Once upon a time, raid free units were game changing. Nowadays, people barely even notice them outside of their trust masters and former fusion-hell. This is understandable, given that most reviews are in terms of resource management, which includes pulls, enhancement spendings, and the occasional rare "others". That, and raid free units typically kind of suck in comparison to their current equivalent-star bases. These units, however, do benefit newer players with a limited unit pool, and as such, will be written with that in mind.

As this is a new unit with a 7★, I'll go a little more in depth than I would normally do (which is happening alot more now). Without further ado...

Lovely Katey - Raiders of the Free Review

Limit Burst

It's Not the End (7★, 25 LB)

• Increase LB gauge fill rate (150% ~ 200%) for 3 turns to all allies
• Cure all status ailments to all allies
• Restore HP (60% ~ 100%) to all allies
• Recover MP (150) to all allies

At level 25, fill rate is 178%, and heal is at 88%.

Trust Reward

Boundless Love (Materia)

• SPR 20%
• Increase equipment SPR (30%) when single wielding any weapon
• Increase potency of healing items (100%)
• Unstackable Materia

Super Trust Reward

Golden Earrings (Accessory)

• HP 20%, SPR 20%
• Increase SPR (120%) when HP drops below 50%
• Increase equipment SPR (30%) when single wielding any weapon

Notable Skills

Positive Energy

• Use own LB gauge to fill ally's gauge

Spread the Love

• Use an item on all allies at reduced efficiency
  • Restricted to Potion, Hi-Potion, Ether, and Turbo Ether only

Note: like other Salve-style abilities, the heal amounted is divided evenly amongst all party members. For example, if an item would heal 400 HP to a single unit, then it would instead heal 66 HP to each unit in a 6-man party.

Edit: It appears that only HP heals are split. MP-based heals are restoring for the full amount.

Lovey Dovey

• Cast 2 times: Devotion abilities

Dual White Magic

• Cast 2 times: White magic

Devotion - Mystical Soul

• Increase MAG/SPR (100%) for 3 turns to all allies
• Recover MP (30) to all allies
• W-castable

Devotion - Fierce Guard

• Increase ATK/MAG (100%) for 3 turns to all allies
• Recover MP (30) to all allies
• W-castable

Not meta-numbers as far as on-demand buffs go, but pretty usable for newers players.

Devotion - Soft Kiss

• Cure stop and charm to one ally
• W-castable

Devotion - Life is Precious (lvl 105)

• Auto-revive (50% HP) for 3 turns on all allies
• W-castable
• 10 turns CD, available on turn 1

While a T-1 source of AoE revive is really nice, it will only reraise the party back up to half health, which might be an issue if the enemy still has more attacks incoming after the reraise.

Devotion - Loving Embrace (lvl 105)

• Increase ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR (130%) for 4 turns to all allies
• Mitigate damage taken (30%) for 4 turns to caster
• Restore HP/MP (100%) to caster
• Auto-revive (20% HP) for 4 turns to caster
• Enable skill for 4 turns to caster: Power of Love
• W-castable
• 5 turns CD, available on turn 1

With the exception of the buffs, this is mostly a setup move for her damage route as it gives her access to her damage-only T-cast. That said, it can be used as a full MP-heal for newer players as LeKaty doesn't get her auto-refresh til level 120.

Devotion - Arbitration (lvl 105)

• Magic damage (13x) with SPR scaling to all enemies
• Multicastable
• "Almost" Chaos Wave Frames52-20-20-20-20

Non-elemental, so damage will suffer as LeKaty cannot take advantage of the imperils or faster elemental chain building. However, SPR scaling will allow her to be more magically tanky.

In addition, unlike the other CW family, Arbitration (and LeKaty's other CW moves) uses a 40 frame delay than the normal 50-frame ones, meaning there will be mismatches when chaining with multicasts. Seems odd, as no other GL units use this delay, so wait and see if it gets changed. 9/26: Latest updates has brought this in line with the rest of the CW family.

Devotion - Adoring protection (lvl 110)

• Increase resistance to ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR break (100%) for 2 turns to all allies
• W-castable

While sources of break resistance is nice, the main issue is that the low-duration will cause some strain in trying to maintain it, especially if you need LeKaty to heal consistently.

