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Should You Pull? Victor & Rillaboom

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TL;DR: Should You Pull?

What Does It Do?

The last protagonist to arrive in the game, Victor gets his banner after Gloria, his female counterpart, had 3 variations already. Following the recent trend of protagonists with their starters being limited, Victor got a Poké Fair with Rillaboom - but unlike Gloria & Inteleon, Victor managed to get ahold of his Gigantamax form. So, as the one to close the circle of Main Characters, how well does Victor hold himself actually? Let’s find out!

Rillaboom is a Grass-type Physical Striker Sync Pair, which is a good start considering the Grassy Terrain setter, Sygna Suit Lyra, boosts physical moves to the team. It features a 380 Attack, which is fine - for today’s standards, there's plenty of strikers that beat that, but it shouldn’t be something that holds Victor back either, although 268 Speed is mediocre and encourages a solid gauge support as a backup. Defensively, Rillaboom has 648 HP, 160 Defense, and 134 Special Defense - while it’s decent physically, Victor might struggle to take special hits over time without defensive support. His moves start with Drum Beating, Rillaboom’s signature move. At 4 gauges and 100% accuracy, Drum Beating actually breaks the usual formula a bit, and despite having 100% chance to drop the opponent’s Speed, it doesn’t actually have a reduced BP, retaining a decent 160 instead. High Horsepower is a Ground-type move with 95% accuracy and no secondary effects - it being 3 gauges holds its power back considerably, so it’s only really useful for on-type situations when looking at it by itself. Dire Hit + alongside the Trainer Move, Attack Rhythm!, which has the effect of giving the user +6 Attack, Free Move Next, and +1 Physical Move Up Next, makes Victor fully self sufficient in terms of offensive buffs, and as expected of a Striker Sync Move, Strategically Sound Grass Impact has no secondary effects. Victor’s Max Moves are Max Quake, which raises the team’s Special Defense by two stages, and G-Max Drum Solo, which has a Piercing Blows effect - this generally doesn’t amount to much because most passives are already ignored by Max Moves, making its most notable use as ignoring Vigilance, but more interesting than that, G-Max Drum Solo features a higher BP than normal, starting at 450 rather than the usual 400.

The passives start with Piercing Blows - yes, a rather weird choice considering the innate effect of G-Max Drum Solo being rendered redundant as Piercing Blows also work on Max Moves, but still, it improves Victor’s matchup against some Legendary Arenas, as his normal moves and Sync Move will also penetrate the opponent’s passives. Chase Down 3 is a upgraded version of Hunter’s Instinct, giving the user a 30% damage boost as long as the enemy’s Speed is debuffed, no matter how many stages. Finally, Victor’s main selling point is Targets Maxed, which is similar to Extend Range but for Max Moves, meaning that Victor’s Dynamax not only features a naturally higher Base Power, but also deals AoE damage without reduction.

As a Grass Striker, Victor has a lot of competition - SC Sonia and SS Erika are widely considered as very strong offensive Grass units, and even characters like Brendan and Selene are pretty capable on their own. Luckily, Targets Maxed means that Victor has a niche that can’t be reproduced by anyone else - his Sync Move may be inferior compared to the others, but not only a AoE G-Max Drum Solo can help compensate it, but it can actually can combine with the others, as being a different source of damage means you can still Sync Nuke with SS Lyra or Brendan while doing a Max burst with Victor. Piercing Blows with good self sufficiency rounds up the kit by giving it usefulness beyond the 3v3 battles and expanding it to 3v1 modes.

How To Use It?

Sync Grid Considerations

Victor is fine at ⅕, but gains interesting nodes at ⅗. Hunter’s Instinct is Victor’s best node, boosting his DPS, but Cakewalk and Mighty Rush⁵₅୵ 9 will enable him as a Sync Nuker. G-Max Drum Solo +100 BP is also a good node to boost his main selling point. ⅘ and ⁵⁄₅, despite being available to him, won’t give anything too big, but if you’re interested, High Horsepower: BOGO 9 can help alleviate gauge issues and MAX Slip Up 2 hastens his multipliers.

Game Modes

Champion Stadium: Master Mode

As Targets Maxed being pretty much tailor made for the mode should indicate, Master Mode is Victor’s home. A good single target DPS, fast self buffs, and burst options makes him capable of quickly dealing with most stages in the game easily.

Legendary Arena & Gauntlet

Full self-sufficiency and Piercing Blows makes Victor a very valuable Legendary Gauntlet unit, although a slow gauge means that a gauge support is strongly advised to be saved for him. Victor’s frailty might also be problematic against special syncs and his Speed down multipliers could be limited against some stages that can protect themselves from drops or constantly buff Speed. BOGO 9 could also be used situationally to have better gauge management at the cost of damage.

Extreme Battles

On-region, Victor should be a great offensive option as long as he’s able to get his multipliers - otherwise, his damage can be underwhelming, but Piercing Blows can be sometimes useful too due to the nature of those battles favoring specific kits. Off-region, Victor doesn’t have much to offer, as his utility is not enough to compensate for his lack of boosted damage.

Battle Villa 

Victor can have free moves with BOGO 9 and Dynamax every battle, but there’s better options to use as your Striker on Battle Villa.

Is It Worth Pulling?

A pretty standard Sync Pair, Victor is not anything game changing, but simply a solid unit. People pulling for him won’t feel bad either, but they won’t be getting anything that feels unique too, being recommended if you want to do the old, reliable method of simply beating down a stage until they’re KO’d.

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About the Author(s)

I'm from Brazil and like games and competitive stuff, studying engineering on college and helping other people in general.

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