Should You Pull?
If you’re devoted to this beautiful Buddhist biker, she is worth considering. It’s the end of July and it’s time to be introduced to a new universe, one of Transliteration, and the first one to come from there is T5 Byakuren Hijiri! Being a natural with motorcycle racing may not be the biggest surprise as we have seen from our world’s Byakuren, and Vimana is the name of her vehicle of choice for stepping on the gas in the dunes, but a new loyal doggo known as Shiun serves as her companion and best friend at all times. He’s a very good boy!
Anyways, this Prayer is part of Shared Exchange Points Season One, just like B5 Lyrica and L80 Marisa Kirisame! For more about it, you can go here to read more about it, but it will be lasting until August 10th 2023, meaning 2 more weeks of those Exchange Points carrying over. This Prayer also features an already existing Story Card too, but more on that later. So how does T5 Byakuren fare in battle as opposed to the race tracks?
Well she is a Speed-Class Friend, which means you can definitely expect massive amounts of Agility buffs and high Slice Scaling, with her Last Word having bullet lines with Slice Scaling of either 155% or 175%. This helpfully contributes to damage output, just like how bullet lines with elements that are effective against any foes will get a 40% boost in power, which will most likely be Metal or Sun. Speaking of which, she has quite a decent amount of both elements and is fairly consistent between the two as well, but even can both inflict and break Poison anomalies on her enemies, so when it comes to breaking, T5 Byakuren will definitely be very valuable in this field.
Her Skills are rather interesting to be honest. Skill 1 buffs the team’s Accuracy, Agility and Evasion and can be used every turn, and while the Agility and Accuracy buffs only last a turn, the Evasion buffs are 2 turns. With the help of this very Skill, Agility and Evasion buffs for the team can easily be maxed out, and while Accuracy buffs can’t be extended, 3 stages of it is still usually enough for the average scenario. Skill 3 is also rather interesting, but for different reasons. Her only way to grant the team Yang ATK and CRIT ATK is here, but it’s very helpful. That said, that makes it stand out is the enormous 2.25 Spirit Power gain here! It’s the perfect skill to jumpstart T5 Byakuren’s engines, and this ties well with her rather reliable Spirit Power gaining methods, whether it be her Passive 1 with 0.15 Spirit Power every turn, or her Spell Card 2 Post-ATK with as low as 0.50 or as high as 1.75 depending on Boost Scaling.
We’ve been singing our praises to the desert’s daredevil drifter of dharma, but of course, there are a few things to worry about if you want to bring out the absolute best of this Buddhist. Firstly, her Killers. These are not the worst in the world, but there will be some enemies that T5 Byakuren can’t get those sweet CRITs on. With Human, God, Fairy, Racer, Devil, Undead, Demonic Person, Hermit and Celestial, it’s definitely possible to capitalize on a good chunk of enemies, and with all the CRIT ATK buffs and CRIT DEF debuffs in T5 Byakuren’s arsenal, you will have a sweet time with that, so make sure the enemies have tags susceptible to the Killers above to bring out the best in her power. Next up, as great as Skill 3 is, a 7 turn cooldown is a rather long time to wait, and while you could justify it with the exceptionally large Spirit Power gain, you might only be able to use it one time compared to the other Skills. And finally, those Evasion buffs…ironically, we can’t evade how comical they are. As mentioned earlier, we can easily see those maxed out, but her Last Word having 5/6 bullet lines with a 75% chance to increase T5 Byakuren’s Evasion by 2 stages is hilarious. While the Evasion buffs may still find a use in clear content, that’s about it really, so if you want to use her for farming, Evasion won’t be as effective as other buffs in the game.
But with that said, the above caveats aren’t quite as severe since you can find ways to work around them easier compared to other recent Ultra Festival Friends with flaws of their own, and arguably even worse Killers. But anyways, this Prayer doesn’t just have a T5 Byakuren Hijiri, as it is joined by the already existing Story Card, Our Dream! Yes, that card with Sanae Kochiya and Hisoutensoku with a boost in Metal (25%) and Spirit Power (1.75) is back, and while there are some strong cards already in play with similar Spirit Power boosting effect, like The Witch of Scarlet Dreams, it’s still not a bad choice at all, but if you have other strong cards of that caliber, it will come whenever luck decides it. Needless to say, T5 Byakuren will be stealing the show in this Prayer, and for great reason!
Featured Story Card for "Our Dream"!