Esunga (Magic)

• Cure poison, blind, sleep, silence, paralyze and confuse to all allies

Deshellnaga (Magic)

• Cure SPR break to all allies

Depronaga (Magic)

• Cure DEF break to all allies

Defaithnaga (Magic)

• Cure MAG break to all allies

Curaja (Magic)

• Heal (2500 HP, 18x) to all allies

Dispelga (Magic)

• Remove all status effects from all enemies

Full-Life (Magic, lvl 105)

• Revive one KO'd ally (100% HP)

Most of the white magic kit, with white dual cast for some casting flexibility. Lacks Reraise though, which is a fairly common staple of healers nowadays.

Notable Others

• Immune to sleep, silence, confuse, petrify, and charm (latter unlocked at lvl 120)
• Entrust, and low LB cost
• Increased common item drop rate (100%) and rare item drop rate (50%)
• 10% innate MP-refresh (lvl 120)
• Guaranteed to ignore one fatal damage when HP above 20% (with 20% HP lock when it occurs)
• Chance to increase LB of all allies by 2 if hit with a physical/magical attack
• Increased potency of healing items ( 100%), and ST-to-AoE coverter for certain healing items
  • For comparison purposes, Ilias has a 100% item potency
• Can equip light shields, which has application for elemental restance

Notable Issues

• Bad stats for a 7★ unit (comparable to a really good 6★ unit)
• Lacks resistance to several status ailments, notable paralysis
• No non-CD healing ability, making LeKaty unable to both heal and use one of her abilities consistently
• No chaining family, due to frame-delay mismatch (see "Arbitration" above)

Interesting Tidbit

• LB Name: "It's Not the End". All three event now have an end date. Go figure.

Nude Expeditions

^{Subject to rounding errors
Success capped at 16%, anything above is solely for comparison purposes
No gear equipped or using a 0-statted variant for mastery
Parentasis denote with all masteries
7★★ denotes with S/TM ability activated, but without S/TMR equipment stats calculated}
Expedition Charts

Nude Comparisons

• All units will only have access to one of their own TMR, unless noted otherwise (mostly to equalize TM ability access). If the unit has easy access to their STMR, it can also be used for themselves.
• If any passive are conditional on equip, assume that the unit have a 0-statted variant of it equipped. For example, Marquis de Leon is wielding an I-can't-believe-it's-not-Not-a-knuckle ^{or a 0-calories Diet Knuckle, but with all the great taste}.
• Also assume spark chaining, whenever chaining math is done
  • Assume exactly 2 chainers, with the result calculation being damage dealt by a single chainer
  • Assume single-element for physical/hybrid, unless otherwise stated
• Base stat's only, no pots of any sort.
• If Limit Burst is used, calculation is done using a Lvl 1 version (unless noted otherwise).
• All units will get a minimum of 40% stat boost while in battle (via Leadership - Rain)
• All units will get a minimum of 35% imperil (Crazy Day)
• Using the below formula for calculations and comparisons, unless noted otherwise:
  • Reg Damage = (Stat²⁾ * Skill.Mod * Chain.Mod * Imperil * (Lvl.Correction)
  • Evo Damage = (Mag² SPR²⁾ / 2 * (1 EVO.MAG) * Skill.Mod * Chain.Mod * Imperil * (Lvl.Correction)
  • Healing = Base (SPR/2 MAG/10)*Skill.Mod

Lovely Katy Lovely Katy^7★★

^{note to self: change picture to LeKaty if it's up}

Note: This includes both LeKaty's TMR and STMR (1 each; STMR is survivability padding only)
Assume only one weapon equipped

HP: 5600
Mag pre-buff: 150
Mag post-buff: 210 / 300 / 345 (via Leadership/Mystical Soul/Loving Embrace, respectively)
Def pre-buff: 182
Def post-buff: 234 / 312 / 351 (via Leadership/Fierce Guard/Loving Embrace, respectively)
Spr pre-buff: 464
Spr post-buff: 533 / 636 / 688   [sTDH] (via Leadership/Mystical Soul/Loving Embrace, respectively)
Imperil: 0%

Curaja (Leadership)
  2500   (533/2   210/10)*18 = 7,675
  2500   (636/2   300/10)*18 = 8,764
  2500   (688/2   345/10)*18 = 9,313

