeeds. This is neat in theory and means Tlaloc provides a lot of damage buffs, especially to Arts Servants and especially to Arts Servants named Nemo, provided she can remove a guts. There are two issues with this, though. The first is that guts buffs you can count on existing tend to be unremovable, which means this skill can’t negate them or apply its associated debuff. The second problem is that removable debuffs almost always come from an enemy using a skill, which means you can’t just use this skill whenever it’s available—in order to get the maximum value out of this, you have to wait in the hopes that the enemy uses the relevant guts skill, and only then can you start hitting things. This isn’t necessarily a problem, especially if you’re willing to reset a fight a few times until you get an early guts use, but it’s a bit weird to have what is effectively a niche damage bonus relying on the relevant enemies deciding that yes, they do actually have that niche. All this is to say this is mostly a flavored Charisma, and while it has a cool niche damage gimmick, your mileage may vary if you try to actually make use of it.

Quick/Arts Up

Meztliapan EX

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Apply Damage cut to all allies (3 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Quick +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Crit Dmg +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Damage Cut -	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Meztliapan is the typical card-type buff. It strengthens Tlaloc’s most important card type, as well as her Arts cards for slightly more effective NP gain, and it grants another small crit damage buff. In total, Tlaloc has 70% innate crit buffs, which is a solid total, though, again, crit buffs on Quick Servants aren’t the most valuable when Skadi brings a whole bunch already. This skill also provides a hefty damage cut effect to the whole team. 2000 HP is enough to mostly negate normal card damage from many enemies, especially with defensive class advantage in play. Defensive class advantage is something Tlaloc almost never benefits from, and most supports are cavalry, which means Tlaloc’s favored enemies (knights) won’t have disadvantage against Tlaloc’s supports either. This is likely to be most useful in cases where Tlaloc is helping a main-class Servant (like Nemo) kill another main-class Servant (like a Caster). Still, even at neutral, this is a nice defensive tool.

Noble Phantasm

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
D	Anti-Army	6

Effect	Increase own NP Gain by 20% when [near water] (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies. Increase NP Strength for all allies except self by 20% (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
NP Gain +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
NP Damage (Allies) +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Usage Tips

Tlaloc has low-end loop specs, but she’s not unworkable as a loop farmer, provided she has the damage. With two summer Skadis, Tlaloc refunds about 10% per enemy before overkill, plus an additional 10% from her first skill. This is enough to farm pretty easily with a 50% charge CE against most enemy combinations. It’s not really worth delving into the different ways this can work, since there are a lot of combinations and mostly they amount to “bring two Skadis and some other 50%+ charger and space the batteries as needed.” For CE-less looping, Tlaloc can sorta farm 3/2/x or 2/3/x nodes, with the caveat that she needs Mana Loading and Oberon, and she needs a lot of overkill on the wave of 3. 3/3/x nodes aren’t actually meaningfully easier to loop CE-less, as Oberon’s battery distribution means you still need to refund 50% on one of the waves, which means you still need a lot of overkill somewhere.

Odds are pretty good you have a better farmer, though, and as HP thresholds have increased, SR farmers have become more and more of an iffy proposition, outside of a handful of welfares (especially Iyo) who are free anyway. With that in mind, Tlaloc is more interesting as a CQ unit. DPS Tlaloc works basically the same way as for farming, with the caveat that you ideally want three Skadis. Running two base Skadis and one Summer Skadi is arguably better than the reverse, just by virtue of the fact that Tlaloc has more Quick cards than Buster cards and benefits from having additional crit damage buffs on them.

I’ve alluded to this already, but Tlaloc has a decent amount of party damage push, especially for Arts units: 20% attack, 8% Arts, and 20% NP damage (provided Tlaloc can NP) isn’t bad at all, and her bond CE adds another 8% Arts and Quick, along with 20% NP damage on waterside fields. Tlaloc’s lack of party NP charge makes her an awkward support, but if you’re light on better options or need someone who can also punch things while propping up an ally, she’s not a bad pick. This also means she works decently in double DPS setups.

And then there’s Nemo. Nemo benefits a lot from anyone who can offer him waterside field, and Tlaloc gives more damage buffs than Zhang Jiao, and without his fail chance. As much as I emphasized that Tlaloc’s support value is mostly only relevant against enemies with removable gutses, she’s actually arguably better than Zhang Jiao even without, especially with her bond CE in play. There are a few caveats here—it’s a bit harder to get Tlaloc to NP, her cost is higher, and you lose out on Zhang Jiao’s nifty one-turn crit amp—but if you like Nemo enough to bring him for things, Tlaloc is genuinely one of your best options to support him. She also provides so much extra damage versus removable gutses that it can actually be worth delaying a turn at the start of a fight to give her a chance of hitting that niche—this lets Nemo’s damage skyrocket and suddenly turns him into an actually impressive DPS, even if he has to wait a turn to get going. This doesn’t turn Nemo into a particularly great unit in the abstract or anything, but it does make Tlaloc an appealing tech pick if you already have Nemo and want ways to make him work better.

DPS Tlaloc either wants Black Grail for damage, or a 50% charge CE for loopage. Traces of Christmas is my go-to recommendation for starting charge CEs for Quick units, as its Quick buff and NP gain buff go nicely with just about everyone. For a support Tlaloc, you similarly have two notable options: a charge CE (any one will do provided you have Mana Loading) or her bond CE. A charge CE with a bit of extra support value, like His Rightful Place, is a good pick here, though it doesn’t really matter. Tlaloc’s bond CE is quite good, though, giving non-trivial extra steroids if you can rig the NP without the starting charge. Castoria makes this relatively easy, since Mana Loading plus Tlaloc’s battery and two Castoria Charismas lets you NP regardless. It’s also worth noting that Tlaloc’s bond CE is arguably better than starting charge even if you can’t get the NP off, as it provides just as much NP damage as an NP would, along with a small Arts and Quick buff on top of it, making it a flat improvement on “just” an NP if you discount the damage the NP itself does. This is especially important in cases where you can’t afford to sacrifice one of your three cards on a turn to a Tlaloc NP, which can matter if you’re fighting something with very high HP thresholds and need to clear as quickly as possible to avoid dying.

Crit damage CCs are decent on Tlaloc since she has relatively easy crit access through flooding the field with stars, though she has enough crit buffs between her own and Skadi’s that a few extra won’t do that much. You might consider CCs that boost party damage, as they’ll help her own NP damage in DPS contexts and also make her a bit better as a support.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Tlaloc isn’t an earth-shattering unit, or even an especially good one. She has bare-minimum loop specs and pretty standard steroids for an AoE Extra-class unit. She gets half-class advantage against three classes but completely fails against three others, and while she does have a “niche” of sorts, that niche relies on luck and timing even when it’s usable. She doesn’t have all that much to recommend herself when compared against other, better units… but she’s not bad either. She does the basic things well enough that you can make her work if you want to, which is honestly fine.

She does have some nifty-if-niche value as a an alternative damage support, bringing okay steroids and a solid defensive tool in most cases, and very good steroids if she can remove a guts. This isn’t the kind of thing that’s ever going to be optimal (except for Nemo, occasionally), but it’s interesting enough to make her a fun tool to bring for variety if that kind of thing interests you.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 7/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 7/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 7/10
Defensive Utility: 5/10
Farming Usefulness: 7/10
Beret: 10/10