Introduction
Welcome to another edition of Should You Summon, a secondary opinion piece to help you decide whether you should consider pulling for the latest adventurers or dragons in Dragalia Lost. The middle of the shortest month of the year has brought along another Gala remix banner, which typically features at least one new unit and one returning Gala unit on rate up. Like the previously exhibited Gala Remix banners from January and December, this banner brings along a brand-new healer to bring new supportive options for the element, and a returning Gala dragon to help boost your elemental team for solo or cooperative content. Let’s see how they stand against the well-rounded options within this respective meta.
Spirited Shopkeeper
As the long-standing shopkeeper who provides the Prince and his allies with a wealth items, both paid and unpaid, to boost your stocks, Nina takes to the field, wielding her unique magic to provide healing and other benefits that allow her teammates to be merciless in their attacks against the enemy. Nina enters the wind-element as the third 5-star staff adventurer and faces stiff competition from the existing 5-star staff healers Akasha and Formal Noelle. Both adventurers provided different benefits to the team that have made them respectable choices in wind-element endgame content. Whether it is the amps and overdamage of Akasha, or the poison resistance debuff and HP perks of Formal Noelle, Nina will have to carve a niche to stake her claim against these two.
Let’s start this overview and analysis then with a look at Nina’s key passive ability: Sharp Shopkeeping. This perk grants the user a shopkeeper gauge that has three charges and is filled at the start of quests. For Nina to fill this shopkeeper gauge if it is not filled, she must utilise her first skill Pop-up Shop. At an SP cost of 5,916, this skill will restore HP to all teammates with low recovery potency, but is increased to ten times its normal potency for teammates who are at or less than 30% of their maximum HP. This skill will then provide a regenerative healing effect for 40 seconds, which provides ticks of healing every 2.9 seconds. Finally, this skill will activate the following cumulative effects based on the number of charges of the shopkeeper gauge she has, which is as follows:
- 1 or more charges: Increases the base recovery potency of the skill
- 2 or more: Removes all afflictions from the entire team
- 3 or more: Grants the entire team a team strength amp (maximum level of 1)
This skill will not consume any charges of the shopkeeper gauge and will restore 13 out of a maximum of 100 points if emptied. Nina however has the unique ability to utilise this skill though even when the SP gauge for it is not filled, which is tied to her second passive ability Ceaseless Sales. This ability will grant a separate skill gauge to Pop-up Shop’s skill button and enables this skill to be used even when the skill gauge is not filled if Nina has one or more charges of the Shopkeeper gauge. Using Pop-up Shop this way though will consumer one charge of the shopkeeper gauge and considering that it takes approximately 2 to 3 uses of this skill to refill one charge, would only be recommended for use if you need a strong burst of healing output. Consuming one of these charges to use Pop-up Shop will also grant the entire team a team strength amp (maximum level of 1, 45 second cooldown).
Outside of her first skill, Nina’s second skill Everything Must Go! provides outstanding utility, in that not only will it restore HP to all teammates with a significant amount of recovery potency, but it will also revive teammates in quests where reviving is possible and fill the skill gauges of all teammates by 100%. Nina will also be immune to knockback during the animation, to ensure that she won’t be disrupted in providing the entire team these significant benefits. However, this skill comes with a considerable downside. Nina can only activate this skill when the shopkeeper gauge if filled, and utilising this skill will completely consume this gauge, meaning that you lose the net benefits of her first skill Pop-up Shop for a period. That period is significant, as it takes 8 uses of her first skill, which is a net 47,328 SP, to regain the bonus of grant team strength amps for her Pop-up Shop skill. To round off her kit, her final perk of the Sharp Shopkeeping passive ability grants Nina a unique force strike, that will deal damage to a target, and dispel a buff if there are one or more charges of the shopkeeper gauge.
Overall, Nina provides a healthy does of healing output that can easily match the very best that the wind element has to offer, while providing more offensive utility from her team strength amp output and, most importantly, the instant skill prep. The instant skill prep from her second skill comes at the massive cost of losing her key utility options for a significant portion of the fight while you regain charges of the shopkeeper gauge, so at best you’ll probably only use it once in a battle to capitalise on the broken state of a boss, when their defence modifiers are at their lowest. Outside of this though, if another teammate or an equipped dragon has the capabilities of unlocking a team strength amp level 3 for a fight, she’ll have no issues maintaining its uptime through her consistent use of her first skill.
Outside of these two strengths, the rest of her utility will largely depend on the fight that players are facing. Considering that recent boss fights have introduced forced afflictions or afflictions that adventurers are not resistant to, her ability to cleanse all afflictions from her allies should prove useful going into the future. Of course, her ability to have an on demand dispel should also prove useful in fights where the enemy applies a significant number of buffs on them, which occurs often. Her one and only glaring weakness is a lack of affliction utility applications that her competitors have available, however she can account for this weakness with a good selection of skill shares. While not a mandatory pick, I would recommend summoning for Nina if you would like to have quite possibly the best offensive utility healer for the wind element, or you are currently lacking a solid wind healer option for endgame content.