Devotion - Arbitration (II-cast, Leadership)
  (533^2) * (13*2) * 3.07 * 1 * 2.2 = 49,887,164
Devotion - Arbitration (II-cast, Loving Embrace)
  (688^2) * (13*2) * 3.07 * 1 * 2.2 = 83,121,099
Devotion - Arbitration (III-cast, Loving Embrace)
  (688^2) * (13*3) * 3.38 * 1 * 2.2 = 137,271,653

Recommended Damage Rotation
   Loving Embrace   Arbitration x2
   Arbitration x3
   Arbitration x3
   Arbitration x3
   Arbitration x2
  Avg: 108.964 Mil (5-Turn Rotation)

For the comparison, I'll be mostly looking at two main seperate things: their healing/support capability, and their damage. Both type of comparisons will also include utility and survivability.

I've included a seperate build below for maximizing her damage. This ignore STMR, limited, premiums, and IW stats, but does include her own STMR. Also, with the exception of damage units, I won't include a build sample, as they are fairly flexible for support units.

Damage Build

HP : 7,480
MP : 560
MAG: 462
DEF: 383
SPR: 1,569

Devotion - Arbitration (II-cast)
  (1569^2) * (13*2) * 3.07 * 1 * 2.2 = 432,295,078
Devotion - Arbitration (III-cast, Loving Embrace)
  (1,569^2) * (13*3) * 3.38 * 1 * 2.2 = 713,920,537

Recommended Damage Rotation
   Loving Embrace   Arbitration x2
   Arbitration x3
   Arbitration x3
   Arbitration x3
   Arbitration x2
  Avg: 601.270 Mil (5-Turn Rotation)

*Ignoring buffs in damage math

Ashe Ashe

Unenhanced Ashe (no TMR)

HP: 3986.4
Mag pre-buff: 261
Mag post-buff: 326.25 (via Mediate)
Def pre-buff: 124
Def post-buff: 173.6 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 130
Spr post-buff: 188.5 (via Mediate)
Imperil: 0% (non-elemental)

Heaven's Fury (Damage, followed by heals)
  (326)^2 * 3.067 * 3.07 * 2 = 2,001,106
  1200   (188.5/2   326.25/10)*3.4 = 1,631

Rotation
    Mediate
    Heaven's Fury
    Heaven's Fury 
    Heaven's Fury
    Heaven's Fury
  Average Damage: 1.600 Mil (5-Turn rotation)
    <1% of IF.Katy's short rotation

Enhanced Ashe

HP: 4711.2
Mag pre-buff: 348
Mag post-buff: 442.25 (via Leadership)
Def pre-buff: 127
Def post-buff: 176.6 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 130
Spr post-buff: 214.5 (via Leadership)
Imperil: 0% (non-elemental)

Heaven's Fury 2
  (422)^2 * 4 * 3.07 * 2 = 4,373,743
  2400   (214.5/2   442.25/10)*3.4 = 2,915

Rotation
    Heaven's Fury
  Average Damage: 4.373 Mil (1-Turn rotation)
    4.0% of IF.Katy's short rotation

• Ashe can AoE heal while chaining (for capping purposes)
• Ashe can AoE heal all status ailments on demand
• LeKaty deals significantly more damage
• LeKaty heals more
• LeKaty is tankier
• LeKaty has a better support kit

Short answer, Katy wins. With her BiS for Mag damage, she still does less damage ^{61 mil} than LeKaty. Similarly, due to her poor skill modifier on her heals, Ashe's SPR build doesn't heal nearly anywhere close to Katy.

Fina Curaga Healers

HP: All of it
Mag: 2,000
Spr: 2,000

Curaga
  800   (2000/2   2000/10)*3.4 = 4,880

I decided to lump all the basic curaga healers into one quick comparison. It'll definitely miss some of the more niche portions of their kits, but it's to get this point across: Curaja >>> Curaga.