So how does she compare to the rest of the competition? She can definitely stand strong as established earlier, and even with her flaws, it’s safe to say she can outperform other Ultra Festival Speedsters like B5 Merlin, H5 Wriggle, B3 Kaguya and more than hold her own against B3 Komachi and S5 Rin! Unfortunately, T5 Byakuren is very outclassed by L80 Marisa who was in the same Shared Exchange Points season, and may also lose to B3 Seiran too. In regards to Sun and Metal breaking, you may have other characters like E1 Sakuya, F1 Reimu, L1 Parsee, A6 Yuuka and A6 Sunny Milk who are fantastic at that, but on the Metal side, characters like L80 Youmu, A7A Sakuya, E1 Koakuma, A7 Ran, L1 Momoyo, B5 Merlin and many more can get the job done with Metal.
Maybe your current Exchange Point count is in your hundreds? Maybe you spent a lot of Seal Crystals on L80 Marisa and/or B5 Lyrica’s Prayers already and don’t have far to go to reach the 250 checkpoint? Well if you’re that close, there is really no harm in securing her via that method, or you could wait until the next new Friend is announced and make your mind up from there in case you may worry about regretting it, or maybe she’s first place in your heart and you just want her to drive home to you. Whatever happens though, do not count Youkai Jesus, Shiun and Vimana out of the race, because their collective superhuman stamina will see them all through to the end! (Early August for the Prayer in question)
So for those who do wish to Pray for the superhuman, doggo and motorcycle to all come to you in one piece, best of luck and may your Prayers come true! But could you be fortunate enough to ride the mesmerizing Vimana? Who knows…
Quick Overview
T5 Byakuren Hijiri is a Speed-Class Friend who rides in with immense Agility and Evasion, great Spirit Power gain, Metal and Sun breaks and a little bit of Poison anomaly breaking.
(Emotional) Skyscraper of Speed and Strength
With the mix of base Yang ATK and Agility (1825 and 1525 respectively) as well as being able to max out her Agility on top of the great Slice Scaling to work with, the mach monk is more than capable of dealing high damage against her foes, especially ones weak to Metal and/or Sun due to her Ability to deal 40% more damage with her effective bullets. She even has Yang ATK and CRIT ATK buffs from Skill 3 to help jumpstart her damage too!
Biker Breaks the Mold
More on T5 Byakuren’s Metal and Sun breaks, especially shown in her Spell Cards and Last Word, there is a rather consistent mix of the two to fall back on to achieve full-break status on foes as those (aside from a little Wood on Spread Shot) are her go-to elements here. On top of that, she has some helpful Poison anomalies to inflict on foes which can also be broken via Spell Card 1 and Last Word, breaking 5-6 of them in 1 go. Paralyze breaking is also snuck in too if there are allies with Paralyze inflictions on enemies.
Superhuman Spirit
When it comes to Spirit Power, T5 Byakuren is certainly not going to struggle with increasing it much, whether it be that a lot of her attacks don’t need to be fully boosted to show their greatness, or by just the sheer amount she can rack up, such as Skill 3’s gigantic 2.25 Spirit Power boost for herself, which is more than enough for a fully boosted attack, and really going above and beyond in that regard (do keep in mind the 7 turn cooldown on that Skill though). She also gains 0.15 Spirit Power via Passive 1 every turn which is always welcome, and lastly, her Spell Card 2 Post-ATK scales with boosts when it comes to Spirit Power. Depending on Boosting, will either grant her 0.50, 0.75, 1.00 or 1.75. Safe to say that T5 Byakuren won’t struggle much with the Spirit Power side of things!
Excessive Evasion
Looking at T5 Byakuren’s kit may be amusing in the sense that the Evasion buffs are so easy to come by. From Skill 1 granting it to her team every turn when it has a 2 Turn duration, to 5 of her Last Word bullet lines having a 75% chance to increase her own Evasion by 2 stages each, it may be a bit excessive, and while this could be helpful in clear content, it’s hard to make use of it elsewhere compared to other valued buffs out there.
A Few Gaps in her Killer Range
While Killers like Human, God and Fairy on their own aren’t the worst ones in the world, there are some Killers out there like Youkai and Gensokyo that would hit even more enemies. That said, if she can hit her enemies with some of those Killers, the sky(scraper) could be the limit as Slice Scaling and an effective element boost help a ton, but so do Killers.