Considering how potent Nina’s regenerative abilities are, the need to equip supportive skill shares is probably not as great as other healers would require. At the very least though, I would at least run a skill haste co-ability, found on bow adventurers, to improve her skill and support output. Outside of this choice, you could probably consider running dragon haste backline options to allow her to access her dragon form faster, which will ultimately be her only source of damage in a fight. This can be found as a co-ability for most sword adventurers, and a chain co-ability for the adventurers Yukata Lathna, who provides the strength co-ability, and Humanoid Midgardsormr, who also happens to have the skill haste co-ability at base. If you really need more substantial healing though, you cannot go wrong with the buff time co-ability found on the adventurer Tobias, who increases time of buffs, including regen effects, by an additional 20%. If you are missing these options, another choice to consider is the HP boost found on lance adventurers, as the more HP an adventurer has, the better the healing potency of recovery skills.
For wyrmprints, not considering portraits print, the following setup will maximum her skill haste and buff time effects, to allow her to have peak healing and support efficiency:
- Castle Cheer Corps (Force Charge III)
- Study Rabbits (+8% HP)
- A Dog’s Day (+10% Skill Haste (wind))
- From Whence He Comes (+20% Buff Time)
- Dragon’s Nest (+10% Team Shapeshift Prep)
- Promised Piety (Staff Boon) (Bow Psalm III)
- A King’s Pride (Staff Boon) (Impregnable Fortress III)
Considering her healing output is already quite good, you can easily run a dragon with more offensive prowess or utility. Considering how easily she comes with output team strength amps, the best option out of the gate would be Gala Beast Volk, who dragon skill unlocks team strength amp level 3 capabilities for the team, which will allow her to ramp her amping by herself. Outside of him, any other dragon that has a strong dragon form, such as Gala Reborn Zephyr or Fudo Myo-o, will serve her well in contributing at least some damage to the team. If you wish to go with a full support build, the recent fifth unbind of Freyja will serve you well, who provides at base a 40% skill haste and HP passive increase, and a 30% Surge of Strength buff for the first 3 minutes of a fight.
Guardian of the Plains
As the returning focus Gala dragon of the banner, the desire to summon Gala Reborn Zephyr is not as high as it once was at his initial release, thanks in no part due to the release of strong alternative dragons such as Gala Beast Volk and Fudo Myo-o. Gala Reborn Zephyr’s one significant advantage over these two at this point is his incredibly strong dragon form. Not only does it boast impressive modifiers when utilising his standard attacks, but he is ability to utilise his dragon skill twice thanks to it automatically being used at the end of a shapeshift regardless of whether its skill gauge is filled. This Howling Fury skill leads to some incredibly strong burst potential, as on its own it will deal a quick hit of 1,923% damage.
Outside of this benefit though, its hard to argue that his passive boons haven’t been outclassed by his competitors now. At base, he provides a 70% strength boost, and a further 30% elemental damage modifier as part of his Wrath of the Plains passive ability. This part of the perk will last for 45 seconds and will proc whenever the user fills their dragon gauge by 10% (5 second cooldown). When compared to Gala Beast Volk, who provides a base 100% strength increases and an additional 15% punisher effect against poisoned and stormlashed foes separately, or Fudo Myo-o, who provides the same benefits with an additional 10% attack rate buff simply for getting damaged twice, it’s hard to recommend him for most players nowadays. We’ve also got the potential of another wind Gala dragon being released at the end of the month to tie to the Legend Iblis fight, further complicating matters. Considering all of these factors together, I would only recommend summoning for him if you need to boost your solo element team, or if you have no better alternative to use to right now.
Conclusion
On summoning rates and wyrmsigils
- A gala remix banner has a boosted chance of summoning any 5-star adventurer or dragon either featured or in the permanent pool to 6%, up from 4%
- Nina has a focus summoning rate of 0.5%, while Gala Reborn Zephyr has a focus summoning rate of 0.8%.
- The previously released limited Valentine alts of Chelsea, Melody and Addis are also available to be summoned on this banner (non-focus rate). Oddly enough though, none of them can be sparked for.
- Nina and Gala Reborn Zephyr are the only sparkable units on this banner
Final Verdict: Skip unless you need the boost
There is no doubt that Nina is probably the best available healer for the wind element when it comes to offensive utility she can provide to the team. However, considering how well positioned her other 5-star compatriot healers are, Nina feels like a luxury to those who already have Akasha or Formal Noelle rather than a necessity. As such, I would only go for her if you’ve got a significant amount of wyrmite to spare. Gala Reborn Zephyr meanwhile is bested by other limited dragon options that exist for the element, as well as future wind element attuned Gala dragons. As such, only pull if you’ve got nothing else going for you.