Ayaka enh. Ayaka^7★★

HP: 7,150
Mag pre-buff: 171
Mag post-buff: 239 (via Leadership)
Def pre-buff: 202
Def post-buff: 270 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 483
Spr post-buff: 567 (via Leadship)

Curaja
  2500   (567/2   239/10)*18 = 8,033

Damage: Non-existent

• Ayaka has AoE raise
• Ayaka can restore more MP
• e.Ayaka can provide AoE stop immunity, and can party cure it
• Ayaka is immune to all debilitating status ailments and stop
• e.Ayaka is generally tankier
• LeKaty can deal damage
• LeKaty can on-demand cure breaks
• LeKaty can buff stats
• LeKaty is immune from charm
• LeKaty can provide AoE break resistance
• LeKaty can provide LB party support

Both healers have issues where many of their support capabilities are abilities, but with no non-CD healing ability, so will run into potential restrictions when you need to refresh/apply a buff while still healing. However, beyond from a straight healing perspective, Ayaka is generally better due to having an LB that fully heals both HP and MP, while LeKaty can only heal 300 MP in about the same amount of LB cryst pickups. However, if you can allow both healers some flexibility to cast their non-magic abilities (probably due to double-healer team), then LeKaty starts inching ahead due to offering more than just plain healing most of the time.

CG Folka Folka^7★★

HP: 6576
Mag pre-buff: 154
Mag post-buff: 215 (via Leadership)
Def pre-buff: 272
Def post-buff: 336 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 752
Spr post-buff: 838 (via Leadership)

Curaja (and every other Curaja-strength ability)
  2500   (838/2   272/10)*18 = 10,531

Damage: Non-existent

• Folka can provide AoE full status ailement, stop/charm, and break resistance
• Folka can provide damage mitagation, not consistently
• Folka can restore MP faster
• Folka is immune to all status ailments
• Folka has innate water resistance, and can provide water resistance to party
• e.Folka can consistently provide barrier
• e.Folka is generally tankier
• LeKaty can deal damage
• LeKaty has AoE raise, reraise, and Dispelga
• LeKaty can buff stats
• LeKaty is immune to charm
• LeKaty can cure stop/breaks
• LeKaty can provide LB support
• LeKaty can ignore one instance of fatal damage

Generally, Folka would be preferred mainly due to being able to constantly heal via non-magic abilities, allowing her to use her other support abilities to greater extents. However, it should be noted that they diverge a decent amount in what support they offer, so LeKaty can be sided in instead (if both aren't run).

Light Warrior Lenna Warrior of Light Lenna^7★★

HP: 5542
Mag pre-buff: 174
Mag post-buff: 243 / 522 (via Leadership/Prayer of Devotion, respectively)
Def pre-buff: 219
Def post-buff: 287 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 596
Spr post-buff: 681 (via Leadership)

Curaja (Leadership)
  2500   (681/2   243/10)*(18 5 1) = 11,255

Damage: Non-existent

• WoLenna can do almost everything better
• WoLenna is resistance to stop
• WoLenna is generally tankier
• LeKaty can deal damage
• LeKaty can provide better stat buffs in general
• LeKaty is resistant to more debilitating status ailments and charm
• LeKaty can ignore one instance of fatal damage

Lenna wins. The exception might be if you need to survive a damaging pre-emptive that would normally be fatal to both units for some important reason, but I doubt that will happen ever (cough Youkai Lantern cough).

Summer Folka & Citra Summer Folka & Citra^7★★

HP: 6195
Def pre-buff: 130
Def post-buff: 286 (via Devil Deluge)
Spr pre-buff: 569.4
Spr post-buff: 655/826.2 (via Leadership/Devil Deluge)
Evo Mag:  130%
Imperil: 70% (via LB)

Fun in the Sun (LB, ignoring chain)
  (826)^2 * 2.3 * 27 * 1 (no imperil) = 42,369,339
  (826)^2 * 2.3 * 27 * 1.7 = 72,027,877
Summon - Wave/Sunshine (W-Cast)
  (655)^2 * 2.3 * (3*3.223   18*4   21*4) * 1.7 * 2.2 = 611,396,979
  (826)^2 * 2.3 * (3*3.223   18*4   21*4) * 1 (no imperil) * 2.2 = 571,941,832
  (826)^2 * 2.3 * (3*3.223   18*4   21*4) * 1.7 * 2.2 = 972,301,114
Wave/Sunshine   Sparkling Wave
  (826)^2 * 2.3 * (3*3.223   18*4   43*4) * 1.7 * 2.2 = 1,488,767,672

Rotation (first 3 turns)
    Devil Deluge
    Summon - Sunshine
    Summon - Sunshine
  Average Damage: 381.294 mil
    349% of LeKaty's rotation
Rotation (long)
    Devil Deluge
    Fun in the Sun (LB)
    Summon - Wave/Sunshine   Sparkling Waves
    Summon - Wave/Sunshine x2
    Summon - Wave/Sunshine x2
    Summon - Wave/Sunshine x2 (weaker buff)
  Average Damage: 681.189 (6-turn rotation)
    625% of LeKaty's rotation

• Cilka deals significantly more damage
• Cilka is immune to all status ailments
• Cilka can ignore damage mitigation
• Cilka can grant undead/demon killer buffs to the party
• Cilka can grant break/status ailment immunity to the party
• Cilka can imbue light element to party's physical attacks
• Cilka can grant physical chaining move to the party
• Cilka has better stat buffs
• Cilka is tankier
• LeKaty can deal non-elemental damage
• LeKaty can use killers
• LeKaty is not dependent on the esper gauge
• LeKaty can on-demand cure breaks
• LeKaty is immune from charm
• LeKaty can provide LB party support
• LeKaty can ignore one instance of fatal damage

For the most part, SPR-damage is mostly the domain of one particular recent trial, so this will be the only real comparison for damage as many other are physical attack-types instead.

Even with large amounts of killer equipped (which restrict her available slots for other things), LeKaty deals less damage than Cilka. In addition, many of the positives on LeKaty's side are meaningless due to Cilka being able to prevent them from ocurring in the first place (barring dispel happenning). As a result, Cilka just overall wins.

If you consider gearing, Cilka's damage ^{short-2,599 mil;long-5,630 mil} increases the relative damage even further.

Conclusion - New Player Variant

LeKaty is a good healer and starter unit. With most meta white magic abilities, she's able to heal many issues that players will run into. That said, she's not limited to just healing. She can full- buff the party with decent modifiers, and provide break resistance on top of that. As for LB support, not only can she entrust other units, but her LB itself boost fillrate of the entire party member, in addition to healing both HP/MP while recovering from all status ailments.

If needed, she can be turned into a damage dealer. Due to SPR scaling of her abilities, she can achieve high damage while simultaneously having a large magic eHP. Should that fail to provide enough bulk, she a guaranteed chance to ignore fatal damage, and a self-reraise in addition to her party one.

Finally, with loot boosters, she also help player pick up drops from enemies, which could help greatly when farming for cryst drops.

All-in-all, a pretty decent unit.

Conclusion - Veteran Variant

LeKaty is a good healer and starter unit. She has the basics of a white healer kit. After that, things start to look grim.

First off, like all her free incarnations, her base stats are miserable. This is particularly noticable when she get hit with physical attacks. In addition, with the exception of her white magic spells, all the numbers on her abilities are below meta. Reraise up-to 50%, break resistance only lasting two turns, buff only going to 100%, HP barrier at 500 only... Not exactly numbers you want if you're even mildly current on the meta.

Next, as note earlier, almost all her support capabilities are non-magic abilities. With the exception of her one-CD heal, she has no way to cast those support abilities while healing the party. This is particularly noticable with her break resistance, as it only lasts two turns. You could get away with this with double-healer teams, which is possible as LeKaty can take place of a buffer, but it runs into other issues, notably not having a buffer with damage mitigation or elemental resistance.

For her damaging role, the issues are two part: (A) all her Chaos Wave moves are non-elemental, resulting in less damage due to not being able to use imperils or faster elemental-chaining, and (B) all of those moves have a chaining delay that doesn't match with any other CW family members. As a result, she is unable to chain with other major mages without the chain breaking.

The LB support is okay. The main issue is that LeKaty herself has no innate LB support to help get the ball rolling.

All-in-all, I won't say no to a Curaja healer, but she's going to be a bench warmer 99/100 of the times.

Future Reviews

In JP, there were a bunch of free 7* units, mostly attached to the Mog King event. As a result, there's a good chance I won't be reviewing 6*-max units going forward. If they are exceptional, like LMS was back in the day, I'll probably pick up the pen. This mostly excludes most non-7* pure damage-dealers from further reviews though.

^{Math Fix Status: Satisfied}

Edit #1: Added notes due to HP/MP difference with "Spread the Love"
Edit #2: Added "Spread the Love" restrictions
Edit #3: Gumi fixed her CW frames